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’

The post Martial law 52nd: Little fires in the rain appeared first on CoverStory.

Scientists would scoff and tell a completely different story. How could they believe an island would rise above the tides as a memorial to the forbidden love of a princess and a commoner, who sailed together across unforgiving seas and died—and right where they drowned would appear a mass of land shaped like a heart?

The lovers were named “Maring” and “Duke,” according to my grandfather, Lolo Oscar. He told me the tale of Marinduque when I was a child and we were sitting on his veranda overlooking the sea—I, the curious listener, and he, the old storyteller who mixed words and cigarette smoke as he spoke.

I believed everything back then, even the legends of the golden ship that cruised across the distance and mysteriously vanished into the night, and of the golden calf that grazed on the mountains and the lovely deity that protected it. I believed them all because to a six-year-old, the world had yet to lose its wonder.

My grandfather was wise, and nurtured my imagination. He could foretell bad weather coming by the sight of layang-layang in the sky, and a typhoon leaving just by the feel of torrential rain known as paragsaw. And he’d listen to the language of the winds and say from which direction they were coming and where they were heading. 

“Amihan comes from the mountains,” he muttered under his smoke-filled breath. “Habagat comes from the sea.” 

His stories strengthened my connection to this island and the sea, just like the way he raised my mother.

Life by the sea

Nanay had her own share of stories. She recalled their old nipa house on the beach, the one to which they relocated—thrice, she said—to steer clear of the habagat’s fury. She was used to switching places, even if it meant moving only a few steps or just as far as to heed the waves’ command.

Living by the sea must have been a challenging experience for her, I imagine, although nothing of her childhood indicated that it was unbearable. And this brings me to that awful day when she came home crying to Lolo Oscar because her teacher had announced a toilet inspection. (They had no such thing.) He comforted her, simply saying, “The sea is big enough for us. What else do we need for a toilet?” 

I don’t recall Nanay ever finishing that story. But I remember how its missing parts were filled instead with jokes and laughter and some spilled food on the dinner table. We found the story funny, especially when Nanay recounted her toilet-free days under the big old pandan tree, when she’d sneak into a hollow space between the stilted roots. She’d take cover behind the palm-like foliage and wait for the right moment to pee or poo. 

The sea was only a sprint away, and the water never ran out. It was as convenient as having a real toilet, I thought. 

The sea was a very special place in my mother’s upbringing, as well as in mine. I remember playing by the beach with my friends in the afternoon. We collected shells and dug out sand crabs, chanting “Tipas, tipas!” and cheering for the crabs to emerge from their burrows. We chased the small waves and waited for the big ones to chase us. We made balls and built miniature igloos out of sand, and polished them with sprinkles of seawater and grit. We played hide-and-seek under the pandan tree. (It stank, but was a perfect hiding place.) And then, after sunset, when all the fun had ended, we dashed home. 

Delight and fear

My childhood in the late 1990s was delightful. But there was also fear. Word spread about the aswang, the man-eating creature that lurked at night and turned into a dog, or pig, by morning. There also came stories about the white van that roamed the town to snatch kids and kill them for their blood, to build bridges. 

There was one other frightening thing about the island that elders refused to tell children about.

“One day, Marinduque will sink,” I heard the elders talking worriedly. They kept mentioning a name: “Marcopper.” It sounded strange; I knew it was something bad by the way people spoke of it, the deadly kind of bad, more fearsome than the aswang and the white van. 

On the eve of March 23, 1996—when I was still too young to tell the time, or what day it was—a disaster awakened our island to unmitigated horror. One of Marcopper’s drainage tunnels burst open and tons of mine tailings spilled out of the dam. The toxic wastewater surged through the Boac River and down to the shallow sea, killing everything along its serpentine trail. Crops, fish, and livestock all yielded to the toxic and turbulent flood. 

At daybreak, the villagers helplessly watched and wept as their rice fields crumbled in silt and mud and tailings before turning into desolate terrain. 

Residents near the Boac River were forced to flee their homes, but the poison hunted them down. The toxic chemicals that leaked into the water system reached their bloodstreams. Cancer and other deadly diseases became prevalent and while they were grappling with mortality, the villagers took their struggle to the streets and the courtrooms, seeking justice. 

The Marcopper mining disaster of 1996 changed Marinduque from an island paradise to a living hell.

I was a child when the horror occurred. And in my little world, Marcopper did not exist. Only years later, probably when I was in high school, did I learn about Marcopper and its bloody past. I learned, too, that, unlike the aswang and the white van that had scared me, Marcopper was real. Marcopper took away lives, and its victims suffered slow and painful death. 

“NO TO MINING!” the victims cried. 

I saw those words in public places as I was growing up. I heard them said in churches and schools. I noticed them on signs along sidewalks, highways and bridges. The words followed me wherever I went, like an echo. I felt them instilled deeper and deeper into my consciousness, as if telling me that for as long as I’m in Marinduque, I should never forget about Marcopper and the great destruction it brought to the island and our people.  

‘Where exactly is Marinduque?’

I left for college 110 miles away, thinking that I could leave this narrative behind and just keep the happy memories. But the sad thoughts of home always came back. I felt like a pendulum tied to a longer string, but no matter how far the string allowed me to go, I always swung back to the same place.

“Where exactly is Marinduque?” a classmate at the university asked. “Is it in the Visayas or Mindanao?” 

“Marinduque is in Luzon. It’s an island-province three hours away from the mainland,” I told her. 

Curious, she asked: “How do you travel then?”

“From here, I ride a bus to a seaport in Quezon. Then I take a ferry. And it takes another hour and a half on a jeepney to reach my hometown.” 

“So, when do you plan to go back to, oh wait, where’s it again? Masbate? Mandaue?”

“Marinduque.”

“Right. Marinduque.”

I learned that Marinduque exists in other people’s mental maps for two reasons: One is Moriones, the festival, and the other is Marcopper, the disaster. One a blessing, the other a curse. The curse hits a nerve in me every time. Here’s a mining company that made our island world-class famous after destroying it. How can I make lighthearted conversation out of that tragic story? 

Still, it’s a conversation I could not avoid, for there is so much truth in it about my island’s history and my own. And this unpleasant path toward the truth led me to Marinduque’s northeastern shore. I traveled some 58 kilometers from my hometown Buenavista to listen to the silenced stories in Calancan Bay.

Sea and sky

The coastal waters looked wonderful that day I arrived in Calancan. I could not decide whether the sea was mimicking the sky or the sky was mirroring the sea because the bright cast of blue stretched seamlessly across the horizon. I was captivated by the sight, so much so that it distracted me from the tortuous road ahead. 

I observed that cars are rare in Calancan; the narrow roads prefer much smaller vehicles, ideally with only two or three wheels. Jeepneys are somewhat an exception, for they follow a certain trip schedule. The earliest arrival is at 8 a.m., and the last trip leaves at 1 p.m. 

I arrived on a tricycle and had no problem following the schedule. I remember that along the way, as we were passing a hillside, I asked the driver to pull over for a minute so I could have a steady view of the seascape. I saw a couple of islets and a long strip of vibrant white sand covering the coast, different from the dark gray sand I used to play in on the other side of the island when I was little. The sand here is like granulated sugar. The view looked sweet and lovely from afar, with nothing in the water suggesting danger. 

It wasn’t until I spoke to Ka Jose, a village leader, that I realized that my first glimpse of Calancan Bay was an illusion. “What you saw on the way here was not white sand, or a beach, but thick piles of mine tailings and crushed rocks from Marcopper,” he said.

Ka Jose said that in the 1970s, Marcopper built open-pit mines on Mount Tapian. It hollowed out layers of earth from the mountain. It drilled boulders and pulverized rocks and ore residue, flattening the terrain and leaving massive craters on the ground. Allegedly, Marcopper’s open-pit mines, owing to their vastness and depth, were enough to sink the island. 

It was a very scary prediction, but the real tragedy happened when Marcopper built huge tunnels and drainpipes that extended 14 km from Mount Tapian to the surface water of Calancan Bay, which soon became a dumping ground for its toxic wastes. 

The villagers protested. They organized civil groups and held rallies to condemn Marcopper for the damage it caused to Calancan Bay and their livelihood. Ka Jose was at the picket line with his fellow fishers. But their protests meant nothing to Marcopper. Even the government at that time was unmoved. The mining disposal continued.

The story goes that because Marcopper had no intention of pulling out, it pressured the villagers to relocate to the mountain so that its operations could proceed unhindered. The villagers refused. They went to the Capitol and formed human barricades to show their defiance. But they failed. They lost their stake in Calancan Bay without receiving anything in exchange from Marcopper (except for the mine tailings). The villagers have a word for the tailings: tambak.

Tambak was a causeway, but the fishers liked to name it by many expletives. It clogged the mouth of the bay and blocked off the fish coming from the sea. Thus, the landlocked fishers were left with no option: Either they starved in the bay, scrimping for very little fish, or took the dangerous route through an alternative passage where the catch was bigger, but so were the waves. The latter was a wise choice on calmer days, but the days in Calancan Bay are very, very unpredictable. 

Luningning

One morning before dawn, Luningning, a woman I met in Calancan, went fishing with her husband. They rented a motorboat, for they could not afford to own one, and headed to the open sea. The waves were peaceful when they left. But as they moved farther from the shore, big waves started slapping their rented motorboat. As they tried to escape the strong current, the engine stopped. 

It could have been their last time fishing together but, thankfully, they managed to return safely home, where their son was waiting.

Luningning’s life has always revolved around the sea. There have been many sacrifices, she told me, because living at sea meant forever being at the mercy of the weather and the tide. And now that she has a family of her own, with three children and a husband who is also a fisherman, she feels that there is nothing she can do to change the orbit of her fate. 

“It is hard for a mother whose basic livelihood depends on the sea,” she said. “It’s really hard, especially if the sea is our only hope. We went fishing one day and wished for a bountiful catch, but there was nothing.” 

I listened to Luningning as she talked about her suffering. It was of the visceral kind that her eyes and lips could not conceal. It pained her to see her family subsisting on tuyo (dried fish). And it pained her more to reheat the fish with more vinegar just to delay spoilage and ensure more meals, though meager. There’s nothing more painful than this: being fishers and having no fresh fish on the table. 

I reflected on Luningning’s name—which means “brilliance”—and concluded that it is the heavy irony she carries during dark days at sea.

Fishing sanctuary

Calancan Bay was once a place of brilliance, too, just before Marcopper came. The elders remember it as a fishing sanctuary brimming with spider fish, sea clams, and yellowstripe scads, as well as seagrasses and coral reefs, blessed with clean water and smooth tides. Life was so much better in the old days, they say. 

But when mining came, the bay lost its brilliance and vitality. The spider fish, sea clams, and yellowstripe scads were contaminated with heavy metals and died. The seagrasses and coral reefs were smothered in tailings and vanished. Soon, the water was not clean anymore, and the tide became harsh and violent. The Calancan Bay of more than half a century ago became a myth. 

And perhaps the children born here in the 1990s came too late to see and remember the bay before it became a cautionary tale about Marcopper and the dangers of a mine-spilled sea.

I wish Marcopper were the myth, but the facts prove otherwise.

FVR’s report

The sender logs “20 September 1980.” And the header reads “Philippine Constabulary Integrated National Police, Camp Crame.” It is Maj. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos writing to the National Pollution Control Commission (NPCC) chair, Brig. Gen. Guillermo A. Pecache. The letter is about the state of deterioration and destruction of the coral reefs in Calancan Bay. 

In his message, Ramos tells Pecache: “Initial investigation disclosed that the mine tailings have already taken its toll in the bay and have caused continuous siltation of the reef… The marine life which was once abundant within the areas is nowhere to be found.”¹ 

The report from Ramos was alarming, but Pecache saw no urgency to stop Marcopper. It was only a year later, after another round of local protests flared, that the national government issued a cease-and-desist order on the mining disposal.

But Marcopper’s closure in 1981 was a short-lived victory for the people of Calancan Bay because the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. approved the resumption of Marcopper’s mining operations following the appeal of its president, Garth S. Jones.

Per documents, Jones asked Marcos to allow Marcopper’s open surface mine tailings disposal without constraints.² It’s alleged that Marcos was a part-owner of Marcopper, sharing half of its holdings with the foreign company Placer Development Ltd. A month after the request, a court petition stated that Marcos had instructed the NPCC to issue a temporary permit to Marcopper effective from Oct. 31, 1985, to Oct. 21, 1986.³ But come termination day, the NPCC released yet another temporary permit prolonging Marcopper’s tailings disposal in Calancan Bay until Feb. 10, 1987, with the appended condition that Marcopper should soon transfer to San Antonio Pond, the new open-pit mine the company was building at the time. 

Marcopper, however, appealed again to the NPCC and requested sufficient extension for operations and an indefinite suspension of the conditions stated under the new temporary permit order.

Martial law 

I paused while reading the documents and noted the dates (between 1980 and 1986). Yes, the events took place under martial law. 

I wasn’t born yet when martial law was declared in the Philippines in September 1972, or when Marcopper started mining in Marinduque. And almost everything I know about martial law, I learned from books, films, and lectures. I say “almost” because I also learned a few (contrasting) things about it from my grandfather. He said Marinduque was a peaceful place during martial law, and that the streets were dead silent beyond midnight. He liked the imposition of curfew and praised Marcos for it.

Lolo Oscar believed Marcos was a great president. If I were still a child I would have believed him, the way I believed his tales of how Marinduque came to be. But I’m no longer a child; I have decoded the stories. Marinduque was not a peaceful place during martial law. People protested on the ground, but Marcos did not stop Marcopper from destroying our island. He allowed Marcopper’s mining disposal in Calancan Bay, which lasted for 16 years—from 1975 to 1991—partly under his dictatorship. 

And in those 16 years, Marcopper savagely used Calancan Bay as a toilet, flushing out, not piss and poop, but mine tailings dangerously high in arsenic and mercury: dirty and deadly.

I have seen the old pipes used in flushing out the tailings—much bigger than me and so much older, too, but decaying now, with rust and brine eating at the metal tubes that carried the toxic debris from the open-pit mine down to the bay.

The pipes have been untouched since Marcopper abandoned them decades ago. But while I was walking along the bay, on its toxin-laden coast, Marcopper was still present. I felt it in the eerie reddish glow of the oxidized metal tubes, the simmering heat of the tailings beneath my feet, and the lonely stretch of the shore. I realized that this is Marcos’ deadly legacy to our island.

Malakas and Maganda 

My grandfather is dead now, and I wonder if I can retell this tale that begins with love and ends with death. (More deaths, eventually.)

Two lovers named Malakas and Maganda once ruled a country; he made himself a strongman, and she thrived on his power to become the most beautiful woman in the land. But they realized that strength and beauty were not enough to prove that their love was pure and true. And so they sailed the seas and traveled on bridges—and built one where there was none—to find the purest of stones and the truest of treasures. 

One day, Malakas found a heart-shaped island in the middle of the sea. And on this island, he found more precious stones and treasures. He summoned big miners from a faraway land to get the job done for him to please his wife. The miners worked day and night for many years to drill and dig and dump. They wanted to satisfy him with more treasures.

The residents raged at the big miners: “STOP MINING!” But the big miners were unfazed and kept drilling and digging and dumping. 

Then, a bleak prophecy: The island will sink and many people will die. The big miners from a faraway land did not believe the prophecy, nor did Malakas and Maganda. But one peaceful night while the people were asleep, a heavy flood submerged their land. Many thought the prophecy had been fulfilled. 

They were wrong. The flood was only a prelude. The real prophecy would reveal itself to them with loud, angry tremors on the ground to welcome the son of Malakas. It is said that he will fulfill the prophecy, according to his late father’s will, to awaken the sleeping mining giant that will sink the island into the sea.

¹ A letter of Fidel V. Ramos to Guillermo A. Pecache signed on Sept. 20, 1980 (para. 2).

² A letter of request from Garth S. Jones to Ferdinand Marcos Sr. signed on Dec. 22, 1981. Marcos approved it on Jan. 27, 1982.

³ Republic of the Philippines, represented by the Pollution Adjudication Board (DENR), Petitioner, v. Marcopper Mining Corporation, Respondent. G.R. No. 137174 (July 10, 2000) (Phil.), https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/-
thebookshelf/showdocs/1/52007

Read more: Chopping down trees in India, then compensating for them—but at whose cost?

The post My island of Marinduque is a bleeding heart appeared first on CoverStory.

The possibilities are endless when you visit the Ateneo Martial Law Library and Museum (library.martiallawmuseum.ph), a digital archive of documentary, literary and visual records and other resources on martial law. 

A collaborative project of the Ateneo de Manila University, the Rizal Library and the University of Hawaii, the digital library was launched on April 8 at the Rizal Library on the Ateneo campus. 

“By creating the digital library and archive, we hope to ensure that all Filipinos will remember the atrocities of the past and never forget the horrors of the Marcos dictatorship, so that the youth of today especially will not allow these adversities to happen again,” Maria Luz Vilches, Ateneo vice president for higher education, said at the launch that was also livestreamed on Zoom.  

Treasure trove

It’s a navigable library that offers a treasure trove of materials, divided into primary sources (diaries, testimonies and journals, government documents, memoirs, newspaper articles), secondary sources (biographies, books, essays), and art, literature, films and photography. 

By making the digitized materials available to all, the digital library seeks to preserve history, and make the younger generation of Filipinos “understand and learn from the experiences’’ of that dark period in history, Vilches said, adding:    

“ … [A]nd no better time than today should we insist on raising awareness given a rising tide of political authoritarianism around the globe.” 

At least 3,240 people were killed by the military and police out of the 107,240 victims of human rights violations during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. that saw the first family amassing $5 billion in ill-gotten wealth on top of $683 million in assets stashed in Swiss banks, the library noted in its summary of the Marcos legacy.

Two professors, a university librarian and a web developer conceptualized the digital library at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 out of a sheer need for a “searchable one-stop archive’’ of primary sources on martial law. 

“I teach about the martial law period, and I always wanted to teach with primary source documents, and then I remember thinking: ‘How can I find out about these different documents about martial law?” Vina Lanzona, associate professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, said during the roundtable discussion.

“So I Googled … Proclamation 1081, and all the documents related to the period itself, and I thought, ‘Why can’t we have a website where we can access all this information about martial law, and …. these different types of resources, right?” she said.

And that’s how the idea of a digital library began. 

Lanzona next contacted her friend, Vernon Totanes, then a director at the Rizal Library, who in turn linked her up with Miguel Paolo Rivera, past immediate coordinator of the Martial Law Museum and Library. It was Liezl Cabrera, a partner at Dapat Studio, who developed the website.  

Logical follow-up

“Putting up a martial law online was the most logical follow-up to having a martial law museum. That’s why I thought of connecting Vina with Migs,” said Totanes, now university librarian at Ateneo. 

Rivera, a lecturer at Ateneo’s Department of Political Science, said: “This idea of a library is something that people have mentioned, but they couldn’t seem to do it. So we just decided, why not go against the odds and do it?”

The presidential election as well as the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in 2022 loomed on the horizon, making the idea “urgent and relevant,” according to Lanzona.  

“As both historian and educator, it was really important to me to ensure accurately depicting martial law, because it wasn’t something that was fictional,” she said. 

Both Lanzona and Rivera spoke through Zoom, while Totanes spoke on stage at the Rizal Library during the forum.  

Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s landslide victory in the May 2022 presidential vote sent authors into a frenzy of scanning their books on martial law, for obvious reasons.  

“All of a sudden, many people were worried about their books,” Totanes said, chuckling. “I was getting all sorts of emails, and, you know, offers to digitize books and documents, and preserve them in the Rizal Library. And I was actually having secret meetings, but I could not tell anyone because just in case, we didn’t want anyone else to know that these papers were in the Rizal Library. I don’t know if I should be saying that now.” 

He added: “But part of it also was, some people became ‘scanning happy’—they were scanning entire books and making these available in Google drives. Are there lawyers in the house? But I was the one saying, ‘No, no, we can’t do that’!” 

With the permission of copyright owners, some books can be read in full. But for the rest, only the first chapters can be accessed. 

The memoirs, autobiographies, novels, collections of poems, essays on martial law—the whole gamut—are a rare find even for non-students of history, and so are the rest of the documents, videos, films, and documentaries.

The digital library had its initial launch in September 2022 as part of Ateneo’s “awareness-raising campaign” on the declaration of martial law. 

Aquino Foundation

Francis “Kiko” Aquino Dee, deputy executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, said the launch of the digital Martial Law Library is “a big help to the work of the Aquino Foundation in particular, as it makes many of the primary sources that talk about our country’s journey back towards democracy, which is central to the stories of Ninoy and Cory, readily available.” 

“For the country as a whole, I hope that Filipinos, especially those who are more internet-savvy, can use this resource as we form our beliefs about our history and our current situation,” Dee said.   

The original idea of a digital museum on martial law at the university was broached by Erwin Tiongson, an Ateneo alumnus and a former senior economist at the World Bank, who was outraged by the “surreptitiously organized’’ burial of strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Nov. 18, 2016, according to Vilches. 

“ … [W]e can demonstrate, we can lash out in anger, but we should also truly make sure that no one ever forgets about martial law,’’ Vilches quoted Tiongson as saying in an email he sent her immediately after Marcos’ burial.  
Dr. Mark Sanchez at Vanderbilt University and Lila Ramos-Shahani of the International Council of Monuments and Sites also delivered presentations during the launch. With a report from Minerva Generalao

Read more: Project Gunita et al.: ‘The truth will outshine the lies’

The post Digital martial law library launched, ‘to ensure that all Filipinos will remember’ appeared first on CoverStory.

On April 2, some of these families gathered at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani grounds in Quezon City to share their stories and the progress—or lack of it—in the search for their beloved desaparecidos (the disappeared).  

The filmmaker JL Burgos said he and other family members could not celebrate the birthday of his “Kuya Jay” because it fell on Good Friday. Kuya Jay is Jonas Burgos, the third child of the late press freedom icon Joe Burgos and his wife Edith; he turned 54 on March 29. 

Jonas Burgos, a farmer and activist, went missing on April 28, 2007, after being abducted by a group of men from a mall in Quezon City. Witnesses said the last words he was heard saying before being taken away were: “Aktibista lang po ako” (I’m just an activist).”

The Court of Appeals, in a resolution issued on March 17, 2013, categorically held one Harry Baliaga Jr. and the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its elements, particularly the Army, as responsible and accountable, respectively, for the abduction of Jonas Burgos. This resolution was upheld by the Supreme Court on Feb. 2, 2014. 

2,078 documented cases

In June 2023, the group FIND (or the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance) said there were 2,078 documented cases of enforced disappearance since the imposition of martial law in the Philippines. Of these desaparecidos, 1,165 are still missing and 280 have been found dead, FIND said. 

The Philippines has the highest number of enforced disappearances in Southeast Asia, Satur Ocampo, a former lawmaker and journalist, wrote in his column in the Philippine Star, citing a 2021 United Nations report. 

On the same day of Jonas Burgos’ abduction 16 years later, Dexter Capuyan and Gene Roz Jamil “Bazoo” de Jesus, two activists working with indigenous peoples, were forcibly taken in Taytay, Rizal, by men who reportedly claimed to be members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police. Nothing has been heard from them since. The police have neither confirmed nor denied the abduction.

Prior to their disappearance, Capuyan was a suspected leader of the communist New People’s Army, and was wanted on charges of murder and frustrated murder. He had a bounty of P2.85 million on his head. De Jesus was facing charges in the province of Ifugao and other areas in the Cordillera. 

‘Sunset Gathering’

On April 2 at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani grounds, it was beginning to get dark when the program started—quite apt for the event called a “Sunset Gathering.”  Lanterns were brought to the stage by members of the families to illuminate the photographs of their missing kin. 

The singer Bayang Barrios rendered a soulful cover of Joey Ayala’s “Awit ng Mortal,” and set the tone. 

The playwright Bonifacio Ilagan, whose sister Rizalina was arrested along with nine other student activists in July 1977 and has not been seen since, waxed poetic in his opening statement. 

“We may not see the setting sun where we are right now, but we are aware of the darkness that slowly envelops us. And yet, together we know that tomorrow the light will return,” Ilagan, himself a former detainee, said in Filipino. 

He spoke slowly, articulating what must have been in the mind of those gathered: “We cannot stop at simply remembering. The best tribute is to continue to seek justice and carry on the struggle for which they fought and died.” 

Mariegay Portajada, daughter of a labor leader missing since 1987, was categorical in saying that she cannot find it in her heart to forgive those behind her father’s disappearance: “Walang kapatawaran sa puso ko.”  

Edith Burgos, now 80, narrated a dream she had of her husband Joe. In the dream, she said, their children were rushing to the sea, disturbing Joe’s contemplation. When he asked them why the rush, the children said they were trying to catch the sun. She said this was what Joe told their children: “The best way to catch the light is to turn your back and face the darkness.”  

As she thanked those present, Edith Burgos said: “We have faced the darkness, and we are now glimmers of light to each other.” 

Then torches were lit as the families chanted their longtime demand: “Surface the disappeared!”

Read more: Project Gunita et al.: ‘The truth will outshine the lies’

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“President Marcos has yet again tried to lie his way out of questions concerning his family’s brutal dictatorship and its legacy. He even laughed at the question about his family’s plunder of Philippine wealth, in effect insulting the impoverished Filipino people,” they said in a joint public statement.

“We ask the same question to [him]: What was so funny about it?” they said, referring to the question of his interviewer, ABC anchor Sarah Ferguson—“May I just ask you why that’s funny?”—when he laughed in response to her query: “I think contemporary court judgments acknowledge the atrocities that were committed, but also the plunder of the country’s resources. Why wouldn’t you want all of that money back in the hands of the Filipino people?”   

The President flew home from that visit to Australia—his first of two this month—with Malacanang announcing that he had clinched some $1.53 billion worth of investments on top of strengthening ties with the Philippines’ economic and defense ally in the Indo-Pacific region. 

When he arrived at the Australian Parliament to deliver a speech, he was greeted by a pocket protest clamoring for justice for human rights abuses, with Sen. Jordon Steele-John joining the demonstrators. Inside, Sen. Janet Rice flashed a poster that read “Stop the human rights abuses” before she was escorted out.  

‘Different’

In the interview with Ferguson, Mr. Marcos defended his father’s regime, describing it as a “different sort of authoritarian rule’’ that fostered the “participation of all stakeholders.”

Project Gunita and the other signatories refuted this and said the ratification of the 1973 Constitution during Marcos Sr.’s watch was “bogus.”

They said it was ratified through “fake” citizens’ assemblies in which the people were asked the single question of whether they wanted rice. Also, they said, delegates to the constitutional convention who proposed a ban on a third term for Marcos Sr. were “jailed” and the rest were “threatened to play ball—or else.”

Besides, they added, the Supreme Court was “shackled,” with then Chief Justice Enrique Fernando “affirming the legal scaffolding of the dictatorship” in court decisions. 

Congress was shut down in 1972, they pointed out.

Project Gunita and the other signatories said protesters against fraud in the Interim Batasang Pambansa elections in 1978 were jailed, and voters who boycotted the “fraudulent” presidential election in 1981 ended up being “picked up” or “murdered.”

They bristled at Mr. Marcos’ claim that the peace and order situation “really dictated the necessity for the declaration of martial law.”

They said Marcos Sr. had been “flirting with the idea” of declaring martial law since 1970, “even under false pretext to perpetuate himself in power.”

“Lest we forget, the very ambush on Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile on Sept. 22, 1972 was fake. Mr. Enrile himself admitted this during the 1986 Edsa uprising,” they said, referring to the bloodless people’s revolt that ousted Marcos Sr. and catapulted Corazon Aquino to the presidency.  

They said that had the revolt not happened, the strongman and then Armed Forces chief Gen. Fabian Ver would have gone ahead with “Oplan Everlasting” that entailed Marcos Sr. inaugurating a fourth term, reimposing martial law, and ordering the roundup of members of the opposition, journalists and activists for eventual detention on Caballo Island.

“Was this the ‘peace and order’ problem that his son describes?” they said.

‘Fictitious’

Responding to the President’s claim that “wars were declared on the government” during his father’s watch, Project Gunita and the other signatories said the dictator wove a “fictitious tale of a ‘left-and-right conspiracy’ to justify martial law.”

“Martial law was a war by the Marcos dictatorship against the Filipino people,” they said. 

They named engineering student Archimedes Trajano, Arsenio “Archie” Toribio and Luis “Boyet” Mijares (a son of former Marcos Sr. aide Primitivo Mijares, who wrote “The Conjugal Dictatorship”) as among the thousands killed during martial law.

Project Gunita and the other signatories debunked Mr. Marcos’ assertion that the cases of ill-gotten wealth filed against members of the Marcos family were “shown to be untrue.”

They cited five court rulings against the Marcoses—including one as recent as 2018 when the antigraft court Sandiganbayan found former first lady Imelda Marcos guilty of seven counts of graft involving $200 million in Swiss bank deposits. 

From 1986 to 2021, the Presidential Commission on Good Government recovered P174 billion worth of ill-gotten wealth, consisting of paintings, jewelry and bank deposits accumulated by the Marcoses, they said.

They pointed out that contrary to Mr. Marcos’ claim that everything was taken from them, the strongman and his family brought nearly $1 billion in assets to Hawaii in 1986. The government has yet to recover P125 billion more from the “stolen Marcos loot,” they said.

“The world knows—and remembers—what truly happened. Many Filipinos still remember the dark memories of the 20-year Marcos dictatorship. The struggle against historical distortion may be an uphill battle when the dictator’s son sits in Malacañang, but the truth will outshine the lies of the second Marcos regime,” they said. 

Apart from Project Gunita and 35 other organizations, the statement was also signed by Loretta Ann Rosales, Teddy Casiño, Carlos Isagani Zarate, Neri Colmenares, Satur Ocampo, Vergel Santos, Fr. Robert Reyes, Aurora Parong, Xiao Chua, Luke Espiritu, Sr. Ma. Liza Ruedas and Rev. Gerardo Alminaza, among many others.

The post Project Gunita et al.: ‘The truth will outshine the lies’ appeared first on CoverStory.

The historic 1986 Edsa People Power Revolt was commemorated yesterday, Feb. 25, by the BuhayAngEdsa Campaign Network with three distinct events celebrating democracy and solidarity. 

‘Edsa Freedom Ride’

In the early morning, over 100 cyclists, skaters, and joggers converged on Ayala Avenue in Makati City for an “Edsa Freedom Ride.” The event was organized by Akbayan Party together with the Siklista Pilipino, Pilipinas Riders, Makati Villages Council, Cycling Buddies, Pio4Leni, Skaters for Leni, Kalye Serye Mandaluyong, Akbayan Youth, Youth Resist, The Youth Alliance Against Charter Change (Tayo Against Cha-Cha), and Student Council Alliance of the Philippines.

Former senator Rene Saguisag and Francis Aquino Dee, deputy executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF) and grandson of the democracy icons in whose honor the foundation is named, were among those who saw off the cyclists, skaters and joggers. 

‘The Edsa Story’

Later in the morning in San Juan City, “The Edsa Story: A People’s Victory, A Nation’s Glory,” a multimedia storytelling event about the Filipino people’s fight for freedom and democracy, was held at Club Filipino’s Kalayaan Hall.

It was in that venue where opposition leader Cory Aquino took her oath as president after defeating the strongman Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 “snap” presidential election. A video of her oathtaking was the high point of the show. 

Directed by Floy Quintos, “The Edsa Story” featured artists Edru Abraham and Kontra Gapi, Bayang Barrios, Jaime Fabregas, Arman Ferrer, Jep Go, Ateneo Entablado, Xiao Chua, Macoy Dubs, and Mighty Magulang.

The special guests included framers of the 1987 Constitution, veterans of the Edsa revolt, and members of the respective Cabinets of the late Presidents Cory Aquino and Noynoy Aquino. 

Also present were former senator Leila de Lima and human rights lawyer Chel Diokno. 

Videos of the revolt as well as man-on-the-street interviews on how Filipinos remember Edsa, courtesy of Probe Archives, provided additional context to the show.

‘#EdsaKahitSaan Concert’

The #EDSAKahitSaan Concert kicked off at 7 p.m. at the People Power Monument along White Plains Avenue., taking the audience back to the historic four days of the bloodless revolt. The highlight was at 9:05 p.m., the exact time Marcos and his family fled Malacañang, marking the end of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in the country.

The concert was directed by Leo Rialp and produced by the NCAF, Buhay ang Edsa Campaign Network, and Barangay Artists 4 Edsa.

The performers were Anthony Rosaldo, Bayang Barrios, Bituin Escalante, Bo Cerrudo, Bodjie Pascua, Bree, Bullet Dumas, Buskers from the Busking Community PH, Elijah Canlas, Elmo and Arkin Magalona, Everywoman, Jaime Fabregas, Joel Saracho, Kathleen Quinto, Leah Navarro, Leo Martinez, Lyndon Malapad, Martin Riggs, Mass Appeal, Mitch Valdes, Nica del Rosario, SOS, Teatro Tao sa Tao, and The Company. 

“These activities are not just about commemorating the past,” said Francis Aquino Dee. “They are about rekindling the spirit of unity and democracy that defined the People Power Revolution. It is a testament to the enduring legacy of Edsa amid efforts by those who want to undermine it by self-serving attempts to revise our Constitution.”

Read more: ‘Relive Edsa, Junk Cha-cha’ is the rallying cry

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Editor’s Note: To mark the 38^th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolt that toppled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and brought the Philippines back to the league of democratic nations, human rights activist Ed Garcia remembers three friends whose lives were snuffed out in their youth and who continue to serve as inspiration.   

We belonged to the generation of the “First Quarter Storm” or FQS, and our intertwined lives were disrupted or cut short during martial law. Both as friend and companion in shared dreams, I remember and honor their memory.  

Manny Yap 

Among the young who I knew and who participated in the prolonged protests of the 1970s, Manny Yap stood out as one of the brightest and most committed to the cause of pushing back against an encroaching dictatorship. 

Manny joined Lakasdiwa, a militant nonviolent organization, and was tasked with helping in the political formation of its new members. He was then just beginning college, and demonstrated maturity beyond his years.

The declaration of martial law in September 1972 radicalized Manny, who combined further studies at the University of the Philippines School of Economics with underground work in efforts to broaden the antidictatorship network.  

On Valentine’s Day 1976, Manny shared a meal with his family and asked his parents to get him a bouquet of red roses for a friend with whom he had dined the night before. He never got to hold the roses in his hands, for soon after his father left him at a street corner near their home, he was abducted by a military contingent led by a colonel of the Philippine Constabulary.  

Two days later, his father received a call that Manny had been detained by the military.  Devastated, his mother searched for him in military camps, to no avail.  Years later, a note sent from prison to his family described the torture including the electrocution inflicted on Manny, which caused his death, after which his remains were thrown into a water well in an undisclosed location.  

We will never forget!

Edjop

In January 1970, National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) president Edgardo “Edjop” Jopson led the rally in front of Congress where then President Ferdinand Marcos was delivering his State of the Nation Address.  

The rally was held to call for a nonpartisan constituent assembly insulated from the influence of traditional politicians, and had broad support. Tension arose as Marcos left Congress and protesters and police clashed. Truncheons wielded by the police resulted in bloodied heads, which catalyzed the beginning of the First Quarter Storm.

Within days Edjop was summoned by the President to the Palace. Edjop asked him to sign a pledge not to seek another term. The demand angered Marcos, who responded to the perceived insolence of the interlocutor across the table by calling him a “mere grocer’s son.”

On Feb. 17, 1970, the anniversary of the execution of the priests Gomez, Burgos and Zamora that triggered the 1896 Philippine Revolution against the Spanish colonizers, a discussion was held on the formation of an organization dedicated to civil disobedience and nonviolent struggle. The meeting was held in one of the classrooms of the Ateneo de Manila’s Loyola House of Studies.

I asked Edjop to lead the organization. But he demurred, saying he was too occupied with the tasks required by the NUSP.  It thus fell on me to take on Lakasdiwa by default though I felt ill-prepared because I was just then beginning my studies in theology.   

Soon after his graduation from Ateneo with a degree in management engineering, cum laude, Edjop worked with labor unions and was involved in the first ever workers’ strike during the early years of martial law.  

He had decided to go underground, but he was arrested, detained, and tortured. He managed to escape in 1979; he wrote an account of his ordeal and identified his torturers.  

With a bounty on his head, Edjop was captured alive in Davao on Sept. 20, 1982.  He suffered eight gunshot wounds, and was interrogated.  Because he refused to cooperate with his military captors, he was killed and is now forever remembered as one of the heroes of our people’s struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.

Evelio Javier

How can I not remember Evelio Javier?  

Starting from my grade school years I knew his first cousins Ramon and Expedito, who were my classmates.  Then studying in San Jose, Antique, Evelio transferred to Ateneo and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and government, after which he went to law school and passed the bar in 1968.  He went back to teach law at his alma mater.

In 1971, with no experience at all in electoral politics, Evelio decided to run for governor of Antique.  He invited me to campaign with him throughout his home province, focusing on the young people, particularly the youth in schools.  I cannot forget those sorties for they were joyous occasions where he spoke and laughed with his people, and truly connected with his constituents.  

He was an attractive political figure, representing a different brand of politics and articulating a message of hope for his faraway province that had always remained forgotten and poor. (I have experienced two absolutely joyous political campaigns—that of Evelio and, 50 years later, that of presidential candidate Leni Robredo.)  

Elected governor at the age of 28 with the widest winning margin in the history of Antique, Evelio became the Philippines’ youngest governor in 1971.  After serving for two terms, he pursued studies in public administration at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

When Marcos called for a “snap” presidential election early in 1986, Evelio decided to join Cory Aquino’s campaign and took on the responsibility of watching the conduct of the polls in Antique. On. Feb. 11, 1986, while he was talking with voters in the public square, men wearing ski masks and carrying long guns arrived and began shooting. He tried to run to safety but the men riddled his body with bullets, killing him. He sustained 28 gunshot wounds.  

Evelio’s remains were brought to the Ateneo football grounds. During a requiem Mass offered in his honor, a message from Cardinal Jaime Sin was read, urging the people to join a nonviolent struggle for justice.  I recall that day vividly on the football grounds called the “Erenchum Field,” where I played varsity football years before.  

A few days later, on Feb. 22, 1986, people from all walks of life started to assemble on a stretch of highway that separated two military camps, signaling the beginning of the end of the Marcos dictatorship.  

Today we remember Feb. 25, 1986, as the triumph of people power.

Our duty as citizens

But we cannot forget this truth: The young people killed by the dictatorship were never fully buried; they are seeds that give life and hope as they continue to inspire our young to stand on their shoulders. 

As we give thanks for the sacrifice of their lives, we can draw strength from their courage.  Our duty as citizens is to remember, to never forget.  

Ed Garcia is one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution.

Read more: ‘Relive Edsa, Junk Cha-cha’ is the rallying cry

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Delisting the February 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution as a national holiday is bad enough; attempting to tinker yet again with its “legacy,” the 1987 Constitution, to push the interests of politicians is even worse.  

Moved by that common stand, dozens of civil society groups have banded together to resist any mode of Charter change under the Marcos administration and celebrate the gains of the bloodless people’s revolt that toppled the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and catapulted Corazon “Cory” Aquino to the presidency. The Constitution is now being threatened by a “fake’’ people’s initiative to amend it, the coalition said.

“[We] celebrate Edsa, and as a sign of that celebration, we make formal our stand that we will defend its gains, a major foundation of which is the 1987 Constitution,’’ Teresita “Ging’’ Deles said at the launch of the #BuhayAngEdsa Campaign Network on Monday morning at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani auditorium in Quezon City.

“I see a real hunger of people to want to be able to make a stand together with others,’’ added Deles, the convenor of Tindig Pilipinas. 

For starters, the network is rallying Filipinos to join a “National Day of Prayer and Action’’ at the Edsa Shrine on Feb. 23 to commemorate the 38^th anniversary of the revolt and to make known their opposition to Charter change (Cha-cha).   

“We’re inviting people to come,” Francis “Kiko” Dee, deputy executive director of the Ninoy Aquino and Cory Aquino Foundation, told CoverStory.ph. “A lot of people are looking for a space to express their sentiment against Cha-cha, their indignation at what’s being done to Edsa.’’ 

This activity will be followed by a “freedom ride’’ by bikers, skaters and joggers on Ayala Avenue, Makati City, and a retelling of Cory Aquino’s oath-taking as president at Club Filipino in San Juan on the morning of Feb. 25. 

In the evening, a concert dubbed “EdsaKahitSaan” will be mounted at a venue yet to be announced and will culminate in a countdown to 9:05 p.m., the exact time the dictator Marcos Sr. and his family fled Malacanang.  

‘Height of unity’ vs oppression

The convenors described the 1986 revolt as the “height of Filipinos’ unity” against oppression by the Marcos regime, and vowed to oppose any means to rewrite its “legacy,’’ the 1987 Constitution, on the watch of the dictator’s son, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. 

“In the face of the nation’s pressing problems, Charter change initiatives are divisive, wasteful and unnecessary,” they said in a joint statement. 

Lawyer Chel Diokno, son of then senator Jose W. Diokno who was among those imprisoned during martial law, recalled that Marcos Sr. ditched the 1935 Constitution in favor of the 1973 Constitution to perpetuate himself in power. 

“Forty-one years later, here comes Cha-cha again. They want to set aside the 1987 Constitution to push their own political agenda and personal interest,’’ Diokno said. 

“The Constitution is the heart of our law, and the soul of our democracy. No one, whether they are for or against Charter change, must be allowed to exploit the Constitution to serve their political interest and agenda,’’ he added. 

Certain post-Edsa administrations also toyed with the idea of rewriting the Charter, but none prospered in the face of fierce opposition from the public that was distrustful of the proponents in Malacañang and Congress. 

‘Driven by personal interest’  

Akbayan president Rafaela David said claims that only the restrictive economic provisions would be amended could be a ruse to tinker with other provisions. Any amendment, she said, could open the floodgates for other amendments. 

“This is driven by personal interest,’’ David added. “Worse, it has also become a battleground for squabbles among different political factions.”

Diokno of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation wondered: “Can they use a people’s initiative if it didn’t come from the people? What has come out in Senate hearings is that politics is behind this.’’

The House of Representatives-backed campaign to gather signatures for a petition for a people’s initiative to amend the Constitution appears to have petered out. 

In an ongoing inquiry, senators have found the process to be riddled with irregularities. 

The animosity reached fever pitch when Sen. Imee Marcos, chair of the Senate’s electoral reforms committee, accused House Speaker Martin Romualdez, her first cousin, of dangling P20 million to each congressman to coax them to collect the signatures. The Speaker denied this. 

The Commission on Elections has halted its proceedings on the people’s initiative amid the Senate-House squabble, stressing the need to put in more regulations to avoid confusion of the law. 

Deles, a former presidential adviser on the peace process, raised the need for continuing public vigilance given that, she said, Charter change proponents might not stop with the “people’s initiative.” She expressed confidence that other groups would question the matter at the Supreme Court at the right time.  

She said certain politicians “will always find a way to stay in power.’’  

Platform for affirmation

According to Deles, President Marcos Jr.s’ Proclamation No. 368 excluding the 1986 Edsa revolt from the list of national holidays this year brought people’s organizations, NGOs, political parties and artists’ groups together to launch the network. 

The first goal is “to put the Edsa celebration back where it belongs, and give people a platform to affirm the true events and their meaning to our lives,’’  she said.

Dee, a grandson of Cory Aquino and the slain former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., called on Filipinos to organize their own activities, such as “yellow-ribboning, ‘lugawan’ and story-telling’’ in commemorating the 1986 demonstration of people power.

He was recalling the yellow ribbons that adorned trees, posts, and cars as welcome symbols for Ninoy Aquino who was flying home from exile on Aug. 21, 1983, to join the fight against the Marcos dictatorship, and who was assassinated upon landing at the then Manila International Airport.

Yellow ribbons and confetti eventually became symbols of opposition that helped bring Cory Aquino to power.

Read more: Detention, ‘town arrest’ under martial law

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Today, when spoken by some members of the protracted fight against the dictatorship, “It’s a struggle!” could more often refer to coping with the bodily aches and pains bedeviling many a senior citizen entering or well into their 70s—the average age of the most dogged of them, and for whom the same struggle against practically the same set of political realities continues. But like the adversary, which has shapeshifted over the decades (and ironically has come full circle today with the same unfortunate surname), so have the forms of protest become less strenuous, and more benign get-togethers are held with a frisson of excitement as the collective refreshes memories of the struggle’s close calls and a genuine, if elusive, sense of civic unity.    

Such was the cheery reunion on Jan. 20 of members of WOMB (or the Women for the Ouster of Marcos and US Bases/Boycott) and their friends and allies at The Hub of the Diliman Preparatory School in Quezon City. It was, according to one of the organizers, Vikky Bondoc Cabrera, “practically an impromptu event that started with missing each other, and suggesting a get-together of the sort we normally have when foreign-based members visit town.” That would usually be a potluck for a group of 10–20 members and/or friends, she said, with “lots of chitchat, sharing of paninda (stuff for sale, like Nikki Coseteng’s kaftans), and kuru-kuro (opinions).”

For this reunion there was “no other agenda except to meet up again, and have fun, she added. “I guess that’s how we women work. Spontaneous. Creative. Excited. And full of fun.” 

Innovating on protest

To be sure, when WOMB was founded in 1983 as a response of middle-class women and the urban sector to the Aquino assassination, it was all serious business: pushback against the Marcos regime. While the meaning of the acronym changed with the times—for a spell it was “Women for the Ouster of Marcos and US Bases,” and during an election year, it became “Women for the Ouster of Marcos and Boycott”—the call for Marcos’ ouster remained constant.

WOMB was at the heart of the multigroup movement that fueled the 1986 People Power Revolt which ultimately overthrew the Marcos regime, but it was also about innovating on protest: It did not need to always be the placard-bearing, slogan-shouting street mobilization that a generation of dissenters had come to associate with the antifascist struggle. 

This was also because the WOMB roster included some of the brightest creatives of the time—writers, actors, visual artists, professionals, media practitioners, playwrights, theater and film directors. WOMBies, as they came to be known, gathered in the homes of fellow activists—the late Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera, Odette Alcantara, and Gilda Cordero Fernando—to organize activities. “With help from … Pardo de Tavera, … Alcantara, Maita Gomez, … Coseteng, and Gigi Dueñas-de Beaupré, Fernando dreamed up unique protest forms” for the group, WOMBie, writer, and poet Babeth Lolarga wrote in a tribute to Fernando after her death in 2020. 

“One was a procession-rally, a pasyon, from Intramuros to the US Embassy. Only Gilda could get away with dressing CB Garrucho as the First Lady Imelda R. Marcos, Nikki as a Blue Lady, Joji Ravina as a bully RAM boy, Odette as Inangbayan,” Lolarga wrote. “A most memorable production was the State of the Nation Fashion Show at The Plaza dining hall in Makati. Gilda drafted the script read by CB and Behn Cervantes, while models like Maita, Gigi, Joji, Nelia Sancho sashayed down a ramp in deconstructed clothes and gowns that reflected the deterioration of society under the dictatorship… The show’s ambience was electric.”

‘We don’t let go’ 

Coseteng, a street parliamentarian and human rights activist during the Marcos years, and a WOMB stalwart who became senator during the Cory Aquino administration and has today become quite famous for designing kaftans, turned emotional when she delivered the welcome remarks at the WOMB reunion. “We thought [that this reunion] was impossible,” she said. But today there persist possibly harder truths and questions: How much longer before we see a responsible and progressive country? A woman’s place is in the struggle—but for how much longer? Is all this technology good for us?” 

Her throaty voice breaking, she continued: “I guess this is why it’s called a ‘movement’—we may move faster or more slowly, but we don’t let go… The next generation may not be prepared for what’s to come next…”

But Maria Serena “Maris” Diokno, historian and retired University of the Philippines professor; Judy Taguiwalo, social worker and retired educator; and sociologist and Ateneo professor Mary Racelis, who is well past 90 but continues to teach and to organize and work with the urban poor—indefatigable warriors—all held up the inspiration board in brief speeches that paid tribute to the singular work put in by WOMBies who have since passed on as well as those carrying on to this day.           

Thus, it was poignant that the short program featured the next generation of torchbearers. Actor and film director Karlo Altomonte, son of Dueñas-de Beaupré, was the emcee, while theater artist and singer Astarte Abraham, daughter of musicians Edru and Becky Abraham, opened the show with the rousing anthem “Babae” and closed it with the sensual salinawit of “Sway” (“Sayaw”) by the beloved poet Pete Lacaba. 

Vicky Bayno, a two-term Quezon City barangay kagawad, and Clarice Palce, Gabriela secretary-general (and, at 20, arguably the youngest person in the venue) spoke on the continuing struggle for justice and the defense of our freedoms from poverty and fear, among others.

Feminist and anthropologist Anna Leah Sarabia noted that while the WOMB reunion was a way to recall the rage that drove the anti-Marcos protests, it should also “remind us that the fight against sexism [and the] patriarchy” is far from over.    

Indeed, there’s no letting go when it comes to the fight for safer and better spaces for humanity. The reunion also featured a sale on donations of dresses, accessories, and household items from WOMBies Daphne Ceniza-Kuok and Coseteng to raise funds for Bawat Isa Mahalaga (Each One is Important), a voter education and value formation program in various communities in Manila. Also on sale were copies of the anthology of women’s essays, “First Draft,” with part of the proceeds allotted to help cover the reunion expenses. There were also products for sale from Solidarity of Orphans and Widows, an organization of mothers, widows, and orphans of extrajudicial killings in the communities around Payatas.

This reminder from activist, author, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King never grows old: “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.”

Read more: Remember Ninoy Aquino

The post What it’s like in the WOMB appeared first on CoverStory.

They said it couldn’t be done.

It was martial law, after all, and among many freedoms suppressed by Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s repressive regime (1965-1986) was the right to organize a legitimate union. Strikes were banned, and only government-friendly unions were recognized.

But a hardy group of journalists at the Journal group of publications (Times Journal, People’s Journal, People’s Tonight, Taliba, People Magazine, Women’s Journal), fired by the enthusiasm of youth and fueled by a desire to help colleagues in the printing press and the motor and clerical pools who did not get the same privileges as many of us working journos, decided to test the waters by forming a union in 1981.

It was the first successful attempt at unionizing in a newspaper owned by a Romualdez. The Times Journal was one of three of the national newspapers, along with the Marcos-crony-managed Daily Express and Bulletin Today, published then.

With the majority having no families to support—organizing was mainly an initiative of the reporters; the press men, drivers, janitors and clerks, as well as other editorial members were too intimidated to confront the management—we had nothing to lose but our jobs. We were willing to take the gamble.

Recruiting members was not easy. Although the idea of a union was met with much enthusiasm, not too many signed up initially. As far as I can remember, I was the only desk person who joined. Some were supportive but begged off because of the expected repercussions, such as harassment from their bosses or, worse, the threat of job termination. At least one, a proofreader, had a flimsy motive for signing up: She thought the elected union president, George Brooks, was “cute.”

A few of us had family members who were active unionists: Edmundo Nolasco, the father of Journal and Philippine Daily Inquirer colleague Joey Nolasco, was a labor organizer; Amante Paredes, Journal (and later Malaya) co-worker Joel Paredes’ dad, and Francisco Dipasupil Sr., my father, were also union members of the postwar Manila Chronicle. We had an inkling of how it was to live, love and cross the lines with an unyonista. 

Where to assemble

When the membership grew, with those from the motor pool and proofreading sections and filing clerks from the library and secretarial offices turning in their applications, finding a venue to hold our meetings became a problem. It was compounded by the fact that the reporters had varying schedules and days off. Gathering a sizeable group was next to impossible, especially when the management got wind of the fact that a union was rapidly taking shape right under their noses. Invoking editorial prerogative, the editors, pressured principally by the big bosses, reshuffled reporters to different beats far from the Journal office in Port Area, Manila.

At a time when communication lines were hardly sophisticated, many reporters were required to report to the Port Area office where they would write their stories. Union assemblies, when possible, were held in reporters’ homes or in a Chinese restaurant that served cheap noodles but had bad air-conditioning and catered to noisy, cigarette-smoking diners. On several occasions, we had spirited discussions inside a motel room on Harrison Street in Manila, courtesy of a union member who kept a yearlong pass to the themed establishment in his shirt pocket close to his heart.

Along the way, we lost friendships, but forged new ones. The fearful shunned our company, looked the other way, or took the longest route just to avoid bumping into us, scared of guilt by association. On the other hand, we met people whom we had never thought would cast their fate to the same wind—like the driver Mang Enteng, who risked unemployment and the demands of raising a family of five because he believed in the cause.

For valuable legal advice, we relied on Prof. Perfecto Fernandez, a constitution and labor law specialist and revered faculty member of the University of the Philippines College of Law. Being a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines himself, Pekto Fernandez easily found common ground with fledgling journalists like us. We spent many weekends visiting his home on the sprawling campus of the University of the Philippines Diliman to listen to stories of thinning picket lines, collective bargaining agreements, and what’s new on the labor front.

Pariahs

Pampered and among the privileged few on the payroll of Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez, Imelda Marcos’ younger brother, whose ownership of the Journal publications was not a secret, we swiftly became the company pariahs. A round-trip ticket to Paris promised by Kokoy was already within my grasp when it was hastily withdrawn by the management after they learned that I was one of the union organizers, along with former campus activists like Paredes, who later assumed the post of Philippine Information Agency head; Chuchay Fernandez, now editor of the Business Mirror; and the late Antonio Modena, who would later become a foreign service officer.

I was also “demoted” (but not in pay) from desk person to the police and entertainment beats usually reserved for reporters just starting out. The editors thought I would hate the transfer because, I heard it said, “she had just arrived from studies in Paris and the new beats would be ‘baduy’ (provincial/no taste) for her.” Au contraire, I loved covering Manila’s colorful Western Police District and its assorted characters, and I was (and still am) a star-struck movie fan.

We were inspired by “Norma Rae,” a movie about a North Carolina woman (played by Sally Field) who went through hell and back organizing a union in a factory where she worked as a mill hand. Much later, and in similar circumstances but a different environment, we were captivated by the award-winning “Sister Stella L,” a film based on the struggles of a real-life nun (played by Vilma Santos) confronted with labor- and strike-related issues in the course of her work with the poor and disadvantaged.

Ninoy Aquino’s funeral

Nearing the eventual fall of the Marcoses, the entire Journal reportorial staff, unionists included, were plucked from wherever we were and assigned by the editors to report on the assassinated Ninoy Aquino’s funeral on Aug. 31, 1983. After being on the job as early as 6 a.m. to cover the 11-hour funeral procession from Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City to Manila Memorial Park in Paranaque, we rushed to the office to write our stories, only to find our efforts thrown into the trash bins. The Journal report the following day—about a man hit by lightning while up a tree watching the funeral procession—was the butt of jokes for days on end.

After a new reshuffle of beats and positions, I was assigned to a new Journal sister paper that closed as fast as it opened. We knew that the end was in sight. Towards the end of 1983, each of the 300-plus union members was given a notice of termination and severance pay. 

Those were tumultuous yet fascinating years throughout which lessons were learned, bruised friendships healed, and new opportunities beckoned. Many of us, including driver Mang Enteng, joined the staff of press freedom icon Joe Burgos’ Malaya and We Forum, “mosquito press” pioneers (where we would also put up a union post-Edsa 1986) and the Inquirer (where, as in Malaya, the union also engaged the same lawyer, Cesar Maravilla).  

In our individual careers, we would write stories on perennial labor issues such as contractualization and unbearable conditions at the workplace, low wages and job security, as seen in our accounts of strikes by workers as varied as SM saleswomen and Christ the King Seminary carpentry shop workers.

Flores and Olalia  

l met the wives of labor leaders Ceferino Flores and Rolando “Ka Lando” Olalia whose stories of survival and hope we would write about. Flores’ family continues to dream of the day when the hotel worker and unionist who disappeared in the 1980s would show up at their doorstep.

We would treasure memories of Ka Lando, he of the light banter with a detectable Kapampangan accent, impeccably dressed in a crisp barong. When my sister Sonia Dipasupil Barros (since deceased) and I were working at Malaya, Joe Burgos sent us both to identify Ka Lando’s mutilated body which had been dumped by murderous Army soldiers in an isolated grassy field in Antipolo. Sonia would later work as a pro bono lawyer for the trade union center Kilusang Mayo Uno founded by Felixberto Olalia Sr., Ka Lando’s father. 

Soon after and together with writers and labor advocates Ed Villegas, Ave Perez Jacob, Roger Ordonez, Recah Trinidad and James Jasmines, we set up the Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center (named after the late nationalist writer and labor leader) that focused on labor issues and related publications.

The fight for workers’ rights never ends, especially with totalitarian governments on the rise in recent years. Working shoulder to shoulder, arms linked in perpetual struggle, we’ve had a long, bumpy and contentious, but thoroughly exhilarating and life-changing, ride.

See: Detention, ‘town arrest’ under martial law

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