The scar that reminds me of my martial law torture

The scar that reminds me of my martial law torture

ED MUYOT

By Ed Muyot

Not until the beginning of the pandemic would I realize that a round scar above my forehead would reveal itself. With barber shops and other business establishments ordered closed by health authorities to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, I had no choice but to have my unruly growing hair shaved off for easy maintenance. Anyway, having no choice but to stay at home won’t be embarrassing on my part or shocking to my friends who were used to see me on my usual hairstyle even despite it’s already thinning condition. Noticing something on my shaved head in front of the mirror made me wonder how I got that healed mark just above my hairline. It was a riddle whose answer kept me occupied for days. I myself was curious and so are other family members. I even recollected my past juvenile misadventures.

It’s not an instant memory that happened a long time ago that can be recalled immediately especially when you are in your senior years. Moving on with your life, some painful moments are deliberately suppressed or conveniently kept inside the backdoor of your consciousness.

Still the puzzle had to be brought together from the murky recesses of your past to add to the healing.

Painfully remembering back, decades to be precise, a pre-dawn security sweep was conducted by the Marcos military in Manila in the middle of the Christmas Season. It was the second Christmas the Marcos martial law regime had been in power. Fanning out from their military lairs, several raider teams descended on their target objectives. It was reminiscent and as intensive when martial law was declared the year before, when political dissenters were apprehended en masse. The succeeding months of the first year of martial rule, the arrests were done singly and sporadically. With press freedom curtailed, reports about military operations were clamped down. The authoritarian rule was being consolidated and secured and the Marcos controlled press portrayed a business as usual life.

But then the military was continually expanded and equipped. More sorties can be done and I was apprehended on the next dragnet.

By the light of dawn, hundreds were apparently netted down around Manila and mostly were youth and students, I would find out weeks later during my incarceration. Years later my old neighbours recalled to me being awakened by barking dogs and the surrounding darkened streets cordoned off by soldiers. Later the operatives were banging on our apartment door and screaming my name on their portable loudspeakers instructing me to open the door and get out. They were shrieking that I’m “invited for questioning” by the Defense Minister. They made it clear that they have shoot-to-kill orders and are armed with automatic weapons to enforce that if I resisted. Awakened by the commotion, family members raced down from the upper bedrooms and had no choice but to open the door. Pointing their rifles they barked out orders to bring me forth quickly or they would ransack the house. After positively identifying me, the operatives grabbed my hands and immediately tied my thumb fingers with zip ties which really caught my attention for they were really a novelty! Normally I would expect metal handcuffs. Angrily they cursed me for giving them a hard time and accusing me of being a communist. After I was blindfolded, I could hear my mother negotiating with the officers to allow her to accompany me. Perhaps to ease her agitation she was allowed to come but on a separate vehicle. Shaking like a leaf, I was later thrown unceremoniously like a pig carcass on the floor of the car with the boots of the guards resting on my back. I was scared like hell my mother might end up as a collateral victim as summary executions were possibilities. I later learned days later that when they assured her where I was going to be confined, she decided to go home.

Falsely relieved, she didn’t know that she was sidetracked. They brought me to another place and no documentation was processed. Like I heard before , my fears were realized that it was indeed true that you are brought to a so-called “safehouse” and not a regular jail. When they removed my blindfold, I was in a dark room and heard some whispering voices somewhere. I resigned it’s the end of me.

In no time the tactical interrogation started immediately. Threats and even juicy offers were dangled if I cooperated. I had no illusion at all that I would be given a velvet glove treatment. I knew that the Marcos dictatorship was no saint. I heard rumours and many of them verified that captives disappeared or were liquidated. And I won’t cooperate no matter what and they’ll “salvage” you when they finish using you. There’s a price to pay to be true to your convictions. You have to endure the mandhandling and physical assaults.

So there I was facing the music as they say. That cliché of a single lamp in the movies and shadowy faces were indeed true. Endless swearing at you coupled with punches, blows and slaps. I don’t know how my gaunt body was able to endure it. I thought if I lost my consciousness they’d get tired of me. I had realized a dossier was built up on me giving substance to the suspicion that we were infiltrated by a deep penetration agent. Only two decades after the fact that I learned who he was, with the rank of a major when he was killed in a case that involved a love triangle that was covered by the press. Still, the tormentors kept coming back to me that it was really dreadful hearing their footsteps coming especially at night when they were louder. Escorted and brought to another dark room for another grilling was psychologically terrifying. One time I was brought to a panel of University of the Philippines Vanguards ROTC being trained for interrogation techniques and I was very much humiliated. Disrobed and placed in front of an air conditioner, while shivering I was subjected to indignities and a barrage of stupid questions similar to a fraternity hazing while they’re all laughing. Were they being trained to lose their humanity?

There was another incident that’s hard for me to forget and still reverberates on my mind. Summoned again and given the usual “pleasantries”. I became aware there was another “session” in another room. Apparently there was a new captive, a woman. That blood-curdling scream and cry would stay on my mind forever as she was being beaten and raped. I wonder who she was and whether she survived that horrendous ordeal.

After two weeks of isolation, I was finally mixed with the general prison population, at first with hardened criminals and later at the new Camp Crame’s Stockade IV exclusively for political prisoners, a dormitory-like set up but not necessarily free of abuses. With fellow political prisoners’ stories to share, some had experiences similar to mine and the others were worse.

And yes I live with the rest of my life with this reminder, a scar when I was pistol-whipped by an interrogator after a failed “Russian roulette” game. I wonder if it was real or a mock execution. Unfortunately though decades had passed, torture is still part of the fascist legacy that never went away and staying with the present de facto dictatorship.