AT THE launch of O Susana, a compilation of narratives about Martial Law experiences of religious and social development workers in Davao, Bro. Karl Gaspar, CSSR, who was among those who contributed to the book, asked when my batch of activists would publish our own stories. Thirty years ago, the idea of putting our experiences in writing would have seemed foolhardy to me.
The prevailing repressive situation made it necessary to be secretive and to compartmentalize our lives. We wrote sparingly, only to selected recipients, and often in code. And when we did write for public purposes, it was to rail and to rouse. And now there are multiple imperatives to share our story: not just because the freedom and space for expression allow it, and not only because anti-dictatorship activists of the past have to convince the voters of today to prevent a return to Malacañang of the ousted dictator's family.
We dare to put our narratives out there as a way of contributing to our inter-generational political project as Filipinos. I was truly a Martial Law baby: my father was a political ally of Marcos on his first term as president, and I went from being a toddler to a young child in the first few years of martial rule when it still had a smiling, if disciplinarian, face. Like others my age, I sang with gusto the Bagong Lipunan hymn and its promise of "magbabago ang lahat, tungo sa pag-unlad" after the Pambansang Awit.
In school, we were fed a diet of facts about the achievements of the Marcos administration: his visionary and decisive leadership, the massive infrastructure projects, the human settlements initiatives of his wife Imelda, as well as her support for the arts. We did not find it strange that those born from 1966 onwards had only known one head of State.
That at certain times during the school break everyone in our extended household had to sleep together on the floor in the middle of the carinderia that was also our home in Davao Oriental, with all the tables arranged around us fortress-like as protection against fly-by shooting, we took as a matter of course.
That checkpoints dotted the highways, and there were many military and police personnel in our town did not seem out of place. The security forces kept changing as more and more were deployed to keep in check first the Moro National Liberation (MNLF), and later the New People's Army (NPA).
I remember that my mother often lamented that so-and-so military official or soldier had left town without paying his long food and drinks tab, and I grew used to seeing many sheets of unpaid debts of security personnel and other persons of power scribbled on yellow paper.
From having three food and lodging establishments in the mid to late 1960s, my mother's business dwindled to one. In hindsight that experience was a small but direct example of the economic consequence of abusive military sway over the civilian population.
My political awakening to the excesses of authoritarian rule, de facto military supremacy over civilians, and systematic repression only happened the year before Marcos and his family and supporters were forced to flee the country. Not that I was immune to what, by the early 1980s, had become massive waves of protest against Marcos and those who backed him, local and international allies alike. I remember discussions with my high school classmates about the assassination of Ninoy Aquino who was buried but a few kilometers away from our school, and how easy it was to say "Marcos pa rin ako".
Reflecting on this years later, it was not just because of how little I truly understood about the situation, it was also about how I sought comfort in pack mentality and the known, and pathetically sided with oppressors who had mantled themselves in artifices and gestures of greatness. This identification with perceived greatness certainly appealed to the eager though directionless young person that I was thirty years ago.
I wonder if this partly underpins the choice of young voters who purportedly make up the political base of the dictator's son who is now aspiring for the second highest position of the land, and revising interpretation of history in favor of his father.
But reality does have a way of setting right even the most obtuse person. I went back to a Davao that was in the grips of Welgang Bayans, massive general strikes that highlighted sectoral issues and opposition to Marcos. I started out complaining about the inconvenience caused by the disruption in transport and classes; six months later I was among activists who stood in the middle of Jones Circle in a Welgang Bayan. What changed my stance about Marcos and convinced me to join those who struggled against authoritarianism?
It was a combination of factors, but what triggered it was my acceptance that it was necessary to struggle for one's rights and interests, particularly when the institutions charged with enabling and respecting those rights and interests abused them instead. From there, it was not a great leap to open up to the belief that we have to look beyond our sectoral agenda, recognize the injustices that other groups and people also fight against, and connect to a shared struggle.
My Martial Law and Edsa experiences were not particularly dramatic. As the situation in Manila intensified the third week of February 1986, we were advised to get together as teams and prepare for more protest actions and also possibly more crackdowns. When news of the departure of the Marcoses and their cronies and the swearing-in of Cory Aquino and Doy Laurel reached us, we were unsure of what would happen next. But even at that point, it did not seem accurate that it would be called the Edsa Revolution of 1986, as if it only happened in that stretch of highway, disconnected from all the other struggles that happened before and parallel to it elsewhere in the country.
I think it would have mattered if it had been called the Philippine Revolution of the 1960s to the 1990s to underscore that it was a social revolution fought on many fronts rather than a change of regime mainly decided on by the elite and the United States Government.
But perhaps I am missing the point: it has been said that the refusal of government and mainstream institutions to call it as such was deliberate and more reflective of what actually followed next. In truth I felt more scared in the early years of Aquino that I did during the time of Marcos, and that was not just because I was at the tail end of Marcosian rule.
Davao in the late 1980s to early 1990s was not a safe place for people who were lumped under the "communists-terrorists" category for simply continuing to espouse comprehensive societal change. Not only were there the Alsa Masa who openly harassed those branded as communists, at one point millenarian groups like the Pulahan roamed the main streets freely with their long sharp bolos. They carried vials of oil which they claimed would magically boil to alert them of the presence of communists.
Not wanting to take a chance given the high temperatures, their short tempers and sharp weapons, I gave them a wide berth as they patrolled Claveria and Uyanguren. It was also a post-Marcos time when I and a small group of women, youth, children and a few farmers were chased down Quirino by Armalite-wielding military men.
Ironically, it had been a protest march on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day and to call attention to human rights violations. We dropped down to the cemented street in fear, and to avoid being hit by gunfire. From the ground I looked up and saw long barrels of armalite rifles aimed down at us. The military claimed that they went after our contingent because they were chasing armed men who had infiltrated our ranks. Of course they did not find the suspects they claimed to have been looking for.
In the melee, my forehead got hit by the barrel of a rifle. I was told afterwards that it was "by accident". Beyond the harrowing experience of being harassed, that episode had a more sinister effect: it confirmed that there was little that differentiated legitimate protesters from armed suspects in the eyes of the military, and that the streets of Davao City were no different from back roads and rural areas where civilians could be accosted at the slightest pretext.
The vicious torture and murder of labor leader Atty. Lando Olalia and his driver, and the assassination of high profile activist Lean Alejandro also happened in the years that immediately followed the departure of Marcos.Of what relevance are these recollections to Martial Law and dictatorships at this time, it may be asked.
Because Martial Law is not just about the formal declaration, and dictatorships are not just about the person. They include, in the words of the members of the Ateneo de Manila University faculty who took to task Bongbong Marcos and his revisionist view of his father's administration, "structures, actions and ideas – including the many lies – that allowed the Marcos dictatorship to impose and perpetuate itself". To this list I add institutions, systems and mindsets that secretly glorify authoritarianism and are willing to carry out its business, and which make its revival possible under other names.
Although it has been three decades since the time Marcos was ousted, military and police institutions that have tasted power under Martial Law and are still largely unreformed will have no qualms violently putting down dissent of any kind should a form of strongman rule be re-established in the country. Although a number of security sector reforms have been put forward, it is highly doubtful that the more thoroughgoing of them have been pursued in earnest. Raz, soon-to-be 12-year old and in a few years eligible to elect the leaders of his time, wanted to know if the ousted dictator personally ordered all the tortures, rapes and other violations that he heard had been committed during the Marcos dictatorship.
My honest response was that there were probably those that can be directly ascribed to him, for was it not said that the assassination of Ninoy Aquino came from very high up; but that in all likelihood, many of the crimes were committed under a system that encouraged the security sector and other forces to brutally interpret orders, and issue their own in order to perpetrate the status quo even in situations when technically no order was given. And that, I think, is the real danger of any Philippine leader who flirts with dictatorship: because he/she would awaken a beast that has not at all become extinct when Marcos left in 1986, but has only become dormant.
Any illusion of leaders with an autocratic bent that they can dispense with liberal democratic processes, such as check and balance among the branches of government and due process in dealing with suspected violators of laws, in order to bring about their envisioned change, and then expect to contain the effects to their prescription is precisely only that: an illusion. Institutions and systems generally have a way of growing and mutating outside their original mandates; but this a reality that does not exculpate their originators.
Of the three that I mentioned--institutions, systems and mindsets -- it is the third I find most challenging of all. Unlike the first two which have organizational and organized manifestations -- suggesting the demarcation between an authoritarian and militaristic "them" as compared to a civilian "us" -- mindsets however cross over to and cross-pollinate with and within the civilian population to wittingly or unwittingly provide the public rationale for a return to dictatorial ways.
In the context of the electoral campaign, both the mindsets that Filipinos should "move on" with respect to the Marcos dictatorship and give the son a chance, and the one that endorses full control to the leader who promises to decisively deal with criminals and drugs do not seem to be harmful in themselves. That is, were it not for how these mindsets tie up with and support problematic institutions and systems. Given our past, the electoral exercise can no longer just be about perusing a candidate's platform, standpoint and personal and public track record, we need to cast a critical eye as well to history and larger contexts.
To return to the point about contributing to an inter-generational political project, it can be argued that we Filipinos are still in the early stages of finding-establishing-defining the political system that is most suited to us and brings out the best in us, including a security sector of which we need not be wary.
After 300 years of direct colonial rule by the Spanish, and 50 years with the Americans, we had 20 years of being a Republic that got disrupted by 20 years of authoritarianism and militarism. And since then we've only had 30 years to sort out all our challenges and contradictions.
I think we need to continue with our political project without returning to dictatorship. And for this, everyone is enjoined to boldly share his/her narrative and perspectives, reach across the divides, and communicate clearly sans code.
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