Resil Mojares, a scholar and former journalist who was among the first martial law detainees in Cebu in 1972, died on September 5, 2026, at the age of 83.
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. issued Proclamation 1434 declaring Saturday a national day for the scholar, coinciding with his state funeral at Cebu Memorial Parks and Gardens.
Proclamation 1434 directed that the Philippine flag be flown at half-mast on all government buildings and installations in honor of Mojares, describing his passing as a great loss to the nation.
FIVE decades ago, Resil Mojares was among the first martial law detainees in Cebu. He was a journalist.
His final newspaper column, “Sticks and Stones,” appeared on Sept. 23, 1972, the same day security forces arrested him at his home and President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. publicly announced Proclamation 1081, which placed the entire country under martial law and curtailed civil liberties.
Mojares, who died on Sept. 5, 2026, a day after his 83rd birthday, will be given a state funeral at Cebu Memorial Parks and Gardens in Barangay Banilad, Cebu City on Saturday, Sept. 12.
His passing came during the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the late dictator’s son who declared Saturday a national day for the scholar through Proclamation 1434.
Life in journalism
Long before writing books on topics ranging from prominent Cebuano politicians and local history to literary pieces, extensive scholarly works, personal essays, and faith, Mojares was a journalist who questioned the actions of the military and wrote about protests unfolding in Cebu.
His early journalism was examined by the academic Karlo Mikhail Mongaya’s 2019 paper, “Militant Struggles and Anti-Imperialism in Resil Mojares’s The Freeman Columns during the Early 1970s,” published in Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints.
Drawing on surviving columns and interviews with Mojares, Mongaya documented a writer whose concerns included student protests, labor disputes, nationalism and the role of the press.
Martial law foreseen
In the week before his arrest, Mojares questioned the military’s claims that subversives were behind a series of violent incidents and condemned Marcos’ order for the mass arrest of youth activists, according to the study.
His final column warned that military rule was already taking shape.
“There is no doubt about the fact that something very important is shaping up in our midst. Militarization is not just a threat, it is a fact: martial law is not just a possibility, it is in process,” Mojares wrote in his column quoted by Mongaya.
Mojares, who was married and had one child at the time of his arrest, spent two and a half months in detention at Camp Sergio Osmeña, the Philippine Constabulary’s regional headquarters in Cebu City.
In a 2017 interview with Mongaya, he recalled that his interrogators focused on his writing and associations with activist organizations.
“I went through two rounds of interrogation and from the questions that were asked (from the dossier they had on me), much of my case had to do with what I had written, and the rest about my association with activist organizations,” Mojares said.
Human rights lawyer Democrito Barcenas was among those first martial detainees in Cebu. He recalled in an essay that he read a lot of books lent by Mojares.
After Mojares’ conditional release, his freedom to travel was not restored.
Placed under provincial arrest, he could not leave Cebu without military permission and initially had to report to the camp each week to sign a ledger.
Years later, when he sought to complete postgraduate studies at the University of Indonesia under a Ford Foundation scholarship, he discovered that military records still listed him as under provincial arrest.
He was barred from obtaining a passport and had to give up completing his studies there, according to Mongaya’s account, which places the restrictions from December 1972 to 1977.
Shaped by experience
Mongaya argued in his paper that the nationalist and democratic movements of the period helped shape Mojares’ later interest in local histories, popular culture and the everyday lives of marginalized people.
Some of Mojares’ books include “House of Memory,” a collection of essays that first appeared in SunStar Weekend; “The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu, 1899–1906”; “Waiting for Mariang Makiling: Essays on Philippine Cultural History”; “Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge”; and “Isabelo’s Archive.”
Mojares’ state funeral on Sept. 12 comes just nine days before the 54th anniversary of the declaration of martial law by Marcos Sr.
Under Proclamation 1434, President Marcos Jr. directed that the Philippine flag be flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset on all government buildings and installations throughout the country and abroad on that day.
The proclamation described Mojares’ death as “a great loss to the Filipino people and to the nation’s cultural and artistic community.” / KAL