Remembering martial law: Hope, then despair

Remembering martial law: Hope, then despair.

MANILA, Philippines-When Ferdinand Marcos was president, one thing that activist Judy Taguiwalo clearly remembered was how glaring the gap between rich and poor had become.

"I was a U. P student from nineteen sixty-five until I graduated in nineteen seventy," Taguiwalo said, recalling her campus days as a student from Negros Occidental.

She recalled learning in UP "inside and outside the classroom."

The U. P Student Council encouraged students to join a program to learn from people. "We would go to poor communities and talk to people about their lives," Taguiwalo told INQUIRER.net.

This brought Taguiwalo up close with poverty and the inequality which she would shortly discover was the root cause of people remaining poor despite working hard. What made the people poor, Taguiwalo would realize, was not idleness as wrongly reinforced by the fictional character "Juan Tamad."

Her life of commitment and service, however, did not sit well with authorities at the time. Martial law was declared on September twenty-third, nineteen seventy-two by Marcos to quell what he then said was growing threats from Communist Party of the Philippines and Moro National Liberation Front.

The Communist Party of the Philippines was waging a socialist revolution while Moro National Liberation Front was waging a separatist war.

During a crackdown on perceived government enemies months after martial law had been declared, Taguiwalo was arrested on July first, nineteen seventy-three. She was again arrested on January twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-four. In both cases, she had been charged with subversion and tortured by her captors.

Marcos dictatorship Marcos had been elected president in nineteen sixty-five and won reelection in nineteen sixty-nine which gave him eight years in power that was supposed to end in nineteen seventy-three, an election year, as mandated by the nineteen thirty-five Constitution. That constitution presented itself as the biggest obstacle to a third term for Marcos.

Tillman Durdin, a New York Times correspondent, said in his article "The Philippines: Martial Law, Marcos-Style" that Marcos proved that "once dictators consolidate power, they can usually be assured of long, often lifetime, tenure of office." From nineteen sixty-five to nineteen eighty-six-a total of twenty-one years-Marcos kept a tight grip on the presidency.

As stressed by David Wurfel, a political science expert, initially it looked like Marcos was content with staying on as president through a new Constitution, the one framed by a constitutional convention that Marcos maneuvered to happen but which Wurfel said was filled with delegates who were allies of Marcos.

The Official Gazette stated that "the facts are clear"-a week before the declaration of martial law, a number of people had already received information that Marcos had drawn up a plan to completely take over the government and gain absolute rule. Then Senator Benigno Aquino Junior exposed it in a September thirteenth, nineteen seventy-two privilege speech.

Aquino said he had received a top-secret military plan given by Marcos himself to place Metro Manila and outlying provinces in the control of the Philippine Constabulary as a prelude to martial law and that he was going to use a series of bombings in Metro Manila, including the nineteen seventy-one Plaza Miranda bombing, as justification.

Juan Ponce Enrile, then Marcos' justice minister, had recalled in his memoir that on a late afternoon in December nineteen sixty-nine, he was instructed to look at the powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief as stated in the provisions of the nineteen thirty-five Constitution.

Marcos made this instruction as he "foresaw an escalation of violence and disorder in the country and wanted to know the extent of his powers as commander-in-chief." The late dictator also stressed that "the study must be done discreetly and confidentially."

The Official Gazette stated that on September twenty-first, nineteen seventy-two, "democracy was still functioning in the Philippines" as Aquino was still able to deliver a privilege speech. Then a protest march at the Plaza Miranda was attended by a crowd of thirty thousand and received coverage from newspapers, radio, and television.

But in the evening of the next day, the pretext of martial law was provided with the alleged ambush on the convoy of Enrile, then the powerful defense minister, as he was on his way home to Dasmariñas Village in Makati. This ambush, as Enrile later revealed in nineteen eighty-six, was staged by Marcos to justify the declaration of martial law.

The anniversary of the declaration of martial law is traditionally commemorated every September twenty-first, but its actual declaration was on September twenty-third, nineteen seventy-two, as stated by the Official Gazette, saying Proclamation Number one thousand eighty-one, the legal document issued by Marcos to declare martial law, had been antedated.

Red-bait

When Marcos declared martial law, one of his main reasons was to stamp out rebellion by communists, especially New People's Army, the armed wing of Communist Party of the Philippines, which Marcos said had one thousand twenty-eight "armed regulars". In the crackdown on communist rebellion, Wurfel said thousands were imprisoned on suspicion of complicity or sympathy with the New People's Army.

The New York-based Amnesty International said the nine-year martial law "unleashed a wave of crimes under international law and grave human rights violations, including tens of thousands of people arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured, forcibly disappeared, and killed."

Based on Human Rights Violations Victims' Memorial Commission data, eleven thousand one hundred three individuals had fallen victims to human rights violations by the dictatorship.

This count, however, covered only those with approved claims for compensation from the Human Rights Reparation and Recognition Act of twenty thirteen.

Amnesty International said that from nineteen seventy-two to nineteen eighty-one, and in the remainder of the twenty-year regime of Marcos, seventy thousand people were imprisoned, three thousand two hundred fifty-seven were killed and thirty-four thousand were tortured, while the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance said eight hundred seventy-eight went missing.