There were many ways to silence democracy during the martial rule of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr.: Immobilize someone on a bench and pour water continuously on their face until they confess to their “crime” or reveal their comrades’ whereabouts; monopolize the media; or, during a house raid, shoot an activist dead and employ the “nanlaban” (resisting authority) narrative. 

Judy Taguiwalo, unionist, professor, social worker, and ex-detainee, recalled her experiences on Feb. 24, the eve of protest marches scheduled nationwide to commemorate the 39th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986 that drew worldwide admiration for Filipinos. 

Malacañang has removed Feb. 25 from the list of national holidays and declared it a “special working holiday,” but certain schools including those belonging to the Edsor Consortium (Immaculate Conception Academy, La Salle Green Hills, Saint Pedro Poveda College, and Xavier School), the University of Santo Tomas, and, belatedly, the University of the Philippines (UP), have suspended classes today.

“Recognizing our responsibility as educational institutions, we remain committed to preserving the relevance of the Edsa People Power Revolution, particularly for our current and future generations of students. We will continue to keep the spirit of Edsa alive despite active efforts to undermine it,” Xavier School said in a statement posted online. 

Twice arrested   

In an interview with CoverStory interns at UP Diliman, Taguiwalo said she was unjustly arrested twice during martial law while fighting for the rights of workers and farmers. During her first imprisonment in Iloilo in 1973, she said, she was subjected to inhumane methods of interrogation, survived the ordeal, and eventually escaped. 

She was pregnant when she was arrested for the second time, and delivered her child in Camp Crame, the police command’s main headquarters, in 1984. She regained her freedom on March 1, 1986, not by escaping, but by virtue of the Edsa uprising that toppled the dictatorship and liberated Filipinos from tyranny. 

Still, justice is elusive even to this day, Taguiwalo said. According to Amnesty International, 70,000 were arrested during martial law, 34,000 were tortured, 3,240 were summarily killed, and 1,000 were victims of enforced disappearance. 

Many cases remain unresolved and the justice landscape has been largely unchanged, reflecting the long culture of impunity in the Philippines, said Taguiwalo, now 75 and retired from teaching at UP Diliman.

“No major change has really taken place after Marcos Sr. was ousted,” Taguiwalo said in Filipino. “We were able to oust a dictator, but there were no major reforms to address the economic issues of the poor, to end the notion that governance is only for the elite, to end cronyism and foreign dominance of the country…We did not change these.” 

Taguiwalo also said issues that need urgent national attention are being blocked, like holding Vice President Sara Duterte, who has been impeached by the House of Representatives, accountable for her questionable expenditure of confidential funds. 

Youth’s role

But Taguiwalo hopes that the youth will continue to fulfill their civic duties. “I am looking forward to seeing the continuation of the historical role of the youth in asserting change, in standing up against tyranny, and in uniting the majority of our people,” she said.

She also raised the constant calls to stop impunity, to convict Sara Duterte, to hold her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, as well as the Marcoses, accountable for the crimes attributed to them, and to change the system. “Sobra na, tama na. Convict Sara. Panagutin si Duterte. Marcos singilin. Kailangan na ng pagbabago ng sistema. Because the roots of discontent are really the massive poverty and oppression of our people,” she said. 

Yet the late dictator is buried at the cemetery for heroes. It was then President Duterte who allowed the burial of his remains at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016.  

Taguiwalo said Malacañang’s declaration of Feb. 25 as a special working holiday is a clear attempt to sanitize the late dictator’s image.

“There it goes again, historical revisionism,” she said. “President Marcos Jr. removed Feb. 25 as a public holiday that marks the collective struggle of the people to oust the dictator, his father. He does not want the story told.”  

She said that had it not been for the initiatives of UP students and faculty regent, the UP system would not have declared Feb. 25 as a special nonworking holiday for students, teachers, and personnel.

“[The UP admin] is afraid of Malacañang,” she said. “PUP (Polytechnic University of the Philippines) has no declaration, so the student regent is calling for the holding of classes in the streets on Feb. 25. Edsa will be the classroom.” 

According to Taguiwalo, while fewer gunshots are being fired in plain sight these days, subtle forms of martial law are being seen in schools and communities, such as the curtailment of student press freedom, the holding of symposiums where activists are branded as rebels, Red-tagging, and the commercialization of academic spaces.

These occurrences, she said, resemble human rights abuses during Marcos Sr.’s martial rule.

Raymond Aldo M. Mina, a fourth-year journalism student at Bicol University College of Arts and Letters, is an intern at CoverStory.ph.