We will be commemorating this week the 54th anniversary of the declaration of martial law. For the younger generation who did not live the horrors of Proclamation 1081, there are many books which narrate what happened. The latest that I know of is “False Nostalgia” by JC Punongbayan, an economics professor in the University of the Philippines. This book was originally published in 2023, although it has been reprinted a number of times already. Complete with verifiable data, the book debunks the false narrative that the Marcos dictatorship was a golden age in Philippine history.
But many of these books would be broad in their scope as they tell us principally about martial law without a specific concentration of a particular geographical area. Cebuanos belonging to the Generation Z may want to know what happened in Cebu during martial rule.
Fortunately, there is a book, “Martial Law in Cebu,” edited by Democrito Barcenas, a lawyer. Published in 2022, the book is a collection of articles, mostly personal reminiscences of political detainees, community organizers, human rights lawyers, journalists, a seminarian (who later became a priest, Armando Picardal, now deceased), student activists, and teachers. The foreword is written by recently deceased national artist Resil Mojares, who was a detainee himself for the first few months of the Marcos dictatorship.
So what happened during the first few weeks or months of martial law in Cebu? Among the first to be detained were Serge Osmeña, Resil Mojares, Meinrado Paredes, Democrito Barcenas, and Kit Enriquez. According to the account of Paredes (who later became an RTC judge), the youngest detainee was Butch Inting who was then 17 years old while the oldest was George Flores who was 68. There were also some from other provinces who were detained in Cebu.
Among those who gave accounts of torture by the military were Enriquez and Picardal. So that my summary of this book will not be limited to generalities, let me quote Enriquez (now a retired judge), “When my blindfold was removed, I was inside a room. I was cuffed to a double deck bed. The man in civilian clothes left. A few minutes later, a burly guy came in and started questioning me. For every answer which I gave and did not satisfy him, I received a blow. This went on for quite some time, until I was exhausted. He stopped, cuffed my hands to the bed posts, tied my legs to the other posts, then he left. I was very tired, hungry and thirsty. I then lost consciousness.” A footnote to his story is that he later married a fellow detainee, Maria Cristina Rosello. I wish Judge Kit would write another essay which could be entitled, “Love in the time of detention.”
There is also a story of hunger strike inside the detention centers. In the words of Picardal, “On the first day of the hunger strike, the guards brought fried chicken and pork adobo. Our mouths watered as we gazed at the food on the table. We were never served such delicious meals before. But we refused to take them. Instead, we banged our mess kits and had a noise barrage which reverberated all over the camp the whole day.”
Prison life would always be unwanted. But Bimbo Fernandez, who was imprisoned for being a community organizer among sugar workers in Negros, writes, “food was good, better than the meals with sugar workers.”
There is also the story of Paul Rodriguez, a university teacher who felt that some military agents were enrolled in his class to monitor his lectures. He resigned from his teaching job and felt that the university was not willing to stand for him.
Newspapers were banned during the early years. Thus, regular newspapers like The Republic and Visayan Herald were not allowed to publish. Radio stations were closed except those that could guarantee subservient reportage commentaries.
There are other stories of less known personalities. Paredes would give some names of these obscure and faceless Cebuanos: Terry Llemado and Furtunato Camos of the University of Visayas, Arnulfo Ortiz of Cebu Central College, and Danny Maucesa of the University of San Jose Recoletos.
The book ends with an open letter of the author to young Cebuanos, “The freedom you now enjoy did not blossom overnight. It was earned through painful struggle in the darkest hours of the Marcos dictatorship.”
