by MLC | Sep 29, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
By: Buena Bernal
Source: Rappler.com
The paintings by Picasso, Miro, and de Goya, among others, will be placed in the vaults of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
SEIZURE. High-end painting are to be seized by the state from the Marcoses. File photo by AFP
MANILA, Philippines – Eight high-end paintings in the possession of the heirs of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos were ordered temporarily seized on Monday, September 29.
The anti-graft court Sandiganbayan issued the writ of preliminary attachment to secure a payment in case the Marcoses are declared guilty of amassing illegal wealth in relation to assets still disputed in Sandiganbayan Civil Case No 0141. It was the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) that sought for the issuance of the writ.
The following paintings were ordered secured by the court:
- Madonna and Child by Michelangelo Bounarroti
- Femme Couchee VI (Reclining Woman VI) by Pablo Picasso
- Portrait of the Marqueza de Sta. Cruz by Francisco de Goya
- Still Life with Idol by Paul Gaugin
- LaBaignade Au Grand Temps by Pierre Bonnard
- Vase of Chrysanthemums by Bernard Buffet
- Jardin de Kew pres de la Serre 1892 by Camille Pisarro
- L’Aube by Joan Miro
The court listed 5 places where the art works may be found, including the known residences and office in Congress of Marcos’ wife, Ilocos Norte Representative Imelda Marcos.
The listed residential addresses of Imelda Marcos are as follows: Penthouse, One McKinley Place, Bonifacio Global City; 34-B Pacific Plaza Condominium, Ayala Avenue, Makati City; Batac, Ilocos Norte; and, Don Mariano Marcos Street corner P. Guevarra Street, San Juan City.
Officers from the court sheriff’s office were instructed to seize the paintings, which will be under judicial custody and placed in the vaults of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
The 85-year-old Imelda Marcos has been charged with various civil and criminal cases in court, but she has never been jailed in the Philippines. She and her husband were forced out of power in the 1986 EDSA Revolution.
The government has won in a number of PCGG’s claims against the Marcoses.
Assets of Swiss foundations amounting to over $658 million ($14.6 million*) were forfeited in 2003. A jewelry collection worth $153,089 were likewise returned to the state last January 13.
On August 18, after 5 years of appeal after another by the Marcoses, the government also ordered the seizure of the Arelma assets. The ill-gotten wealth hidden under a dummy foundation known as Arelma Incorporated was valued at P147.49-million (US$3.37 million*) in 1983. – Rappler.com
by MLC | Sep 24, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Inquirer.net
CANBERRA—Last Sunday, Filipinos heard for the first time in 40 years the late President Ferdinand Marcos’ TV speech declaring martial law in September 1972, the beginning of a brutal dictatorship that ruled the country for 14 years.
The replay of the original speech in full was the way President Aquino’s administration wanted the nation to remember the 42nd anniversary of the proclamation of martial law. A government spokesperson announced that replaying the entire speech would ensure that the Filipino people would “never forget” the atrocities during Marcos’ rule, “which was marked by widespread human rights abuses that saw hundreds of activists killed, jailed or abducted by the dictator’s forces.”
“The speech [is] a very nice resource for [the public] to understand and be aware of what happened in those times,” said the spokesperson. The replay reflected the official perspective that highlighted the human rights abuses of the dictatorship from the point of view of the victims, especially the President’s family.
The memories of martial law of the nonelite on the ground are far different from those of the middle class and members of the socioeconomic oligarchy (to which the Aquino family belongs), who were locked in a struggle for power with the Marcos regime.
What was happening on the ground when Marcos declared martial law? From this vantage, the view is that Marcos began dismantling Philippine democracy with a fraudulent proclamation. Marcos falsified the date of the document that wiped out by decree the constitutional democracy established with the inauguration of the Philippine Republic in 1946.
He signed the postdated martial law proclamation on Sept. 21, 1972, a Thursday, but announced it two days later. When he appeared on TV at 7:15 p.m. on Sept. 23, a Saturday, to announce the proclamation of martial law, the announcement was anticlimactic. The implementation of the proclamation had begun hours earlier—at midnight of Sept. 22, a Friday.
The first wave of arrests of 200 target personalities, including opposition figures and newspapermen critical of the Marcos regime, began on Friday evening.
The arrest orders were prepared weeks ahead of the announcement. Backed by the military, Marcos swiftly dismantled the entire infrastructure of civil government within hours of announcing on national television that he had signed Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law to save the Republic from the communist New People’s Army, the private armies of the provincial warlords of the Right, the activist students linked to the Left and to the middle-class clerico-fascists in the universities, and the oligarchic families who owned newspapers and radio-TV networks which had relentlessly attacked corruption in his administration.
The preparations for martial law, which began in utmost secrecy in January 1970, within the first few months of his second term, shocked and disarmed the nation so completely that it left no chance for the administration’s opponents to organize a resistance.
On Friday evening, military contingents had appeared at newspaper offices and TV-radio stations, to padlock them and to nail on their doors copies of Proclamation 1081. In his diaries, which came to light after his dictatorship was toppled by the People Power Revolution in 1986, Marcos gloated over the swift and bloodless dismantling of the 26-year-old Philippine democracy, Asia’s first in the post-World War II years.
According to Marcos’ diaries, in the first round of raids 52 persons out of 200 on the target list, including Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., the father of President Aquino, were arrested. The 52 were only the tip of the iceberg.
They were made up of high-profile, middle-class opponents who bore the brunt of the mailed fist of an unfolding dictatorship, which was inspired by the successful imposition of authoritarian rule in Singapore and South Korea. The list did not include the leftist armed insurgents who had gone underground months before the proclamation.
The declaration of martial law was not entirely unexpected in the media. The preparations for the imposition of martial law were the worst-kept state secret. Media offices were awash in reports or rumors of the inevitability of martial law; among newspapermen who covered the political and Malacañang beats, the question was no longer whether martial law would be declared, but when.
Before midnight of Sept. 22, after we had put the last edition of the Chronicle to bed, I received a phone call from a close friend, Johnny Araneta, at home in Blue Ridge, Quezon City.
He said Marcos’ defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile, had been ambushed near Wack Wack Golf and Country Club. “That’s it, that’s all over now,” I told myself. After the phone call, I immediately rang the graveyard shift at the Chronicle newsroom. No one answered. I switched on the radio and TV. They were all dead.
The next time radio-TV came back, it was Marcos announcing the demise of Philippine democracy. Proclamation 1081 opened the long era of a non-elected New Society that was toppled by the People Power Revolution in 1986.
When Marcos appeared on TV, strange things were taking place. His announcement was made against the background of martial music, reminiscent of the Horst Wessel Song of Hitler’s Nazi Party in the 1930s.
by MLC | Sep 24, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Rappler
MANILA, Philippines – Peace.
On the International Day of Peace, the Philippines also look back at the declaration of Martial law or Proclamation 1081.
Forty-three years ago, the Philippines was ruled by a dictator and various forms of human rights violations were rife. (READ: #NeverForget: Martial Law stories the youth need to hear)
Netizens discussed what that period meant to them and their families. Rappler and Move.PH held a Twitter conversation to see what people had to say about the past and about peace.
PEACE AND MARTIAL LAW. Rappler uses social media to see what netizens think of Martial Law, as well as what can be done to bring about peace.
by MLC | Sep 23, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
Source: Ifex.org
TO THEIR credit, some radio and TV stations as well as broadsheets have been commemorating the declaration of martial rule in 1972 by airing and presenting special reports every September.
A report by GMA News TV this year, for example, looked into how media organizations were shut down, and some publishers, editors, columnists, broadcasters and reporters arrested upon the September 23, 1972 effectivity of Presidential Proclamation 1081 which placed the entire Philippines under martial law.
A news feature on the martial law period over Star FM radio noted, among other anomalies, that the major supporters of martial rule included now Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile, who was the Marcos regime’s secretary of defense and chief implementor of martial law, and Fidel V. Ramos, who as Chief of the defunct Philippine Constabulary was in command of the detention centers of the regime all over the country, but who nevertheless became President of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998.
In print, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, in commemoration and remembrance of “one of the darkest chapters in Philippine history,” ran a series of articles on the experiences of the men and women who were arrested, detained and tortured during the martial law period, who included, among others, screen playwright Ricky Lee and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera.
Most of these reports carried the same message: the imperative for Filipinos to never again allow the imposition of authoritarian rule. But some articles, among them the recollections of a literary social climber more focused on regaling readers with his association with the biggest names in Philippine writing rather than on the fundamental question of why some of these writers supported the martial law regime while others opposed it, also made it to the pages of the broadsheets, together with interviews with college students who, by claiming that the Ferdinand Marcos regime did the country some good, displayed their appalling ignorance of the period.
The same trivialization and ignorance has been evident for years not only among the young but even among older Filipinos, judging from the evidence not only in their issuances in the old media but even in the new. In such social media sites as Facebook and Twitter, the same moral agnosticism and intellectual vacuity approach epidemic proportions every September, when the declaration of martial law in 1972 becomes the subject of posts by, among other groups and individuals, former political prisoners.
Ignored, forgotten or never quite learned, much less understood, is how the martial law period not only savaged the Bill of Rights, the economy, and those institutions of liberal democracy such as the press and representative democracy that, though flawed and limited, nevertheless allowed some measure of dissent and free expression, but also established a pattern of abuse and repression from which the country still has to recover, and decimated the ranks of an entire generation of the country’s best and brightest sons and daughters.
The country’s failure to put in place a means of presenting with some guarantee of accuracy what actually happened during the period through an authentic truth commission in the manner of such other countries that emerged from dictatorship and repression as Chile, Argentina and South Africa, has been blamed for the inability of many Filipinos to comprehend the dictatorship’s human cost and the extent to which it set back the country’s democratization and social, cultural and political development.
The blame can most directly be laid at the doors of those who, although experiencing it, failed to convey its meaning to their own sons and daughters. But as the institution charged with providing the information the citizenry needs to understand that and other periods critical to the state of the country, the media necessarily have a share of the blame as well. Missing among the specials, feature stories and other accounts commemorating the 42nd year since the declaration of martial law are analytical pieces on the causes and forces behind the declaration and the fourteen years of repression that followed.
The default implies acceptance of the conventional explanation for the country’s descent into dictatorship – that it was merely the consequence of the ambition and corruption of one man, his wife, and his cronies. It’s a view that suggests that without a Ferdinand Marcos the dictatorship would not have happened.
Ignored are the authoritarian roots of the political system itself, whose trappings of democracy concealed the fundamental reality that the handful of families that have been using their monopoly over political power to defend and enhance their economic interests for decades have a critical stake in keeping the system intact.
Maintaining the façade of democratic rule served their purposes so long as it was not challenged. But in the late 1960s, the social unrest consequent to the inequality that for so long has characterized Philippine society reached one of its critical points, developing into a wide-ranging, national, multi-sectoral campaign for change and the democratization of political power that made it difficult for these families to continue ruling in the old way.
The result was a political crisis to which the “solution” – at the time being tested and tried in several other countries in the same predicament – was open authoritarian rule, with Marcos, whose personal ambitions and class interests coincided with those of the ruling families and their foreign patrons, acting in their behalf.
Locating martial rule in the context of the country’s damaged and damaging political culture is indispensable to understanding why authoritarian rule happened – and what is even more crucial, why it can still happen. The media can and should continue to convey to their readers, viewers and listeners the necessity of never again allowing authoritarian rule.
But of even more importance is the need for everyone to monitor the political system that has remained essentially the same despite the 42 years that have passed since Proclamation 1081, and in the process educate the present and future generations in the need to democratize it. Among the social institutions vital to mass realization of that imperative is the media.
by MLC | Sep 22, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
Source: InterAksyon.com
MANILA, Philippines – Malacanang on Sunday reassured that martial law human rights victims will receive their compensation.
“Human rights compensation, in fact, we are now taking a look at all those people who suffered and were tortured…,” said Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda in a radio interview as the country commemorates the 42nd year of Martial Law today.
Lacierda said the government is undertaking such measure to somehow recognize the sufferings of the human rights victims.
“This is a humble way of recognizing the sufferings and the difficulties that poor fellow Filipinos suffered during the martial law years. Alam natin d natin makocompensate po,” he said.
The Palace earlier said that P10 billion worth of compensation fund was earmarked for the victims of atrocities committed during the martial law era under the Marcos regime.
Meanwhile, Lacierda underscored the importance of having the younger generation remember martial law.
“Let’s enjoy the freedom that we have right now… Ito ay wag natin kalimutan yung kahalagahan ng nangyari dito nung martial law, sinabi na rin ni Pangulong (Benigno) Aquino (III) yun,” he said.
by MLC | Sep 21, 2014 | Martial Law Stories
Source: InterAksyon.com
August 19, 20, and 21, 1983 were three days in August that changed my life, not to mention the one day that would determine the nation’s fate for the next two decades. I was a third year journalism student.
It was the University’s Diamond Jubilee. PEJA (President Edgardo J. Angara) was UP head. The days revolved around Journalism 101 classes with the late great Louie Beltran (with his much-anticipated and much-feared order, “To the board!” at the start of every class); sessions learning about Philippine history and society and hanging out at the UP Government Scholars’ Association (UPGSA) tambayan at the Palma Hall Annex (PHAn); hanging out at the UP Journalism Club tambayan at the then Institute (now College) of Mass Communication, Plaridel Hall; and, daily dorm life at the Narra Hall (with its own particular flora and fauna in the grand scheme of UP DIliman’s bio- and cultural diversity).
August 19 was a Friday, pretty much like another day, except that it was the birthday of one of my Journ Club orgmates. She would become my wife, partner, and mother of three beautiful children. We were gung-ho student activists at the time, members of the fledgling IMC chapter of the League of Filipino Students (LFS). As a gesture of friendship, and my intention to court her, I gave her a single red rose, which she promptly put in the back pocket of her jeans after thanking me.
That night, we had a fine time celebrating her 19th birthday, jamming with me on acoustic guitar an eclectic mix of Seals and Crofts, James Taylor, America, and the activist songs we were learning at the time (May Panahon / Awit ng Peti-Burges, Jess Santiago’s Halina, Asin’s Balita).
That happy mood would dissipate like the morning mist the day after, August 20, a Saturday, when I would receive news that my father had died of a heart attack.
That Saturday dawned like any other day. I left the dorm early for a meeting with my LFS comrades. Returning to the dorm around 4 p.m., I was getting ready for Collegian presswork that night. I was a Features section writer. Popo Lotilla (former Energy Secretary) was our editor.
What started as a laid-back time would now become a series of hazy, fast-forward-trying-to-make-sense-of-it-all moments: the return to the dorm, the emergency note that I had to call a certain number, my mother’s tearful voice, feeling numb while trying to do presswork at the Paragon Press, and finally going to the Funeraria Tres Amigos to view my father’s body.
After a few hours, the initial shock would dissipate. But the haziness and numbness would remain until I could properly grieve him ten years later.
‘Personal is political’
Personal joy and personal tragedy would merge with the national outrage and collective hope the day after, August 21, 1983. One image I recall during those times was joining the long queue at the Aquino residence in Times Street, before going that night to my own father’s wake.
The next few weeks would be a blur of activity — attending meetings, planning mass protest actions with my comrades, among them my future partner; joining rallies and student/faculty assemblies; and, going to my father’s wake at night.
Those three days in August would inevitably leave their mark on me, firming my life principles, my personal advocacies, and setting the direction my life and career would take.
With my partner and now good friend and co-parent, we would live an eco-friendly and simple life, giving birth to all our kids naturally by Lamaze method, two of them at home; eating lower on the food chain (alternating between macrobiotics and vegetarianism); and maintaining a backyard organic garden. Though not as purist and strict today, the philosophy and practice of leaving a small ecological footprint on the earth still permeates our lifestyles.
We also raised and nurtured our children on shared basic principles, many derived from our lives as activists then and now: simple living and hard work and smart work; love of music and culture; love of learning, reading, and ideas; healthy eating; awareness of their rights as children and as persons; and, facing each day as a challenge and opportunity to improve themselves and their world. Thus, when our relationship evolved (matured?) from husband and wife to good friends and co-parents, the life and parenting principles would remain our common bond and thread.
My eldest daughter — my warrior princess, the Valkyrie — is the embodiment of this activist and non-conventional style of parenting. She is currently a 2nd year student in Diliman taking up Broadcast Communication. Sunod sa yapak ng mga magulang, kumbaga.
Those three days in August also determined my life path. Though trained as a journalist, I never went into mainstream media. Instead, I would practice my craft in the NGO/social development world, focusing on research, publication and documentation work, as well as training and program management. My career path took me to the social action institutions of the Catholic Church (NASSA and LUSSA). I also became a trained acupuncturist, community health worker, clinician, and trainer as part of a health NGO. Later on, I worked with the United Nations in the reproductive health field.
Three days in August, three moments in time, three moments that marked me for a lifetime.This is my Martial Law story.
