(We yield this space to the statement of CARMMA or the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law due to its timeliness. – Ed.}
SEPTEMBER 21 was the anniversary of the day Proclamation 1081 declaring martial law was signed by Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Fifty years have passed, and another Marcos is in power. We hear the same cover-ups and shake our heads. Marcos Jr.’s version of martial law as the “golden age” selfishly refers to the Marcoses’ experience. That was their family’s experience which, as they claim, was glorious and prosperous.
For the Filipino people, the Marcos’ martial law regime was a period of unrelenting economic crisis and political unrest that had millions facing daily hunger and where thousands were arrested, tortured or killed. Stories of human rights violations that occurred during the period between 1972 to 1986 – the massive military operations, salvaging, abductions and disappearances, and torture of the common folk, the rounding up and arrest of journalists and opposition leaders, the shutting down of media establishments, and the forced closure of businesses and institutions critical against the Marcoses – were all meant to create a climate of fear and forced obedience.
Those who witnessed Marcos’ martial law shiver at the parallelisms between the news headlines then, and the headlines today. Rising prices of gas and basic commodities, food supply shortages and a rapidly declining Philippine peso, are in the news every night. And as if the country was brought back in time, today bigwigs rush through the streets of Manila with armed escorts, opposition leaders are being pushed out of the political arena and red-tagging of critics and dissenters is thriving once again.
The arrests of many more dissenters and activists add to the more than 800 political prisoners, while alternative media websites and books that report and depict social realities are terror-tagged. Mandatory military training is reimposed on the youth, while confidential funds are sought to further threaten academic freedom and democratic rights in schools.
Fifty years after military rule swept through the country, our fists remain clenched and raised, our voices cry out for justice, our hearts burst with grief and anger recalling the atrocities committed against the people under the guise of “keeping the peace”. Today, we remember how the Filipino people persisted and resisted against this climate of fear, and toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Even as Marcos Jr. keeps harping on the biggest lies that his dictator-father said then, the Filipino people are aware of the truth – the Marcos regime plundered the nation’s treasury, impoverished generations of Filipinos and killed and tortured thousands to remain in power.
We call for justice for every father who lost his son, for every mother whose daughter remains missing to this day, for every child who never had the chance to be hugged by his mother and father, for families left hungry and distraught.
We call for justice for the Filipino people.
