Dark Memories

Torture, Incarceration, Disappearance, and Death during Martial Law

MASIDING ALONTO SR.

In retrospect, my father already saw in Ferdinand E. Marcos, a despotic, violent streak, as early as the 1960s. He and his siblings shared this premonition that the Marcos regime would plunge Moro land into conflict and place the whole country under authoritarian rule moored on wholesale repression of human and civil rights and an insatiable greed for power and wealth.

My father was right.

In March 1968, more than 100 Muslim Moro youths undergoing clandestine military training on Corregidor Island were mercilessly massacred by their military trainers. This was the infamous Jabidah massacre that ensued out of “Operation Merdeka”, a Marcos covert project to invade Sabah, Malaysia and seize this piece of real estate in North Borneo. The Moro trainees who were mostly from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi refused to continue their military training after they found out that their mission was to invade a neighboring state.

This massacre ushered in the Bangsamoro struggle against the Marcos regime and resulted in the birth of the Moro Liberation Movement that my father helped create especially in the recruitment and preparation of the Moro youths for the armed resistance ahead.

In 1970, many parts of the Bangsamoro homeland were laid to waste by the ethnic cleansing depredations of the Ilaga paramilitary gangs unleashed by the Marcos regime. The horrendous atrocities and ritual mutilation of innocent and defenseless Moro men, women and children were too much to bear for my father. He had to risk life and limb in his efforts to seek help from any source willing to capacitate the Moro communities into defending themselves from the attack dogs of the Marcos regime.

In addition, more than 300 Mosques were destroyed and desecrated while farm and farm lots by the thousands of hectares were forcibly abandoned by their Moro owners and seized by politicians, military men, and entities fronting for Marcos crony corporations.

Martial Law turned the Bangsamoro into one huge military garrison long before Gaza in occupied Palestine came into existence.

We need not narrate here in great detail the horrific accounts of atrocities committed by the Marcos regime against the Bangsamoro. These are all documented in local and international reports. Suffice it to say that thousands were either killed, injured, displaced, dispersed, and forced to flee as refugees.

As far as my father and like-minded Moros were concerned, this is the Marcos Legacy: a regime of tyranny, untold suffering, and horrific crimes against the Bangsamoro nation and the Filipino people.

Not long after Marcos was overthrown in 1986, my father became bedridden until his death in June 1997. To him, the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship was “mission accomplished.” He went to his death bringing with him this great satisfaction.

Little did he know that we have come full circle and now see a rebirth of despotism repackaged to be more palatable to the new generation. The ugly head of tyranny, lies and deceit has reared itself in the most difficult of times as we find ourselves in a pandemic of massive disinformation.

Historical distortion must be confronted with historical truth. Historical wrongs should be rectified by justice in the Bangsamoro as well as in the rest of the country. We cannot be oblivious to the reality that we are once again facing a malevolent threat from those who are obsessed in restoring what has already been rejected by the people.

We, the descendants of those who fought for freedom, justice, and peace have to stand together to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again. Indeed, let us not build more walls of remembrance! We want this fight to end now and end well for the Filipino people!

— Masiding Alonto Jr.

ALEX AQUINO

It was 11 a.m. on September 23, 1972. Our small group of student organizers had just watched the president, Ferdinand Marcos, announcing the formal declaration of Martial Law. Like hundreds of other groups, we sensed that our lives would no longer be the same.

Barely out of our teens, we would no longer be able to surface and our legal status would be in doubt, to say the least. Despite threats of arrest or worse, our main concern was to see to it that the spirit of resistance would survive if not flourish.

And it did. It expressed itself initially in the noise barrages on a number of campuses, in the clandestine distribution of fliers, even the painting of murals on city walls. Given the widespread fear that marked the first few years of martial rule, this was a major challenge.

The next few months would see us moving from place to place relying on the goodwill of friends, relatives and allies, careful not to stay in one place for more than a few weeks at a time, having to be highly creative in scrounging up resources for our upkeep. We have many to thank for this.

Thousands of us would eventually face incarceration, torture and even death. The body of one young woman among us, Jessica Sales, remains unaccounted for. She is one among thousands of desaparicidos under martial rule.

Half a century later, most of those who profited from the misery of thousands and responsible for the most unspeakable acts of cruelty and inhumanity, have yet to be held accountable. That says much about the state of our country today.

Fifty years on, those of us who survived that period, are parents and grandparents ourselves. Many of us have accumulated our own experiences as lawyers, school administrators, managers of national and international businesses and even as government ministers. Some have gone on and continued to work in the underground resistance, many years after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. What continues to bind us together is the commitment to social justice and a truly progressive Philippines.

Some of these experiences will be the subject of exhibitions, anthologies, videos, and podcast, in memorialization of 50 years of the declaration of martial rule. Indeed, the years 1970 to 1972 have left an indelible imprint on us. They will continue to do so.

ELSO CABANGON

Elso U. Cabangon had his stint as a journalist that spanned generations, albeit in broken periods.

In the late '60s, he was a student journalist and columnist of DAWN, the weekly student newspaper in the University of the East. It was the period when student activism started forming in the halls of the academe, spilling out onto the streets of urban areas, harping on issues such as high tuition fees and eventually embracing national and even international concerns, such as the then raging Vietnam War. Then a struggling working student, he found time to involve himself in such issues by writing critical pieces on them.

His DAWN involvement led him to active membership in the College Editors Guild of the Philippines where he carried out the task of, among others, organizing CEGP chapters in regions outside the Greater Manila Area.

The outbreak of the First Quarter Storm in 1970, the historic student uprising that challenged the entrenched power structure in the country, led him to even deeper involvement in the movement to change Philippine society and rid it of so much inequality and oppression.

The threat posed by the movement to the ruling elite eventually led to the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. This time, his journalistic involvement found him in the underground resistance of progressive groups against the dictatorship. He became a staff contributor/writer for revolutionary publications, striving to keep people aware of news and issues kept from them by the controlled press.

In 1974, he and a companion were arrested in a “hot pursuit” operation by a military intelligence group, and where he sustained four gunshot wounds. Bullets pierced through his right thigh and left arm, one remains lodged in his right arm to this day, and one crossed his facial bone that confined him at a military hospital ICU for more than a week in a life and death situation.

While he survived from his wounds, he suffered from a locked jaw for more than six months. Detained for two years, where he spent days and months successively in military hospitals, and detention centers of Camps Aguinaldo, Crame and Canlubang, he continued to get involved in pamphleteering even in detention.

After his release from detention, he worked as administration manager for a construction firm in the Middle East, and came back home in 1988 to work for the Manila Chronicle as editorial and features writer. In 1989, the publication was cited as Newspaper of the Year, and the citation mentioned, among others, the quality and substance of the editorials of the Manila Chronicle.

His life’s experiences during Martial Law just fortified his belief in the primacy of God-given freedom, and in the continuing pursuit of a better, humane society.

SIXTO CARLOS JR., February 27, 1947 - September 5, 2021

In the end, only leukemia could stop Sixto Carlos Jr., a social activist from his high school senior year to the end of his life. Sixto, “Jun” and Tosix to friends, was born on February 27, 1947 in Pandacan, Manila. His German ancestor, a businessman, settled in what was then a sleepy byway of the city. (Jun had a picture of his ancestor with a Pasig River steamboat, which figured in Jose Rizal’s El Filibusterismo, in the background.)

Although Jun’s father was a military lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Office in the Armed Forces, he believed in civilian supremacy over the military and despised the authoritarian Ferdinand Marcos. His mother was a housewife, a liberal, whose only advice to Jun was that he not curse during his protest speeches. He also had a leftist uncle who was the main influence on his politics.

As a political science major at the University of the Philippines, he became a prominent activist, eventually becoming a founder and national chairman of Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. He was already the target of state harassment even before martial law, he was arrested twice during protests, and once eluded police operatives who ended up violently disrupting a conference of jeepney and tricycle drivers at the Ateneo campus on Padre Faura Street.

Jun had to go into hiding when Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned prominent activists. He had to go completely underground when Marcos declared martial law. Despite his health challenges, Jun did extensive education work in the underground movement, even braving forest treks mountain ascents. Intelligence agents arrested him on April 23, 1979 in Mandaluyong. He was isolated in a 4x11 feet cell for four months, deprived of family contact, before spending two years in the Presidential Security Command’s maximum security prison in Fort Bonifacio.

A campaign by civil society organizations led to his release in November 1983. But a threat of re-arrest from Gen. Fabian Ver forced Jun to seek political asylum in the Netherlands, where he continued to build international support for the anti-dictatorship movement. He later returned to the Philippines, becoming active in democratic left formations, and joining the democratic socialist Akbayan Party. He was on the boards of several civil society groups involved with poverty alleviation and human rights issues, including the pursuit of justice for victims of the Marcos dictatorship as well as those of the lethal internal purges of the Communist Party.

Jun eventually focused on organizing in his Pandacan community, helping lead the successful ejection of the long environmentally destructive oil terminals. He also mobilized residents and church members in collecting books for the local library and other neighborhoods, and initiated a cultural group and youth theater to revive the progressive legacy of Pandacan’s heroes and contributions to history. At the time of his passing from leukemia on September 5, 2021, he and the broad civic circle he helped build were resisting the transformation of the former oil terminal grounds into a shipping container depository, instead of the promised ecological park. Sixto Carlos Jr. was serving the people until the end. He has a place among the heroes of his beloved Pandacan.

— Rene Ciria-Cruz

JOSE DALISAY JR.

When martial law was declared, at age eighteen, I found myself in prison in Bicutan, where I spent more than seven months—the subject of my first novel twenty years later, Killing Time in a Warm Place.

Then as now, those of us who were conscious of and actively resisted dictatorship were in a distinct minority.

For most Filipinos, after the first shock wave of arrests of activists and prominent oppositionists, things pretty much went back to business as usual. The poor remained poor, the rich got richer, some remarked that the streets were cleaner and quieter, as no protests were allowed. The fact that many people were being hunted, killed, and imprisoned never hit the front pages. Just as badly, no one saw the wanton thievery going on at the very top. In other words, for most Filipinos then, martial law was just how it was—something to be endured, survived, and for some, even celebrated.

This veneer of normalcy is what we are continuing to have to unmask and to fight all over again. The disinformation we are battling now began fifty years ago, with the very excuse employed by the State to justify martial law.

Because of disinformation, our memories of martial law are not the memories of others. Our task now is to lift that curtain, and to share the truth.

SILME DOMINGO AND GENE VIERNES

Although it has been over 40 years since the assassinations of US labor leaders, Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, the significance of their work and the efforts to find justice in their murders have not been lost. It is the only time a foreign dictator has been held liable for murders of US citizens on US soil – the dictator was Ferdinand Marcos!

Domingo and Viernes were assassinated on June 1, 1981, as they worked in their union hall in the Seattle, Washington. Both men were recently elected officers of the Filipino dominated Alaska Cannery Workers Union, Local 37 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

Domingo and Viernes were also members of the Union of Democratic Filipinos/Katipunan ng mga Democratikong Pilipinos (KDP), the only radical Filipino organization in the US at that time who worked to end the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos dictatorship and return democracy to the Philippines. As part of their KDP work, Viernes traveled to the Philippines in April 1981 to build solidarity ties with the Philippine labor movement that was under heavy repression. On his way home, Viernes met Domingo at the International ILWU Convention in Hawaii, and together, they passed an important and controversial resolution to send an ILWU investigating team to the Philippines to look at the labor conditions under the dictatorship.

In the decade following the murders, two hitmen and the head of the gang who carried out the murders for payment and Local 37 President, Tony Baruso, were all found guilty in criminal court and sent to prison. In 1989, the families of Domingo and Viernes won a landmark civil suit in Seattle Federal District Court against the Marcoses for the murders of Domingo and Viernes and won a judgement of $23.5 million, the first time a foreign dictator had been found responsible for the murders of US citizens within the boundaries of the US.

During the civil suit trial what was uncovered through a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document was a well-orchestrated Philippine plan that sent Philippine intelligence officers to the US to “surveil, monitor and act against” the US anti-Marcos movement. The murders were paid for through a “slush fund” operated by a Filipino doctor located in San Francisco, Dr. Malabed, also held liable in the murders.

However, what was even more incredulous, the DIA document added that the US cooperated with the Philippine surveillance plan. During the murder trials of the hitmen in 1981, a surprise witness came forth to try to thwart the Prosecutor’s case by trying to discredit Silme’s dying identification of his murderers. While the witness, Levane Forsythe, was unsuccessful in his attempts, years later, lawyers for the families of Domingo and Viernes, uncovered through Freedom of Information Requests, a large dossier of evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had on Forsythe. It turns out that the FBI had been watching Forsythe for years including his role in perjuring himself in the first murder trial against the hitmen who killed Silme and Gene.

—Cindy Domingo

FULGENCIO FACTORAN JR.

Atty. Fulgencio “Jun” S. Factoran, Jr. was a human rights lawyer, environmentalist and a champion of press freedom.

Born in Orion, Bataan on November 3, 1943, he studied law at the University of the Philippines where he was class Valedictorian 1967 and went on to Harvard Law School for his Master’s degree.

A successful corporate lawyer, he practiced human rights law during the martial law years with other activist lawyers, including Joker Arroyo, Rene Saguisag, and Augusto Sanchez. Jun Factoran chaired the Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity, and Nationalism (MABINI) that provided free legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses. Despite the danger to their own freedoms, MABINI lawyers courageously took on cases involving students, professionals, religious and journalists whose civil and political rights were being denied.

Journalists are particularly grateful to Jun Factoran and MABINI for their defense of press freedom when, in the early 1980s, the National Intelligence Board (NIB) made up of high-ranking military officers targeted reporters and editors with subpoenas, interrogations, libel suits, and threats of arrest and detention.

After the 1986 People Power Revolution, Jun Factoran was appointed deputy executive secretary and then as Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) by President Corazon Aquino. As DENR Secretary, he revoked many logging concessions that had been awarded during th dictatorship, promoted reforestation to reverse the extensive damage to our forests, and transferred stewardship of forests to local residents and communities. He also opened the DENR archives, allowing journalists to document the blatant abuse of the country's natural resources during the Marcos regime.

After serving in government, Jun continued to provide legal support to groups advocating environmental concerns, human rights and press freedom. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Newsbreak, Rappler, the Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility (CMFR), and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA).

Jun Factoran passed away on 5 April 2020 at the age of 76 after a long illness. He will long be remembered for his principled stand against government abuse of civil and political rights, the environment and the public’s right to freedom of information.

DIWA C. GUINIGUNDO

Martial law was unlike the colorless existence of Murakami’s Tsukuru Tazaki. For my university days was more than colorful. I edited the Ateneo’s Pandayan that fought the martial law regime for which I was expelled. At the UP, we continued the struggle against State repression. Freedom of expression was compromised by assigning an adviser to the Philippine Collegian who had to sign off each issue before publication. Freedom of assembly was prohibited by Malacañang by keeping some senators of the Republic from addressing the UP community on the excesses of military dictatorship.

Martial law was seeing about four unmarked vehicles parked around the vicinity of our place, meeting them in our living room, and waiting to arrest me. They must have been doing some surveillance from the time I left the meeting that evening with students from universities, labor union leaders and the religious groups who were all up against President Marcos’ PD 823.

The dictatorship prohibited all forms of strikes, picketing and lockouts under the pretext of “strengthening free collective bargaining and trade unionism.” It was not a night of quiet but rage while the military detained me in the basement of the Metrocom Southern Command in Fort Bonifacio. Rage it was because the State succeeded in preventing what could have been the biggest people’s rally that was to converge in Quezon Rotunda, then march arm in arm towards Malacañang.

Martial law was reporting every week my whereabouts to the military who kept even my old photos at various times in Plaza Miranda. It’s all about hassle, doing it for years. Before I could travel abroad to China in 1979, I had to queue for a few hours for an interview with the intelligence service. Thanks to the great Adrian Cristobal, the patron and protector of progressive writers and artists who were mostly ex-detainees, we were granted permanent release by the President before he lifted martial law in 1981.

Martial law could not have lasted without the implicit collaboration of some. It took another five years before its infrastructure was dismantled. But like a ghost, it could haunt us again.

JO-ANN Q. MAGLIPON

I was seven days past my 22nd birthday when martial law came down in 1972. September, a month I always felt I owned, was ruined. Just six months back, I was totally animated, having tucked away a Comparative English Literature degree and gotten prepped for a job. True, I had bypassed graduation because I saw the diploma as irrelevant to the times and, true, there was so much life throbbing outside that marching in a rented toga in some somber auditorium was no match to the call of marching in fatigued denims through raucous streets. Besides, I had been feeling estranged from a college that settled differences in the campus paper, where I had been an editor, with a heavy hand.

Soon, I had my first job as a journalist. I recall completing a long feature on the Muntinlupa penitentiary and submitting it to Now magazine in Sta. Mesa, when I found the steel door to the elevator padlocked. The lone guard said there was no one inside. The whole complex of stately red-brick buildings rising amid lush greenery had shut down.

Outside, all was strangely slow and too quiet. There were no pedestrians. Very few hawkers sat under the flyover, even fewer vehicles went over the bridge, and an army tank—yes, a tank with a long nozzle—rumbled past toward the direction of Malacañang. The day stood still.

In weeks, I had gone underground. I had been a high-profile activist, agitating fellow students to join rallies in support of Muslims whose villages had been burnt down, of jeepney drivers reeling from the increase of gas prices, and of activists picked up at protest marches and jailed, or, worse, made to disappear. All my writing—how organized religion oppresses, for instance—had also been loud and clear. Activists like me assumed we would be targets in the madcap arrests going on everywhere. True enough, arresting officers would one evening descend on my family home with the dreaded ASSO, the arrest paper with Juan Ponce Enrile's signature xeroxed at the bottom. For now, I had escaped the dragnet.

Two years later I would be arrested with five other writers, including Bienvenido Lumbera and Ricardo Lee, who would be declared National Artists decades after. At the time, however, there was no recognizing our skill or value, there were only interrogation, humiliation and torture in Camp Aguinaldo, only an imposed cover of incommunicado where even family did not know if we were alive or dead, and then, still never formally charged with any crime, incarceration in Fort Bonifacio.

This time, it was not just the day that stood still—the madness would not be over for 14 years. Our lives had been interrupted. We had been taken. A dictator was running the show.

PAUL MORALES, son of Horacio "Boy" Morales

After the capture of our father and his compatriots in 1982, we spent harrowing days of waiting as the military continually denied having them in their possession. My mother, who had been separated from our father before his 1978 defection, had to come to Manila and speak on his behalf.

When they finally acknowledged his capture and allowed us to see him we found him a broken man. He had been severely tortured by his captors. He did not discuss the details of his experience with us. Aside from some telltale signs, it would be years before I learned about the true scope and cruel details of his ordeal. This would put in context his brooding, chain-smoking presence of that time — devoid of his famous joviality. Like other victims, he harbored dreams of vengeance, freedom, and justice.

His years as a political prisoner would mirror the political events happening in the Philippines. He practiced meditation and grew, even in isolation. By the time he was released, in 1986, it was to a nation reborn and he was a changed man. It seemed to me that his experience of torture, the long legal battles, and his incarceration had given him a renewed perspective. He would work tirelessly on evolving forms of development, engagement, and resistance. His dark memories would contrast with his dreams for the Philippines and strengthen his resolve to be an active agent for positive change.

MELINDA PARAS

I was active in the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), and acted as a liaison with American organizers of military personnel at the US bases in Angeles and Olongapo when martial law was declared in the Philippines. I had just taken a new GI organizer who had arrived in the Philippines up to Olongapo when we discovered martial law was in effect (we heard the news from the radio station on the Naval base).

The Philippine Constabulary was very aggressive towards the KM in Zambales and I believed that if arrested there, I was in grave danger of torture and/or murder by the PC and so after several days hiding out, I planned travel back to Manila. I took a Victory Liner bus and luckily passed through several PC checkpoints before arriving safely in Manila.

I had hoped to establish contact with my comrades in Manila through the telephone at my lolo’s house in Paco. After several weeks of hiding out, I went there to see if there were any messages. Two jeeploads of PC arrived and arrested me. I was taken to Camp Aguinaldo and held for interrogation for several days.

We were in a small enclosed compound which held perhaps 10 – 12 women prisoners and 20 – 25 male prisoners. In the middle of the night I was taken into the interrogation room and questioned by an Air Force captain who bragged that he had been trained in interrogation by the US military. Other women prisoners I was with described torture which they and others they knew had experienced.

I was lucky, in that I believe the Marcos dictatorship was nervous about torturing and killing American citizens. And my lolo was a past chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, which probably make the regime more careful in dealing with me. After several days I was taken the Camp Crame where I was interned for a couple of weeks and told I was charged with a capital crime, attempting to overthrow the government. Then I was deported back to the US along with several of the American GI organizers I had worked with.

JUN RUGRAGIO

I was an activist of the FQS and a member of Ateneo Lakasdiwa. I was one of the homebred, radicalized moderates, not recruited by KM or any of the so called radical left. We immersed ourselves to communities to have our own concrete experiences and conducted our own studies of revolutionary theories. I, with Manny Yap and other leading activists of Lakasdiwa, joined the mainstream revolutionary movement as LDR - Lakas ng Diwang Rebolusyonaryo. Martial Law shortly reared its head and LDR went underground.

I was assigned to help rebuild the shattered underground student-youth organizations fighting the dictatorship in Bicol. Unfortunately, I was captured near Legaspi City in 1973. I was beaten and tortured with electric rods in Reagan Barracks (now Camp Ibalon in Legaspi) continuously from noontime till the wee hours of the morning.

Then I was airlifted (and threatened to be thrown out of the plane) to the Task Force Isarog HQ in Tigaon, Camarines Sur. There a different kind of torture was done. I was handcuffed to a bed then continuously interrogated for a week without sleep or rest. I would actually dose off but would be awakened via a slap or a push or splashed some water on my face. I would be told to sleep then just after a few minutes, I would be violently awakened and interrogation would proceed once more.

This was capped with my captors letting me walk around the plaza of Naga one evening with the intent of using me as a bait for comrades to go to me and be captured. Thankfully none came and I was whisked away to a camp in Pili, Cam Sur where I was placed in an isolation cell (bartolina) for exactly 30 days. No one was allowed to talk to me and I could not leave my cell at all.

When after 30 days I was let out, with the intercession of the Bishop of Nueva Caceres, to face my visiting family, I was described as skin and bones and “endowed” with chalk white skin absent any sunshine for quite some time. I was then detained for 7 months more. Thereafter I had 2 more episodes of detention under the Marcos Anti-Subversion law. But other than some punches. kicks, an instance of rifle butting and gunfire against my left ear causing my eardrum to bust, the torture was not comparable to the first instance in ’73.

ALICE SALANGA, wife of Alfredo N. Salanga

It’s not easy to live a life without your partner by your side. A known writer and journalist, our father was imprisoned during Martial Law because of his sentiments about the government. While in prison, our mother never left his side. She would religiously visit him every day to make sure he was alive and well. And that he was well cared for inspite of being tortured that time. Our mother was also a victim of harassment and lasciviousness. She endured and fought back.

Things took a turn upon our father’s passing in 1988. My mom, used to being a housewife, had to make ends meet. She was now a single parent caring for four children. Her eldest was living abroad, and she was left with three children under the age of 11.

What we lacked financially, we gained in other aspects of life. We were raised by a strong mother who always taught us never to stop fighting for what is right. To make sure we were well provided for, our mother sacrificed a lot in order to meet the financial demands. She would read the tarot for a living while working as a PR consultant. We relied on one another. We were “forced” to grow up knowing our lifestyle took on a drastic change since our dad’s passing. At a young age, we were already aware of our financial situation. We aided our mother in whatever way we can. Despite our hardships then, we were happy. Now having our own jobs, we spoiled our mother, letting her enjoy the comfort of life until her passing in 2016.

— Elyrah Salanga-Torralba

ROLAND SIMBULAN

I survived the Marcos martial law dictatorship. I was arrested, tortured and detained for over a year during martial law. No formal charges or court litigation was made against me, except that I was told verbally that I violated the Anti-Subversion Law (Republic Act 1700). I was then Associate Editor of the Philippine Collegian, the student paper of the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Early one evening in March 1976 while waiting for a ride at the jeepney stop on the side of Vinzons Hall at U.P. Diliman, I was abducted by armed agents of the military who were in civilian clothes, blindfolded at gunpoint at the back seat of an owner-jeep with a foot pressed on my head to keep me down. I later found out they were operatives of the 5th Constabulary Security Unit and they kept me incommunicado for the first week of my detention while being interrogated in an unknown safehouse.

I was later transferred to Camp Crame, where I was threatened to death and intentionally, they made me overhear conversation among themselves "to make me disappear". I was punched on the head and body by torturer-agents of the 5th Constabulary Unit. They did not wear any uniform or identification but were fully armed with pistols and long firearms. During interrogation, I was not allowed to sleep nor given enough food and just given a few biscuits and a little water. During that period, I suffered sleepless nights, and mental anguish. From our cell, we could hear some of the other detainees who were brought out screaming while being tortured. I was punched on both arms and on my face during questioning. This was what they called "tactical interrogation".

I was later brought to Fort Bonifacio, the headquarters of the Philippine Army. There, I was thrown into a "bartolina", the dreaded isolation cell where detainees were punished to break them down. The bartolina in Fort Bonifacio where I was kept for a month was a three-meter by four meters cell made of concrete all around. It was a damp and dark place with no light bulb inside. The flooring was bare cement and did not even have a bed or cot. Not even a mattress. So, I had to sleep sideways on the cold, concrete floor, putting together old newspapers left there.

It was always dark inside and I had no way of determining whether it was day or night inside the bartolina. Only the narrow corridor outside had lights on, but the windows on the corridor were padded up. I was not allowed to go out for sunning or even to go to a toilet outside. The bartoline just had a small hole on the floor at the corner with a one-foot enclosure and a small faucet positioned over a small hole. I did all my toiletry and washing on this enclosure and hole. Food, usually on a steel plate, was slid through a small opening at the lower part of the solid steel door which was always closed. Being kept in the bartoline was both a physical and mental punishment. While incommunicado for a month, I was not allowed to receive visitors. This was because they were waiting for the signs of torture to heal before I could be allowed visits from relatives.

Healing the wounds from that experience is a difficult process. It left a deep scar on my psyche, especially with the knowledge that others suffered much more or were killed summarily without mercy, or never to be seen again. I survived the ordeal but others did not. The experience left a deep and indelible scar on my consciousness. Thousands and thousands of Filipinos, in the struggle for the restoration of our democratic rights which were extinguished by the Marcos dictatorship, also experienced this dark past.

This historical memory cannot be deconstructed. It should not be forgotten.

PHILIP SUZARA

"As a young boy, I came to read and romanticize about this White Stallion from a DC classic comics who chose freedom, and death, over a life in captivity. It was a very poignant scene with an insight and value that I have since embraced... that there is no price for Freedom.

In 1970, I experienced my first protest rally in support of the jeepney drivers" strike/mobilization against the oil price hike.

From 1971 until my father unexpectedly passed away in 1973, I lived in Bacolod and Iloilo while my father worked in Bacolod, then went into the farming business in Capiz. It was during this time that I had a glimpse of the great divide between the hacienderos and the struggling sacadas.

During summer, I had my first taste of farm work, living and working with the farmers in the fields.

While studying in San Agustin, Iloilo, I got involved in lighting rallies and teach-ins with foremost leftist leaders.

When Martial Law was declared, as a graduating student, I was fearful of my present and my future.

After my father passed away, we had to relocate to Manila, at the advent of Martial Law. I enrolled in Adamson University while working to help support myself. It was during this period that the country hosted a lot of international events. I found myself joining protest rallies by leftist organizations, even as I was not affiliated with any of them.

In April 7, 1978, the country held its Interim Batasang Pambansa elections. Benigno Aquino was the opposition’s stalwart leader, and the team was largely supported by the Social Democrats.

I was the Laban elections area coordinator for San Juan. On the eve of the elections, the first noise barrage happened, and the country’s public protest against Marcos was awakened.

Elections was marred with massive cheating and terror by the Marcos government. A lot of indignation protest actions and rallies occurred with many marchers arrested and detained.

The political terrain would be uneventful for a long while; it seemed Marcos had a good grasp of the Filipino psyche.

In 1979, exhausting all possible peaceful means of dissent, progressive SD elements and their allies mobilized and escalated their protest against the oppressive Marcos government.

One of these groups was the Light a Fire Movement which mounted urban guerrilla warfare as part of their destabilization plan.

I was glad that there were already forces moving against the dictatorship. I wanted to be one of those freedom fighters, feeling a sense of duty for my country.

In December 1979, after several successful missions, the operation of the LFM was stopped with the arrest of their leaders.

In the 2nd quarter of 1980, after Marcos released Aquino for his heart operation, the bombing of government installations and private establishments commenced as a continuation of the destabilization.

This time, the April 6 Liberation Movement claimed responsibility.

The US government took notice, and this pressured Marcos to forge a moratorium on the bombings in exchange for the lifting of ML.

On January 17, 1981, Marcos declared the lifting of ML. A victory, even if it was only a paper lifting of the dreaded decree.

On October 27, 1980, I was arrested and implicated with the A6 LM.

I was set up in a trap, literally kidnapped and tortured in the course of their tactical interrogation.

The A6LM case was the last one handled by the military tribunal and the first one under the new civilian courts on account of the ML’s lifting.

Representing us were lawyers affiliated with FLAG and MABINI, pro bono publico, namely: Pepe Diokno, Lorenzo Tanada, Juan David, Sedfrey Ordonez, Rene Saguisag, Jojo Binay, Ding Tanjuatco, Efren Moncupa, Joey Lina and Jun Simon, and many others of kindred spirit.

We were all agents of change, burning with fire in our hearts, in our desire to make a difference in our country.

Then, in August 21, 1983, Ninoy was assassinated and that caused nationwide outrage. Marcos was going to ride this wave and let it pass.

After three years, Marcos committed his biggest blunder. Amidst political pressure, he agreed to a snap election.

By February 22, 1986 , the defection of Marcos' staunch officials, Enrile and Ramos, coupled with the call of Cardinal Sin, the historic EDSA People Power Revolution caused the end of Marcos’ long reign of dictatorship.

As I was still in detention, I felt helpless, but victorious, seeing all these events unfolding.

On February 25, 1986, Corazon C. Aquino was installed President of the Philippines.

One of her first official acts was the release of all political detainees. After six years, I became a free man.

Today, I am at that period in my life where I look forward to enjoying the simple and finer things in life. And I will always mean well.

But, when awakened from blissful slumber, when the dragon rears its ugly head from dark, you just move and slay that dragon - no second thoughts about it.

We will all kick the bucket one day.

My prayer is to skip that line with a smile on my lips, and that it be a meaningful one, or a fun one. Or both."

OLIVER TEVES

It was Saturday, Sept. 23, 1972. I was getting ready for our weekly high school PMT (Preparatory Military Training) formation. Some of us had planned to protest against the PMT’s haircut policy that day. It was the 70s and hair was both a social and political statement. But my mother stopped me from leaving the house, worried about the ominous silence of all the radio stations that morning. Later that day, Ferdinand Marcos was on TV announcing his declaration of martial law.

I took part in the student movement in college and later worked with others outside school against the Marcos dictatorship. In January 1976, I was seized and taken to a military intelligence safehouse where I was beaten black and blue. One of my sadistic tormentors was a muscular, milk-drinking lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary. He took bizarre pleasure in punching my head repeatedly. In all, I spent about a month in two separate safehouses. My family did not know where I was until I was transferred to the stockade for political detainees at Camp Crame.

Ten years later, I saw this officer again during the Edsa uprising. He was one of the “reformists” who broke away from Marcos. They were bracing for an expected assault on Crame by Marcos loyalist troops. I wanted to come up to him and reintroduce myself, unsure that he would remember me among the dozens he had tortured on behalf of the dictatorship. Rather naively, perhaps moved by the euphoria at that time, I wanted to tell him that this time we were fighting a common enemy. But my better judgment held me back.

The wider democratic space created by that uprising at Edsa, ironically, has been used to undermine it — consciously by antidemocratic forces and unwittingly by others they had deceived. They have since aggressively spread the myth of the “golden years” of the Marcos regime. It will take more time and effort on all fronts for the pre- and post-martial law generations to win against misinformation, disinformation, historical distortions and denialism and set things right.