NOTEBOOK: Remembering EDSA 1, Martial Law

NOTEBOOK: Remembering EDSA 1, Martial Law

On the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA uprising in Manila that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, I am reprinting my review of a video documentary about martial law in the Philippines, written in 1997.

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I recently watched the video BATAS MILITAR: A Documentary on Martial Law in the Philippines, and it brought back memories of that dark period of the Philippine history when the whole nation suffered under the unmitigated oppression by the Marcos authoritarian rule.

The two-hour long video was produced by Foundation for Worldwide People Power headed by Eugenia Apostol, the founding publisher of The Philippine Daily Inquirer. It was aired on TV by ABS-CBN on Sept. 21, 1997, the 25th anniversary of the declaration of martial law.

The extensive film footage and pictures of actual events that took place from 1972 when Marcos declared martial law, to the EDSA uprising of 1986 that toppled the dictatorship, bring back to life the monumental tyranny and deception, the unprecedented violence and unparalleled greed that no one ever imagined could possibly emanate from one man.

In fact no one on record has come out to say it would turn out that way – I mean the extent to which Marcos has ruled with an iron hand and the extent to which he would plunder the nation’s wealth. (Not even Nostradamus had predicted this unique historical phenomenon.)

Tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned without charges, thousands were tortured and summarily executed. More than a year ago, ten thousand victims of human rights violations won a class action suit in a U.S. court against the Marcos family. The court ruled that they be compensated by the Marcos estate with U.S. $2.25 billion.

The video documents how Marcos brought down the old oligarchs who were his enemies only to replace them with his cronies who later formed the new oligarchy. Marcos’s loot was estimated by the CIA at U.S.$10 billion. Recent revelations of the Marcos gold loot alone put it at a mind-boggling US$13 billion.

All this unimaginable greed for material wealth and the unconscionable lust for absolute power were satisfied at the expense of the people and the nation.

Having lived in a foreign land for more than a decade and having been detached from the country’s political and cultural life in many ways, I thought one could go on with life without as much as remembering martial law. After all this is 1997, and a post-Cory Aquino and hopefully a post-Ramos era in the Philippines. But no, Marcos martial law will always haunt us.

Whether one is this far from the country or generations removed decades later, martial law remains a permanent scar in our collective consciousness as a people. The video documentary, 25 years later from martial law’s imposition in 1972, is only one reminder. And it is a chilling grim reminder.

If only for that single accomplishment, the documentary has excellently served its purpose. But it is certainly more than that. It is solidly researched, done with more than 150 important personalities interviewed including President Ramos, Cory Aquino, some generals, Imelda Marcos and ther key players and opposition leaders.

Its serious theme notwithstanding, the documentary was interspersed with humor and entertainment like when Imelda Marcos, being interviewed for the video, was blaberring about the beautiful and the good. Marcos, on the eve of martial law, was casually denying his desire for a third term. (“Two terms is enough for any man.”) And the Marcos duo unabashedly rendering a Tagalog love song after martial law was imposed.

Particularly interesting was the focus on the personality and political savvy of Marcos’s arch enemy Ninoy Aquino. He was clearly presented as the leader and icon of the anti-Marcos opposition, the martyr whose assassination triggered the demise of the dictatorship.

Maybe the flaw of this attempt at documenting martial law is in its portrayal of the opposing political forces of the time. The video almost reduced the political struggle to that between Marcos representing the dark forces of evil and Ninoy Aquino, the knight in shining armor, the valiant hero whose execution emboldened a nation.

Aquino assassinated at the airport igniting the EDSA revolution of 1986. Reminiscent of Rizal shot by firing squad at the Luneta incensing the Filipino people to rise in arms in 1896 to topple the despotic Spanish regime.

Aquino’s tussles with Marcos were well chronicled: his privilege speeches in the Senate exposing the Jabidah massacre and the Oplan Saggitarius; his imprisonment and 40-day hunger strike; his valiant candidacy, while in prison, to the Batasang Pambansa; his continued anti-Marcos activities in the U.S. All these were important in encouraging open opposition to the regime and hastening its downfall. All these lent color and drama to the unfolding historical events. And they were very effective in politicising the heretofore-apolitical middle class and that segment of the elite who until then, could live with Marcos in power.

But martial law was certainly more than that. It was more than the life and death struggle between Marcos and his opponents in the traditional political opposition.

It’s true, martial law, designed by Marcos and administered by Enrile and their cabal of generals, was a power grab to perpetuate their rule and exclude political opponents in the ruling elite. But it was also used to serve and protect U.S. business and military interests in the country and to silence the growing mass movements in the ranks of the youth and students, the intelligentsia, the workers and the peasants whose people’s organizations and armed contingents were spreading in the rural areas.

When the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in August 1971, one year before martial law was declared, the Marcos government came up with a political wanted list of 63 names who were mostly student and youth leaders, labor union leaders and peasant organizers. Some of them the military suspected as the leaders of the newly reestablished Communist Party of the Philippines. That was the first target list of Marcos and his military.

The fire that Marcos wanted to extinguish was the mounting opposition to his regime that was spreading in various sectors of the population – the armed peasant movement that was being organized and led by the Communist Party and the New People’s Army; the new labor movement that was being nourished by ideology and supported by the student youth and the intelligentsia; the middle class who could no longer stomach the corruption of the regime and its intolerance to dissent.

The video documentary certainly captured the drama of the era. But it is mostly the drama in stifling the elite opposition, the Aquinos and the Lopezes. It’s true they were jailed and they lost their properties and their chances to be in power. And a number of other elite and middle class personalities were also imprisoned and tortured, some of them summarily killed. But those who suffered the most in terms of prolonged detention, severe torture and “salvaging” were the leaders and activists of the Left, the armed rebels, the organized workers in the cities and the peasant leaders and masses in the rural areas.

This is not to belittle the suffering and sacrifices of the elite and the middle class under martial law. But if we look at the Amnesty International’s 1975 report on torture and detention under Marcos’s martial law and the subsequent reports of the Task Force Detainees of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines, the most barbaric forms of torture and the longest detention inflicted and imposed by the Marcos military involved the Left rebels and leaders of the grassroots organizations. The most number of victims of killings, rape, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of property and other depredations came from the masses and their leaders.

Ninoy Aquino’s hunger strike was the most famous during martial law. But there were prolonged hunger strikes by political detainees in Camp Bicutan, Camp Crame, Camp Aguinaldo, Camp Olivas, Camp Vicente Lim,  in Cebu and Davao. While Aquino lost weight in his hunger strike, he had the attention of doctors who saw to it that he would not die to cause a terrible embarassment for Marcos. Many of the other political detainees on hunger strike then were left to suffer on their own by their military jailers. In some areas like the 5th Constabulary Security Unit (CSU) in Camp Crame, the hunger strikers were padlocked in their cells and their visiting rights suspended. Some were even beaten up and mentally tortured while on hunger strike.

The workers’ right to strike was practically permanently stifled and labor union leaders were arrested at the slight suspicion of being involved in organizing. Peasants were rounded up in areas where NPA elements were known to be active. In the cities, middle class personalities were summoned to military camps for “rumor mongering” or for supporting anti-Marcos actions.

The video production is a major step in documenting the underlying motivation of the Marcos martial law and in revealing its unparalleled violence and corruption. I congratulate Eggie Apostol, the brave founding publisher of the respected daily Philippine Daily Inquirer and now head of Foundation for Worldwide People Power. I congratulate Kara Magsanoc, the young and equally brave executive producer, and the others in the project.

An effort like this deserves the support of all Filipinos. Except the powers in Malacañang who, I hear, discouraged the replay of the video on TV.

(The Philippine Reporter, October 1-15, 1997)