by MLC | Sep 20, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: ABS-CBN
MANILA – A day before the nation is set to commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the imposition of martial law, the Palace on Sunday urged the public to uphold its loyalty to democracy.
In a radio interview, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. stressed that although many years have passed since the “darkest chapters in the country’s history,” the nation should remain vigilant in saying “never again” to dictatorship.
“Dahil nga 43 taon na, kung sa pagtataya ng panahon, lampas sa isang henerasyon — dahil ang henerasyon ay 25 years — at palapit na sa dalawang henerasyon ang naipanganak mula noon na wala silang kahit katiting na karanasan o pagsaksi sa naging karanasan natin,” Coloma said.
“Kaya dapat lamang na maunawaan nila ito at maging kaisa nila tayo doon sa pagsasabing ‘never again’ o hindi na dapat maulit ang malagim na karanasan ng bansang Pilipinas sa ilalim ng Martial Law.”
Malacañang also reminded the public to treasure the freedom of press that prevails in the country.
Coloma pointed out that the Philippines is among the few countries that do not restrict the role of its journalists.
“Ang kalayaan sa pamamahayag sa Pilipinas ay isang magandang halimbawa kung paano ito dapat igalang at ipatupad sa isang demokrasya. Siguro kung titingnan ang iba’t ibang bansa, iilan lang ang mga bansa na mayroon talagang ganap at hayag na kalayaan sa pamamahayag,” Coloma said.
The official added that President Benigno Aquino III earlier vowed that the media will remain free of any restraint on its functions, even after the Luneta hostage crisis in 2010.
Eight hostages were killed in the hostage-taking incident where a former police officer hijacked a tourist bus. Some blamed the media for possibly aggravating the tension by giving a view of the entire situation to the shooter who had been tuned to the live television broadcast of the stand-off.
Coloma stressed that Filipinos should take pride in the full exercise of the freedoms of the press, expression and assembly.
“Ito ay isa sa mga maaaring ikarangal at ipagmalaki ng ating bansa, ang pagkakaroon ng ganap at buong kalayaan sa pamamahayag o freedom the press, at kahalintulad na rin nito ang freedom of assembly at freedom [of] expression.”
President Ferdinand Marcos proclaimed Martial Law on September 21, 1972. The announcement was immediately followed the next morning with the arrests of outspoken administration critics Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino II, Senator Jose Diokno and around 400 more personalities.
Newspaper publications as well as radio and television networks were also shut down by the military.
In the years at the height of military rule in the country, thousands were said to have fallen victim to human rights abuses while the Marcoses allegedly amassed millions of dollars.
The Marcos regime was finally overthrown in the wave of protest movements that culminated in the EDSA People Power revolution in 1986 and restored democracy to the country.
Read ABS-CBNNews.com’s special report on the declaration of Martial Law here.
by MLC | Sep 20, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Rappler
MANILA, Philippines – Everyone should strive to help new generations of Filipinos understand why the martial law era should never happen again, Macalañang said on Sunday, September 20.
In an interview over state-run radio dZRB, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said that there are now almost two generations of Filipinos who have no recollection of what happened under the Marcos dictatorship.
“Kaya dapat lamang na maunawaan nila ito at maging kaisa nila tayo doon sa pagsasabing ‘never again’ o hindi na dapat maulit ang malagim na karanasan ng bansang Pilipinas sa ilalim ng martial law (It is best that they understand and we should help them understand why we say never again to what the Philippines experienced during martial law),” he said.
MARTIAL LAW. For almost 13 years since martial law was imposed, the Philippines suffered terribly from the brutal and corrupt Marcos dictatorship. Photo by Susan Quimpo
Coloma added that together with ensuring sustainable long-term growth, progress, and stability, lessons from the past should be conveyed to the youth.
“it is important to impart to the youth of our land the lessons learned from martial rule and the struggle to restore democracy, as our continuing legacy to all future generations of Filipinos,” Coloma said.
Country’s ‘darkest chapters’
On September 21, Monday, it will be 43 years since the late President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law through Proclamation No. 1081.
Coloma said the Palace joins the country in remembering and honoring the sacrifices of the victims of martial law “which is probably one of the darkest chapters” in history.
“With courage, they defied harassment, cruel punishment and fear as they asserted and fought for the recognition of basic human rights at a time when the dictatorship demolished the house of democracy in our land,” he said.
Coloma cited the struggle against martial law as foundation for rebuilding democracy in the Philippines “that served as a beacon of hope and inspiration.”
The reinstalled democracy paved way for free expression – including freedom of the press – which the Philippines should be proud of.
“Malinaw at klarong-klaro sa atin at sa kahit sinong observer na ang kalayaan sa pamamahayag sa Pilipinas ay isang magandang halimbawa kung paano ito dapat igalang at ipatupad sa isang demokrasya (It is very clear that freedom of the press in the Philippines is a good example of how we should respect and implement democracy),” he said.
by MLC | Sep 20, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Inquirer.net
Bongbong Marcos and I are close in age. Given that he is often in the news lately, I watched an old CBS News video showing him partying with the Marcos clan in the early 1980s. The video shows a handsome young man, with dabs of face paint and glitter, and sporting a conspicuous plastic bow tie blinking at regular beats. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was singing “We Are the World” into a microphone. The popular song written by Michael Jackson was recorded to raise funds for a starving Africa.
There are people dying
And it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all …
We are the world, we are the children …
On Aug. 26, on the ANC program “Headstart,” Marcos, now 57, claimed that “recent political history” looked favorably on his father’s legacy, and that he often heard a “constant refrain” that started with “Buti pa noong panahon ni Marcos” (It was better during Marcos’ time).
The son of Ferdinand Marcos claims to have a following among the youth today, who believe him when he says the Philippines would have been as prosperous as Singapore today had not the Edsa People Power Revolution interrupted his father’s rule.
In his ANC interview, Bongbong Marcos pointed to the thousands of kilometers of roads built during his father’s administration, the self-sufficiency in rice, the adequate power generation. When questioned about his father’s corruption and human rights record, he answered, “What am I to say sorry [for]?”
His generation
While Bongbong was partying and belting out a song into a microphone, what were other Filipinos of his generation doing? Was Bongbong’s memories of the Philippines then shared by others belonging to the same generation?
I am of that generation. And my peers and I recall those years differently.
Bongbong did not have to look to Africa for starving children. About the time he was singing into that microphone, there was a famine in Negros and the gaunt, pot-bellied children of sakada (wage farmers) were dying of hunger and poverty.
The song “Nagbabagang Lupa,” sung by a little-known protest singing group called Patatag, speaks of the desolate sakada.
Walang bulaklak sa burol ng dukha
Pawang natabunan ng biro at luha
Sa ilalim na lupa’y nilugmok ang bangkay
Diyan magmumula ang tamis ng halaman
Pagtubo ng dahon masakit makasugat
Maglilimos muli ang poong mayaman
Habang ika’y hawak ang kanyang larawan
Tatanggap ng abuloy alang sa kagutuman
Most of the members of Patatag were college students or young professionals in their early 20s, like me, and like Bongbong Marcos.
Patatag worked closely with a street theater group called Peryante, of which I was a member.
The two groups had been trained in Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, a theater form meant to be a mirror of society’s ills.
Peryante portrayed Philippine society in satire, the nation as vaudeville, “ang perya ng bayan, perya ng lipunan (the fair of the nation, the fair of society).”
After the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, street protests gained momentum. Both Patatag and Peryante were standard performers at rallies, as well as labor strikes, peasant marches, campus forums and youth festivals.
If it was any indication of the intensified number of public protests held then, Patatag and Peryante had at least 72 street performances from July to October 1984.
All said, there were at least two or three rallies a week, with 300 to 60,000 people in attendance. Our “stage” varied depending on what was available—the backs of flatbed trucks, traffic medians, the post office steps at Liwasang Bonifacio, school cafeterias and even church altars.
Clapping in unison or striking the bamboo percussion instrument patatag, we led thousands, mostly students and working class youth, in chanting:
Hindi tayo titigil hanggang ’di nagwawagi
Sa ating mithiing magkapantay-pantay
Walang magsasamantala, walang mang-aapi
’Yan ang sandigan ng ating pamumuhay
Remembered reality
Throughout the late 1970s and the mid-1980s, there were rice shortages, not once but often. There were long lines at government stores called Kadiwa Centers, of people waiting their turn to buy rice.
In fact there was so little rice available that the government was mixing ground corn with poor-grade rice to sell. And even the corn-rice mix had to be rationed; you couldn’t buy more than 5 kilos at a time.
Despite the TV and radio ads and jingles proclaiming that ground corn was good for you, frequent trips to the bathroom proved otherwise.
There were days when gas stations also “rationed” diesel and gasoline. And again, one could buy only a few liters at a time unless you were a government official.
There were frequent power outages and electricity, too, was rationed daily per district.
I remember that the outages were so frequent that I could set my watch to 2 p.m. when my elderly neighbors would drag their chairs and bring their fans outside their homes, saying, “Brownout na!”
The power shortages were so bad that Marcos, the father, commissioned Westinghouse to build a nuclear power plant in Morong, Bataan province, to supply power to surrounding cities and their industries.
But the plant’s design was outdated, plagued by some 4,000 defects and was sitting on a known earthquake fault line. Of the $2.3 billion borrowed funds used to build the plant, $80 million allegedly lined the pockets of Marcos and his crony Herminio Desini.
From June 18 to 20, 1985, I witnessed a solidarity unprecedented. Our theater group joined a people’s strike against the nuclear power plant that immobilized the entire province of Bataan.
Some 33,000 students, working-class youth, workers, farmers, professionals, priests, nuns and seminarians from Central and Southern Luzon, marched to Balanga town to protest the misappropriated funds used for the nuclear power plant, and to prevent its use.
Even local businessmen agreed to close shop to allow their workers to join the protest. Everything was at a standstill; no businesses were open, not even a sari-sari store.
We joined about 200 students and teachers from the University of the Philippines (UP), marching from one barrio to another, performing at each stop, encouraging residents to join the protest.
When night fell, we found ourselves walking in the dark, drenched by the incessant rain, and relying on the few who were wise enough to bring flashlights.
Then we heard the jeeps, and the heavy shuffling of feet. Before I knew what was going on, soldiers with guns came out of nowhere and blocked the road. If we were to be killed or arrested, only the rice fields around us would have witnessed it.
The most senior professors, mostly women, stepped up to negotiate. After about an hour, we were miraculously allowed to proceed, unharmed.
We learned the next day that others were not as lucky. Several protesters were hurt or arrested as they faced tanks at military barricades.
As the protest movement swelled in number, the threats to life and limb increased. Patatag and Peryante gained a reputation for foolhardy courage.
During dispersal of rallies, I would hear the zing of bullets that missed my cheek by centimeters. Although one may say that reckless bravado and imagined invincibility are the hallmarks of the young, for the most part, the activists then were well aware of the danger they faced.
A Patatag member, while breaking into a run during a violent dispersal, felt a bullet puncture his right lung, traveling internally and piercing his liver twice before exiting through his chest. It was a miracle that that UP math student survived.
Family of activists
It was a conscious choice for me to be part of the protest movement after five of my elder siblings were arrested, tortured and sexually molested in Marcos jails.
By the time I joined my first rally, my brother Ronald Jan had already mysteriously disappeared after the military raided our home and Jun, another activist brother, had been gunned down in Nueva Ecija province.
Foolhardy or not, the activist youth of the day, the tens of thousands of us, felt that if we stayed in the safe confines of our schools and homes, then we would have tolerated, and thus inadvertently supported and furthered the crimes of the dictatorship through our inaction.
And thus, we filled the streets, singing:
Bangon sulong, baya’y magwawagi
Sabay-sabay sigaw ng tagumpay
Lungsod, baryo, eskwela’t pabrika
Ihuhudyat, sigaw ng kalayaan ng bayang may apoy
Sa diwa at dibdib
Kapitbisig, hindi malulupig …
Sumulong ka bayan, tayo’y ngayo’y lalaban!
Ubod lakas ng tinig, isisigaw ang sulong!
That’s “Awit Tagumpay,” a Chilean protest song translated into Filipino by Lulu Torres.
It amazes me that Bongbong Marcos has a glaringly different recollection of the days under martial law. Perhaps it is because he spent his high school and college years studying in England, only coming home to party on his father’s yacht.
And when he came home to become vice governor, perhaps he spent those days in the cloistered province of Ilocos, where, yes, his father had built kilometers of beautifully paved roads in time for his sister’s wedding.
Perhaps as vice governor, then governor there, he failed to watch the evening news, which, even under strict government sanctions, would sneak in footage of the thousands of youth massing to protest against his father’s dictatorship.
Perhaps, like the students and youth who surround Bongbong today to say to him, “We are with you,” and repeat the “constant refrain” of accolades for his father, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
by MLC | Sep 15, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: PROJECT PEOPLE POWER
By: Susan F. Quimpo
Sr. Ludy’s photo album held a curious cache of pictures. Its first few pages showed the usual smiling faces, against a backdrop of the open sea and a fisherman’s banca (dinghy); smiling faces with a backdrop of a large truck with freshly cut logs; smiling faces at what looked like a youth club gathering. Then pictures with sober faces, and several more of a young man in a coffin with a red flag draped on it.
Over the last three years, I had intermittently visited Sr. Lourdes Calleja, or Sr. Ludy as she is fondly called, at the Sisters of Mount Carmel School and Convent in Quezon City. Today I visit her, specifically to bring Max de Mesa from the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) to hear her and her colleagues, Sr. Diane Maquinto and Rogelio Gutierrez tell their tale.
Sr. Ludy Calleja with human rights advocate Max de Mesa (PAHRA)
Their story begins on June 12, 1980 when Srs. Ludy, Diane and two other sisters from the same congregation arrived in remote Dinalungan, a small town and its cluster of seven barangays in Aurora province, northeast of Manila. Bishop Julio Labayen, OCD brought them there with specific instructions.
In the absence of a priest, the sisters were tasked with the area’s pastoral ministries. Upon the Bishop’s request and with government authorization, the Sisters presided at marriages and funerals, baptized children, conducted retreats, established religious education programs, formed choirs, intervened in marital disputes, and upon the behest of locals — blessed rice fields, fishing nets, and even weapons carriers!
But idyllic Dinalungan was not the rural paradise it once was.
In September 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines had declared martial law, a state of emergency that was to span 14 years. Even in the sleepy town of Dinalungan, Marcos’ military soon had a presence. As was the norm during the martial law era, where there was military presence, there came the New People’s Army (NPA), communist-led revolutionaries, as well.
The NPAs invited the locals to “teach-ins” in the mountains at night, urging the latter to join the revolution. For more than a decade, the residents of Dinalungan listened but did not join the ragtag army, choosing instead to continue with the rhythms of fishing, tilling the land and taking their cattle out to graze. They would leave their homes at dawn, and with enough food for a few days, ascend hills and mountains where they cleared land for their crops, and stayed a few nights until the work was done.
But by the mid-1970s, there were stories of military men beheading the NPA they accosted in the hinterlands. Army checkpoints proliferated and a 10 o’clock curfew prohibited civilians from leaving their homes at night.
The men in uniform said the farmers had to procure a daily permit, a slip of paper that allowed them to leave the confines of their barangay. Only at 7:00 am could they leave, bringing only enough food for a day, and only enough to feed oneself. Then at 4:00 pm they had to be back at the army checkpoint, showing their permits to re-enter their homes.
This practice of cordoning off residents into “hamlets” or safe zones was a military tactic American armies had perfected during the early 1900s during the Philippine-American war. In effect, the practice prevented the locals from interacting with guerrilla groups, cutting off supply lines and strategic information on enemy movements. “Hamletting” was likewise used in “counter-insurgency” efforts in the Philippines and in other Southeast Asian countries considered to be under the “threat” of Communism up until the 1990s.
“The people complained. Before martial law, they could work their fields during the cool hours of dawn and the late afternoon. Then suddenly, they were allowed to farm only during the hours of 7am to 4pm. For many, they had to walk nine kilometers to reach their fields — how could they accomplish anything during such a limited amount of time? If you brought food more than one person can consume, the soldiers would say you were feeding the NPA.” Sr. Ludy recalled. “And if you lose your permit, you are immediately suspected of being an NPA.”
Aware of the fact that heightened militarization was affecting the simple life in rural areas, Bishop Labayen, a staunch human rights advocate, reiterated to the sisters: “As followers of Christ, we must opt for the poor in terms of human dignity and human rights whom Christ opted and died for.”
The central convent of the Sisters of Mount Carmel sent reinforcements to fulfill Bishop Labayen’s call. Srs. Monica Teves, Helen Ojario, Pablita Claro, Agnes Vagay, and Carlita Panaligan joined Srs. Ludy and Diana at their convent and formation house in Dinalungan. Their vast parish included the surrounding towns and barrios of Abuleg, Tahip, Simbahan, Dibaraybay, Nipoo, Ditawini and Mapalad.
A social ministry was an integral part of the sisters work in Dinalungan. The sisters intervened to protect farmers during a protest rally against a landowner who attempted to take their land; they trained community leaders and health workers; they helped with the establishment of credit cooperatives and learned how to till the land and harvest the fields like the famers they served.
“I asked my brother in Manila to gather as many old rubber tires he could manage. These I brought back with me to Dinalungan. The farmers were so happy. The used the tires for their carabao carts to make it easier to bring the produce to market,” reminisced Sr. Ludy.
Sr. Lourdes “Ludy” Calleja
Sr. Diana, recalls: “We would go from one village to another, climbing and walking along mountain trails and rivers, and riding sometimes on logging trucks to reach other remote areas.”
“The farmers wanted to teach us how to plant crops. They would say, ‘ You should not be afraid to put your bare feet on the ground, because you will find no broken glass, nothing will cut you. We take care of the soil.’, ” says Sr. Ludy. “But the minute we return to Dinalungan, rumors ran rife that the sisters went up to the mountains to meet with the NPA.”
“We were branded as subversives,” added Sr. Diana.
“If you tried to find out how the rumors started, you will discover that these were started by the police and military themselves,” says Sr. Ludy. Under pressing situations, rumors fuel paranoia, and it was not long before the sisters themselves were in danger.
Recalls Sr. Diana, “There was a woman in town who told her military husband that the sisters were going from one house to the next. Immediately the military assumed we were organizing the village-folk, encouraging them to support the NPA. But we were just calling for a meeting with our youth pastoral leaders.
“I was informed I was being invited for questioning. Eventually, a military colonel and his men came to speak to me at our convent, asking me about the sisters’ activities with the locals. I grew nervous and I wanted to distract him. Knowing that he was not from Aurora province, I asked the colonel where he was originally from. He said his hometown was Manaoag, Pangasinan. At that opportune moment I said, ‘ Isn’t the Virgin of Manaoag miraculous?’.” Sr. Diana was referring to the patron saint of Manaoag.
To her relief, her statement distracted the colonel who then started to tell her stories of the miracles attributed to the saint. She served him merienda (snacks) as they continued to chat about his hometown. It wasn’t long before she ushered the now amicable colonel to the door. A few hours later, Joseph, the convent’s caretaker, found a pistol had been “planted” in his quarters. The sisters surmised that perhaps a raid on the convent was originally planned, and the pistol was to be used as “proof” that the nuns were linked to the communists. Surely it was Sr. Diana’s quick thinking that had saved the day.
More and more rumors circulated in the town and barangays of Dinalungan. If the local towns folk and villagers initially shunned the invitation to join the NPA, the increased military presence there became the very impetus to join the rebel army. The young men of Dinalungan began disappearing. If they had not joined the NPA, it was likely that they were in shallow graves after being extra-judicially executed by the military.
“The youth leaders of our parish, the children of the farmers, they all joined the NPA. Naubos sila (They were all gone). So many disappeared. We heard that the military had to dig mass graves behind the municipal hall to just get rid of the bodies,” said Sr. Ludy.
“I remember Roberto Rivares, he was our houseboy at our Formation house. We grew medical herbs and tended to the sick. Roberto joined our health workers program, interned with our municipal doctor and learned to sew sutures. So when the wounded came, it was Roberto who would help. I told the military, we help whoever comes to us in need; we do not ask if he is NPA or military; we just administer to the sick. Roberto was one of our scholars, he went to night school and would come home late. One evening on his way home, he was killed by the brothers of the incumbent mayor, one of whom was a soldier. A fact-finding team came and investigated the case. Their findings clearly identified Roberto’s murderers. But the brothers left town, no arrests were made, and the police and military maintained that Roberto was suspected to be an NPA.
“Grabe ang harrassment (Harrassment was severe). Because when the military would question people and ask when they started to be involved in community activities, everyone would answer, ‘When Sr. Ludy arrived’.”
In their eyes, the Sisters of Mt. Carmel were just fulfilling the pastoral and social ministry assigned to them. What they failed to realize was that their humble example was the very source of empowerment for the poor they served. Because there was no priest available in these remote areas, the sisters led the Liturgy of the Word.
The women in the community witnessed the nuns facilitate pastoral meetings discussing the scripture readings and connecting these with issues concerning the community such as the advocacy for ceasefires and peace talks. During such meetings, the women realized they too had a voice, and that their opinions mattered. The women said, ‘Pwede rin pala kaming mag-share (We are allowed to share our thoughts).’
“That was a big thing for me. I realized that when you become committed to the Church of the Poor, doon ka namumulat (you are awakened, you develop a new consciousness).” I watched Sr. Ludy articulate these words with much thought, as though the experiences at Dinalungan continued to provide her with fresh insights some 26 years hence. In the midst of the constant interaction between good and evil, her awakening commenced.
“…when we sisters first lived in Dinalungan, I had seen growth taking place in the people. The quiet farmer became articulate. The shy mother became a catechist or a community health worker. The youth could lead a bible service.
The farmers had organized their own credit co-operative which freed them from usurer and moved them toward better collaboration and cooperation. The women organized a community-based health program to teach and practice preventive medicine, reflexiology, first aid, herbal gardening, and herbal medicine preparation.”
By 1985, the NPA in the area were emboldened. Rogelio Gutierrez, who was then the head of the parish council, remembered that the NPA came in two truckloads, the type used for hauling gravel, plus one jeep. “Guerra na talaga nuon (It was really a war)!” After skirmishes with the military, the NPA withdrew, leaving the civilians to face recrimination.
In late January 1986, Rogelio noticed that four men, sitting on a carabao cart were in front of his home. By around 7:00 pm, he stood by his window to close them for the night. The men drew armalite rifles from the cart, and two started firing at him. A bullet grazed him, another went through his wife’s arm.
Rogelio tried to exit through his back door but the two other men were there, firing guns as well. He pushed his family into a foxhole, one he had readied inside his house. The following day, the family left Dinalungan, seeking shelter at the nearest diocese. “I don’t think it could have been the NPA because they had withdrawn from the area by then. It must have been the military or members of the paramilitary groups they hire,” says Rogelio.
Rogelio Gutierrez still works for the Sisters of Mt. Carmel School where he was given refuge in 1986.
In February 1986, a popular uprising, now known as People Power, forced Marcos and his family into immediate exile thus ending his dictatorship. A euphoric nation turned to its new president Corazon Aquino to deal with Marcos’ legacy of ingrained corruption and favored appointments in the bureaucracy, and a powerful, undisciplined military.
The first two years of the Aquino administration was challenged by at least 12 coups, proof that large factions in the military refused Aquino’s mandate.
Political turmoil in the capital quickly rippled down to remote towns like Dinalungan. Without clear orders and restraints from Manila, the local military and police called the shots. The number of paramilitary groups were on the rise
The paramilitary groups were goons for hire. They were given guns and the task to sow terror among civilians believed to be rebel supporters. They were called Civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF) but locally they were called Itiman (Black) or Pulahan (Red) describing the color of the headbands they wore during military operations. One group was called Tadtad (Chop-chop) because they would behead or disfigure their victims.
“The following evening, men entered another home in one of the nearby barangays. I remember the woman’s last name was Buencamino,” recalls Sr. Ludy. The men started shooting and the father was the first killed. The mother pushed her 5-year old son behind a cement house post, and so he was spared but still grazed by bullets. The mother begged for clemency but pinaulanan pa rin sila ng bala (but bullets still fell like rain). A female cousin was also in the house. Cradling her baby, she begged for mercy; but they shot her too. The next day the boy and the baby were found alive, the infant still locked in its mother’s cold, stiff arms. The boy said the men wore military uniforms, and he identified one of the men as a member of a paramilitary team.
“Every night you heard gunfire, and you knew it was someone’s home being strafed,” Sr. Ludy added. The sisters had developed deep ties with people of Dinalungan. “Kasama ka na sa kahirapan nila (you share their suffering); but with this oneness comes a deep sense of joy and accomplishment. Often I would tell the barrio-folk, but what can the sisters do, we are powerless against the military? And they would answer, “Your presence alone is enough Sister.”
Indeed, Sr. Ludy’s presence and her willingness to listen was enough for two mothers who walked three hours from Kasiguran, a neighboring town, to see her. Their daughters, both in their late teens and university student activists, were arrested and taken prisoner at the house of the military commanding officer at Kasiguran. “We assumed that the girls were raped since that was SOP (standard operational procedure) when women were arrested. The girls were made to cook and clean; one was contemplating suicide saying she could not endure the indignities anymore. The mothers just wanted to speak to someone sympathetic, but they knew I could only do so much.”
About the same time an arsonist tried to burn down the convent; but providentially, it rained and only the porch was ruined. Still, the sisters held their ground and continued their ministry.
At one point, the sisters were going from one house to the next, inviting their flock to their formation house where a visiting priest was preparing to say Mass. While on their way back, they heard gunfire coming from the area of their convent. From afar, the nuns saw armed men encircle their formation house and riddle it with bullets. In a nick of time, the altar boy jumped from an open window and made it to safety; the visiting priest hugged the floor, crouched behind the cement foundations of the bamboo wall. “The priest’s sutana (cassock) hanging by the window was in taters because of the bullet holes!”
“You can no longer stay here Sister,” said Obet, one of the church workers. “It is no longer safe to stay in Dinalungan. Even our homes are not safe for you.”
Sr. Ludy was in a dilemma. “Our instructions from the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) were to stay with the people and protect their human rights. I wanted to stay; but it became clear to me that the presence of the sisters themselves was also putting the people in harm’s way.”
Sr. Ludy was one of the last two sisters who left Dinalungan in 1988, soon after the strafing of their convent. She left with a heavy heart and with hardly anything but the clothes on her back. The sisters were cautioned not to take the land routes; checkpoints dotted all roads leading out of Dinalungan. Instead, they took a seven-hour boat ride to the provincial capital Baler, making their way to the same diocese Rogelio sought refuge in.
When they reached the diocese , a sister came rushing out to greet them, saying, “The police said you were missing! We were so worried.” Later, Sr. Ludy found out that soon after they left the convent, the men manning military and police checkpoints dotting the roads to and from Dinalungan were instructed to specifically look out for the sisters. The bodies of farmers belonging to the farmers’ cooperative the sisters had organized were found on the side of the road just outside Dinalungan, in a shallow grave just covered with leaves. Among the dead was Kisput, a robust teenager whom Sr. Ludy had mentored as one of the church youth leaders.
The mass grave was clearly a strong threat meant for the sisters. It seemed the rumors about the “missing” sisters were prematurely circulated by the military because had they been apprehended on the road, the sisters would have been abducted and killed. With haste, the sisters and Rogelio made their way to safety amongst the Carmelite community at the Sisters of Mount Carmel’s central convent and school in Quezon City.
Events after leaving Dinalungan are a blur. Sr. Ludy remembers she was interviewed by the foreign press, “I think it was the BBC.” Rogelio, who was able to bring his young family to Manila, claims that entire clans, including his, had to leave fearing further retaliation from the military and the paramilitary teams. Everyone associated with any of the projects of the Sr. Ludy and the Carmelite nuns were hunted down. Joseph, the convent caretaker, and Obet the church worker, were eventually killed even as they sought refuge in neighboring provinces. Rogelio was eventually hired by the sisters as a custodian for their central convent and school, a position he holds to this day.
Though safe within the walls of their convent in Fairview, Sr. Ludy was troubled: “I found it difficult to comprehend who God was. In the safety of our central house, I continued to be disturbed. What would happen to the people of Dinalungan? They could carry only a few belongings in their frantic attempt to evacuate. What future was there for them?”
Fearing further harassment, Sr. Ludy was sent by her superiors to their New Orleans chapter in Louisiana where she stayed for several years. Upon her return to the Philippines in the 1990s, she was assigned to Dumaguete and Manila.
Today, Sr. Ludy is 80 years old, Sr. Diane is 70, and Rogelio, 58. Since their hasty retreat from Dinalungan in 1986 and 1988, only Rogelio has been back to visit.
As the children of Mt. Carmel School rush off to waiting school buses, cars and parents, a few stop, backtrack and say, “Goodbye sister,” while they take Sr. Ludy’s right hand and press this on their foreheads in a gesture of reverence. “Bless you,” the nun answers; the kids smile and run off.
Sr. Ludy and Rogelio listen intently as human rights advocate Max de Mesa briefs them on the procedure for filing remuneration claims for martial law victims under Republic Act No. 10368. The implementation of this newly-minted law began last June, giving the victims of the Marcos regime or their heirs six months to file their claims for the death, disappearance, illegal arrest and detention, torture, rape and/or the confiscation of the right to livelihood and property. Due to media control and repression, government documentation of cases under the regime are virtually non-existent and a huge percentage of cases will be deliberated based on affidavits of support filed in favor of the victims.
This is where Sr. Ludy knows she can make a difference. With her reports to her religious superiors, detailed diary entries and photo album of Dinalungan from 1980-88, she knows she can vouch that the horrific stories of hamletting, arson, strafing and murder are true. Rogelio is certain he can request his friends and relatives who have returned to Dinalungan to round up the martial law victims of human rights violations.
Unfortunately, the process isn’t that simple. A paralegal team will need to go to Dinalungan to help claimants complete forms, and witnesses like Sr. Ludy to write affidavits of support for each case. Once notarized, each claimant will have to go to the Commission on Human Rights in Manila to personally file their claims. Even if the paralegals from human rights groups donate their services, it would still cost money to transport the team to Dinalungan and even more money to have the claimants come to far-off Manila.
“It’s sad that the human rights workers do not even have a budget to have the claim forms photocopied, more so to have funds to go to Dinalungan and provide transportation for the farmer and fisherfolk claimants.” says Max.
Nonetheless, Sr. Ludy is hopeful that she can help find and provide closure for a time in her life and that of Dinalungan that is in need of healing.
“I would not exchange (the experience) for anything else in the world. I learned many important lessons from the lives of the people. They taught me simplicity and truth, patience, poverty, care for all creation, how to survive in the face of all odds, how to be happy and to be free,” says Sr. Ludy, summarizing her experiences in Dinalungan.
The deadline for filing remuneration claims is November 12, less than a month away. In the last couple of weeks, human rights groups have been frantically urging friends and supporters to sign a petition addressed to Senate President Franklin Drilon. The petition is for a six-month extension for the filing of claims for the Human Rights Victims (HRV) Compensation Act.
Time is running out. Sr. Ludy and the claimants of her beloved Dinalungan are in need of a miracle.
Written by:
Susan F. Quimpo is the co-editor/author of “Subversive Lives : A family memoir of the Marcos years” (Anvil Press, 2012). The book is about the story of the Quimpos, a family of activists, and their experiences under martial law.
by MLC | Sep 10, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Rappler
As they say, those who don’t heed the lessons of history are bound to repeat it. Or in much simpler terms: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
The new Marcos supporters, according to Bongbong Marcos, want to bring back the time of his father when everything was peaceful and in order. He says that even the older people tell him, “Buti pa noong panahon ni Marcos, maginhawa ang buhay…(It’s better during the time of Marcos, life was good…)”
He’s not lying about what they say. When I was young during the Marcos years, it wasn’t unusual to hear adults praise the Marcos administration for maintaining “peace” in the streets and the creation of a new and better republic.
“Mabuti pa nung panahon ni Marcos, tahimik,” said our household help when I was growing up. I knew better than to confirm this with my parents. They were wise enough not to speak about that administration, because during those years any talk about the government could mean one’s death.
A different story
Anyone who wasn’t in denial during that time knew there was a different story unfolding at night. A far cry from the flowery songs and proclamations of this “new republic,” young people were being rounded up, tortured, raped, and killed. Abductions and disappearances where commonplace and all one needed to do was to whimper something not so positive about the administration to land a place in jail.
It’s easy to be fooled by outward appearances. Look at modern-day North Korea – filled with citizens who outwardly show a godlike worship for their leader but really fear for their lives and being imprisoned for merely looking at images of their “good leader” the wrong way. It’s the same as Manila was then, its clean streets and seemingly bustling city in the seventies and eighties, boasting rapid development and international acclaim.
The ones who were brave enough to speak up were incarcerated and killed. If you didn’t know anybody who spoke against the Marcoses in those days, it’s because silence was the only defense against that cruel dictatorship.
The price of opposition
Archimedes Trajano was a young student who questioned Imee Marcos during a Kabataan Barangay meeting. He was abducted and killed at 21 years old. He was only one example of what it was like to oppose that administration even in the most minor of ways.
Amnesty International has estimated that during Martial Law, 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed. We are still feeling the effects of large-scale corruption and human rights violations to this day.
To the new Marcos youth who think the Marcoses are so cool, handsome, glamorous, and deserve their place in government, just ask around. Ask your parents. If you don’t get an answer, ask your friends’ parents. Unless they benefitted from the Marcos regime or were hiding under a rock, they know something horrible was happening after dark. Once you hear the stories, it will be something you will hope will never happen to our country again.
An imperfect democracy
I can say this now because we are not under martial law, and even if our democracy has faults, it isn’t a dictatorship that would get me arrested for saying the Marcoses are still the Philippines’ greatest and most shameless offenders.
But guess what will happen if they ever reach that kind of power again? If this intelligent, handsome man charms you into believing that his father did everything right?
Right now we are already the laughing stock for our collective amnesia, as evidenced by the comical cast of the recent Obama state dinner. We are fond of returning crooks to their posts and electing corrupt former presidents into mayoral positions. A minority religious sect has been able to strong arm our government by way of illegal demonstrations and political favors.
We are just the kind of country where ignorance may cause history to repeat itself, when the son of a cruel dictator has the audacity to say, “There is nothing to apologize for. Should we say sorry for the roads built?”
These are not bygones
Bongbong Marcos is like a holocaust denier. He has no choice because admitting that one’s family is vicious and merciless beyond human comprehension would make them question the ease of their own lives. It is more convenient to believe these collateral damages as necessary. “May nasagasaan (Some were stepped on),” said Bongbong, as if all those who were harmed were simply a means to an end.
These are not bygones to forgive and forget. First of all, to forgive, there must be an admission of offense. To forget, there cannot be a whitewashing of their offenses in contrast with the scars in victims’ accounts and those of their fractured families. We are still feeling the effects of the Marcoses’ corruption. His family members and cronies still hold positions in government and business. The Marcos wealth is still hidden and growing.
Fortunately, the wiser ones among us know not to listen to such fables and convenient truths. Those who survived moved on to tell their stories and became as productive as those who didn’t make it wanted to be.
Unfortunately, the impressionable ones among us might actually believe that the Marcos years were a wonderful time, if the flowery images are to be believed and the horrific stories are still absent from our children’s history books.
Find the truth
The difference is that now we have an interconnected world. Everything can be looked up, offenses can be easily unearthed. There are online accounts of murder, rape, torture, and barbecue sticks being shoved into penises as a means of interrogation.
Social media has brought me to your screen to tell you that even if I’m not that old to have been an activist during the Marcos years, I still remember a world of terror and fear. I know that my classmates’ brothers and fathers disappeared, and their mothers were raped for speaking up. That many of the people who fled to the US during those actually did so for their own lives. I’ve met them here. Their stories are not pretty. Many remain silent, just like survivors of war.
In times of doubt about whether an offense happened or not, do you ask the victim or the perpetrator? Do you ever expect a cruel person to say they are wrong?
A brief look into history will show the truth. Bongbong is right about that. And it is our study of it and our empathy with the pains of others that will keep us fighting against the possibility of that happening again.
The Marcos years were dark and evil – not bright and good as some were led to believe.
As they say, those who don’t heed the lessons of history are bound to repeat it. Or in much simpler terms:
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Let’s stop being fools, please. Let’s tell our young people the painful stories of the Marcos years before it’s too late.
by MLC | Jul 9, 2015 | Martial Law Stories
Source: ABS-CBN
IMELDA Marcos turned 86 on July 2, remaining highly visible and influential in the country’s political scene, but the men and women who fought and survived the Marcos dictatorship and who sued his heirs for indemnification are still walking wounded, waiting endlessly and in vain for justice–like they’re waiting for Godot.
A generation has passed since Imelda and her husband Ferdinand Marcos were dethroned, but for many if not most of the acknowledged 9,539 human rights victims, it never felt anywhere close to a reversal of fortune. Imelda, now a congresswoman of Ilocos Norte, her children, Ilocos Norte Governor Imee, and Sen. Ferdinand Jr. are back in power, as if they never left. Now in his third year at the Senate, Ferdinand Jr. has plans to run and take back Malacanang.
To date, the total claims of the martial law victims on the Marcos estate, according to American human rights lawyer Robert Swift, have ballooned to $4.3 billion based on the two favorable orders Judge Manuel Real of Hawaii issued in January 1995 and January 2011 as a result of penalties and interests earned from $1.964 billion and $353.6 million, respectively. In the January 2011 ruling alone, the court pegged the penalty at $100,000 per month.
“There are more than $4 billion unsatisfied on the 1995 judgment and more than $350 million unsatisfied on the 2011 judgment,” Swift told ABS-CBN News in an email last June 19.
By December 2014, the Presidential Commission on Good Government had remitted to the national treasury some P168 billion recovered from the Marcoses and cronies since the agency was created in February 1986. Part of the amount was the P70 billion in coco levy fund.
Time taking its toll on Marcos victims
The government claims it is the rightful party entitled to the Marcos estate, not the Marcos victims. It was ironic that the victims obtained the $2-billion judgment the hard way and with very little government help, if any–nine years of arduous and hard-fought litigation in Hawaii where they had to prove every element of the heinous abuses committed against them.
Around 100 of the victims have died, receiving not even an apology either from Imelda or from her children for all the alleged human rights violations and the family’s questionable wealth amassed in his 20-year rule. Most of those who are still alive are now in the twilight of their years, like the former first lady. Around 100 others have been suffering geriatric ailments, ranging from diabetes to hypertension, and still nursing the wounds inflicted by the years of living dangerously.
The victims and the Aquino administration are still in a tug-of-war for the Marcos estate, despite the favorable US rulings, with the government remaining the biggest stumbling block to enforce these.
Domingo: Get Marcos’s heirs to pay up
On June 29, Swift’s Philippine counterpart, lawyer Rod Domingo, asked a Makati court in a 20-page petition to enforce Real’s order by compelling the Marcos’s widow and children to indemnify the victims in their individual capacities.
“This time, the suit is not just about the Marcos’s estate, but about the Marcoses–those who are still alive. We asked the court to compel them to indemnify the victims,” Domingo told ABS-CBN News in a phone interview.
“The new lawsuit seeking the recognition of the US judgment,” added Swift, “will open up the possibility of the victims recovering the personal property of Congresswoman Marcos and Senator Marcos, not just the assets of the former president. They will seek the Marcoses’ real estate, bank accounts, securities, jewelry and artwork.”
But the Philippine government wants to indemnify the victims instead under Philippine laws in place of complying with the Hawaii court verdict.
Aquino’s last 12 months
But Aquino has less than 12 months left at the Palace, and the promised indemnification as provided for by the law creating the P10-billion indemnification package initiated by the slain senator’s lawyer, former Sen. Joker Arroyo, and another martial law victim, Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, in 2013, is at a snail’s pace, hardly expected to come in Aquino’s time.
The law was passed without the President certifying it urgent, contrary to his campaign promise. As against the original $2-billion judgment, Swift said the P10-billion compensation package is inadequate to give justice to the victims, except that the law made a public and symbolic acknowledgment of the atrocities during the despotic Marcos regime.
Swift said he met with every post-Marcos Philippine president, except Aquino III, in connection with the cases he was litigating for the martial law victims. But no one showed as much interest in justice for the victims. He said he wanted to see President Aquino, but he didn’t reply to his letter.
From Arroyo to Aquino
“There has been no change from the Arroyo administration to the Aquino administration in the (government’s) willingness to spend millions of dollars in trying to defeat the claims of the (victims),” he told one of the victims, noted New York-based journalist Ninotchka Rosca, in an interview.
“Like the Arroyo administration, the Aquino administration,” according to Swift, “showed no interest in seeking justice for the victims.”
And the next president might not be any better.
Who else have perished?
The 9,539 victims, or those whom they left behind, have relived their nightmare like being tortured all over again: first, in the Hawaii litigation beginning in 1986; and second, during a compulsory registration before a government commission if only to qualify as rightful beneficiaries of the P10-billion package last May, or two years after the law was signed.
Along with the late Filipino broadcaster-lawyer Jose Mari Velez, Swift filed the class suit in Hawaii on behalf of the victims in 1986 to recover the Marcos’s wealth.
Velez died in 1991. Other people who helped the victims–Romeo Capulong, Danilo Vizmanos, Romeo Luneta, Maita Gomez, Romeo Candazo, Chino Roces–have likewise died without seeing the dawn of their crusade. Capulong in 2012; Vizmanos in 2008; Luneta in 2012; Gomez in 2012; Candazo in 2013, and Roces in 1988.
But even while Swift and Domingo were making hay in their legal battle to recover part of the Marcos’s loot, time likewise has not been favorable to some of those left behind, giving truth to what the great Spanish-born American novelist George Santayana used to say: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Marcos’s victims delisted
The victims have twice received only partial compensation in measly amounts that were sourced from a discovered hidden asset once held by Marcos crony Jose Campos and from the sale of a Claude Monet’s “Le Bassin aux Nympheas” painting, part of Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ series, that Imelda’s loyal aide Vilma Bautista sold to a collector for $10 million in 2013 at a London Gallery. Monet was the founder of the French impressionist movement.
When he first distributed proceeds in the sale of a Campos property in 2011, Swift gave away $1,000 each to 7,526 victims only. The rest of the 9,539 victims, who failed to respond to Swift’s call to organize, were “delisted,” went home empty handed, feeling betrayed and forsaken.
(Campos, the first Marcos crony to turn over Marcos assets under his name to the government, died in 2006. He was 85. In life and in death, he was a low-key, low-profile “rag-to-riches” taipan.)
“The case had somewhat become a horrifying specter of aging human rights victims being twice-over victimized,” said one of the victims, a member of the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto, a non-government group that organized the original claimants in the Hawaii suit.
According to its own chronology of events, Selda said there were anomalies in the delisting process, among them: 6 of the 1986 original named plaintiffs did not find their names in the list; a senator who was an ex-detainee but never filled up the form during the 1986-1989 documentation period was given a check; in almost all distribution centers, hundreds of claimants who received notices in 1993-94 and/or in 1999 were not in the list, but many more who did not receive any notices in 1993-94/1999 were given checks due to personal interventions by powerful claimants.
In 2014, Swift again distributed $1,000, but only to 6,000 victims. The others again didn’t get any because they “failed to respond” to Swift’s call to register.
Imelda’s 200 paintings
Until the recovery of Monet’s “Le Bassin aux Nympheas,” Imelda’s 200-piece art collection was all unaccounted for. The art pieces allegedly “disappeared” or “stolen” from Imelda’s townhouse in New York at the height of four-day peaceful revolution in the Philippines in February 1986.
Some of these had been stored in a townhouse located at No 13-15 East 6th Street in Manhattan, which used to house the Philippine Consulate and Mission to the United Nations, but Imelda converted it for her personal use, decorating it with some of the paintings.
A few days before and after the fall of the Marcoses, Bautista was seen to have been loading the paintings into a huge van, said Swift, quoting sworn statements of witnesses. She was said to have subsequently disappeared into the night.
Nobody knew anything about where Bautista, a former diplomat who served as Imelda’s aide during the Marcos regime, had allegedly kept the paintings until she and her two nephews were arrested in November 2013 in New York for the 2010 sale of Monet’s “Le Bassin” at a London Gallery.
Imelda’s Van Gogh
In December 2013, Swift asked the Supreme Court of New York to locate the rest of the 200 paintings, including three by Pablo Picasso and one by Vincent Van Gogh.
Other paintings Bautista has been accused of secretly keeping are Monet’s ‘L’Eglise et La Seine a Vetheuil,’ Alfred Sisley’s ‘Langland Bay,’ and Albert Marquet’s ‘Le Cypres de Djenan Sidi Said.’
“Vetheuil” was offered for sale, first for $20 million, then for $55 million, according to the charge sheet Swift lodged against the former diplomat.
Bautista, now 75, has been actively fighting the criminal case against her, the American lawyer said.
Swift said he wanted to recover all the paintings—-and the proceeds, if it is found that any of these had been sold–for the Marcos regime’s victims who won a $2-billion suit against the estate of the late strongman, but were offered only P10 billion by the Aquino administration.
Too little, too late
As against the $2-billion judgment, he said the P10-billion compensation package is inadequate to give justice to the victims.
Not to be outdone, the PCGG put up a legal fight, asked the New York to forfeit the paintings in favor of the government, citing Philippine court rulings forfeiting the Marcos property in favor of the government.
Last June 12, Swift asked the court to dismiss the government’s claims based on the New York’s Statute of Limitations, saying the government is the victims’ own rival to get compensation. He said the New York court should confiscate the paintings–or what is left of the items–and award it to the victims, not to the Aquino administration on grounds that it failed to support its claims that the government owns these.
In the petition, he said the Philippines “is unable to assert facts to support its claim to the interpleaded property despite (a) the passage of four decades, (b) creation of a specialized government agency with 180 employees investigating Marcos assets and artwork for 29 years, (c) the assistance of foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations and police forces, (d) the issuance of subpoenas, and (e) lawsuits against Imelda and Bautista alleging misappropriation.
While the Philippine government refuses to honor the Hawaii verdict, Swift said he found it anomalous that the government would ask another US court to honor the Philippine court rulings on the Marcos’s property. He expected the court to rule on his petition within 60 days.
Last May, government officials gave commitment that they would try to indemnify all of the 9,539 victims out of the P10-billion package. As to when and how much, no one knows for sure.
But no one really knows for sure how many people suffered during the dictatorship. Leaders believed that there were more than 9,539, as many have chosen to fade into the night, unwilling to recall their ordeal.
Crime does not pay?
It is still a long way to getting justice, according to Selda, as human rights violations continue with impunity with almost no violator being arrested, tried and found guilty, “even after the Marcos years.”
The Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth allegedly came primarily from diverted foreign economic aid, US government military aid, including huge discretionary funds at Marcos disposal as a “reward” for sending some Filipino troops to Vietnam, and kickbacks from public works contracts over a 20-year rule.
Selda wished that the Marcos suits can finally be laid to rest and end up as landmark cases that cannot be “erased” one administration after another. “This way, this would be a legacy for future generations who could invoke the case if confronted with a similar situation as that of the human rights victims of Marcos’s martial law.”
“The judgments have not been satisfied,” said Swift, “and the victims are still owed billions. That’s why I continue to litigate over Marcos assets in the US.”
Without it, one would easily remember what the great Santayana was trying to say when he asserted: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.
