Atom Araullo shares he’s proud son of activist who fought against late dictator Ferdinand Marcos

Award-winning journalist Atom Araullo is proud of his mother, an activist who fought against the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Atom reshared the story of Dr. Carol Pagaduan Araullo, who was arrested during martial law.

“Proud son,” Atom wrote as his caption.

In a post by Humans of Pinas, Carol retold the horrors she and her colleagues went through when the dictator declared martial law in the country.

“As a national democratic activist, I was primed to go underground the minute martial law was declared. Thus, I secretly left my residence the night before the mass media was silenced when there were indications that mass arrests would take place,” she shared.

“I remember the anxiety I felt as I moved from one friend’s house to another, but also the sense of individual defiance and assurance of collective resistance that we would undertake,” she added.

Carol said that she could never forget when she met with her parents at her uncle’s house and her father asked her what her plan was, saying that if she left home, she was on her own.

“I calmly responded that I could not stand the thought that others would risk their safety and their lives to fight the dictatorship while I did nothing. Then I said I would join my comrades, other student activists, underground to do what we must to expose the lies of the dictatorship and to fight it. My father broke down and sobbed seeing that I could not be dissuaded,” she said.

Soon, those who opposed Marcos were arrested, including “Senator Diokno, Aquino, and prominent members of the Opposition, apart from owners of mass media outlets such as the Lopezes and some known student leaders who had not gone into hiding.”

Other activists and friends, she revealed, were killed, arrested, tortured or incarcerated.

“I was myself arrested in the latter part of 1973 and had first-hand experience witnessing the torture of my male companions while I was sexually harassed and mentally tortured with threats of rape,” said Carol.

She said she spent only three and a half months at Ipil Detention Center in Bicutan after her father was able to bribe military officials through a lawyer to allow her to be released.

“Note that we were never ever charged with any offense nor was there any kind of legal process that detainees like myself were subjected to. Thus, others who did not have the connections and the resources—especially since there was as yet no human rights organizations in the early years of ML advocating for freedom for political prisoners—wallowed in these detention centers for years,” she said.

“Those were harrowing times, indeed, when the first thing that had to be done was to tear away the shroud of silence resulting from the harshest political repression and the ensuing fear and self-imposed censorship that people practiced for survival.”

After going back to school to University of the Philippines, helping unite people, entering medical school and serving far-flung barrios, Carol said her experiences molded her into what she is today.

Now the chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), she said: “In my senior years, I have been sustained by these—the ideal of personal integrity, the mantra of service to the people, and truism that only by means of awakening the broad masses can genuine change for our long-suffering people and benighted country take place.” – Kaela Malig/RC, GMA News