The latest tropical depression had already exited the Philippine area of responsibility, but the rain persisted. In the morning, the weather bureau put out a thunderstorm advisory for Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon, and sure enough, it poured hard all afternoon before the skies gradually lightened on that evening of Sept. 21, the 52nd anniversary of the proclamation of martial law.

A crowd of over 200 gathered under umbrellas at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City on that wet Saturday night, the watery rush of tires along Quezon Avenue coming and going behind them as they stood before rows of candles in front of the Bantayog monument. Spearheaded by the Buhay ang Edsa Campaign network, this crowd was only one among assemblies in 23 other sites across the country—including Ilocos Sur, Laguna, Rizal, Iloilo, Davao del Sur and Basilan—where a candle-lighting ceremony was held at 7:15 p.m., to mark the exact time on Sept. 23 , 1972, that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. went live on TV and radio to announce that he had placed the entire country under martial law on Sept. 21.

The short program began with the singing of the national anthem and a prayer. There was a reading of the statement on the campaign in Filipino, “offering a candle and a minute of silence in memory of the departed heroes of our democracy,” and a collective recitation of the preamble of the 1987 Constitution led by Ging Quintos Deles of Tindig Pilipinas.

Afterwards, the crowd was urged to light the candles. They broke the wide semicircle and began lighting white candles roughly the size of shot glasses. People knelt and walked around the maze of small wax shapes, 332 of them in a curving formation; some of the candles arranged at the top of the rows read “52nd.” 

In the background rang a few protest songs, and some participants would sing along to them with fists in the air as each candle slowly glowed orange against the shiny uneven pavement, around many careful ankles.

Continuing the true story

The participants consisted of those who lived through the martial law era and those who did not. The latter, students particularly,  made up a bulk of the attendees.

Historian and professor Xiao Chua of the August Twenty One Movement took note of the crowd’s volume and found it encouraging that “we do not forget those who fought during the martial law period.”

In his speech delivered almost entirely in Filipino, Chua described teachers as “frontliners in the telling of a just, truthful, and meaningful history.”

He recalled the uprising on Feb. 22-25, 1986, that toppled the Marcos dictatorship: “We have to remember that People Power, despite being a very beautiful four days of peaceful revolution, would not be possible if it wasn’t for the 40 years of hardship, sacrifice, and blood that our heroes had given. I hope we can take care of this freedom [that we have] … While we can remember, no matter the current politics and the changing of seasons, we should not stop remembering, like we are doing now.”

‘Best metaphor for democracy’

Kiko Aquino Dee, deputy executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation and a grandson of the late Aquino couple, also said as much in his own speech that followed Chua’s. “However someone will try to dismantle and remove our democracy, and despite the fact that there will always be someone to attempt it, we need to keep being here to fight for and enrich our democracy so that all our citizens will continue to benefit from it,” he said.

It took some time to light all the candles, in part because some of the wicks had gotten wet from the earlier rain, and had to be lit again and again until they stayed aflame. In his speech, Aquino Dee likened it to the act of fighting for democracy: “What I realized about democracy, with what we did earlier when it was raining and the candles got wet, and we would light them but they would suddenly get put out, and we’d keep lighting them again, and they kept getting extinguished again—maybe that’s the best metaphor for democracy.”

“Democracy is not something that just lives without effort,” he continued in a mix of English and Filipino. “It is something that we fight for and commit to. It is held together by paper clips and chewing gum, but because democracy is the only way of life that aligns with our dignity as Filipinos and as human beings, we have to keep fighting for it.”

The candles flickered and faltered and needed repeated lighting. Nonetheless, they stayed lit for the rest of the night, even past the end of the program which closed with remarks from the former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

A fight through generations

“First and foremost, it is very true that there is a need to fight against historical revisionism,” Sereno said. “There are cases in the Supreme Court and the lower courts that document what happened to the rights of our citizens.”

Sereno raised the need to remind government officials that, according to the provision on  accountabilities in Article 11 of the Constitution, “public office is a public trust, and every public official shall be accountable to the people at all times; must serve them with utmost diligence, efficiency, and honesty, and must lead modest lives.”

“We have to ask during the [2025] elections, ‘Are you leading modest lives? Are you accountable to the people at all times? Do you understand what we were saying in the preamble that we will establish a just and humane society?’” Sereno urged the assembly. “This gathering that we have done in front of the monument of heroes that gave up their lives is a pledge of the youth and the generation that can still fight that we will help to hold officials in power to account. Why? Because we are building a nation.”

She went on to address the youth in the crowd—many of them students visibly soaked from the earlier rain but still participative during the entire event—entreating them to be mindful of their role in “ushering the healing of the older generations.”

“I do not ask that you become caregivers. Not at all,” the former chief justice said. “What I mean is, those who fought during the martial law era carry pain, and their fight for justice would be cut once they depart from this life.”

But with the young people’s presence at the commemoration, Sereno said, “it is encouraging to see that there is hope for the older generation—that what they fought for will not be forgotten, but instead will be intensified in a very creative and intelligent way that makes accountability meaningful.”

Read more: Digital martial law library launched, ‘to ensure that all Filipinos will remember’