memoirs of a martial law baby

my birth and that of my younger sister, the youngest in the family, coincided with key dates in the conjugal dictatorship that was ferdinand and imelda marcos. you could even say that while my parents, a lowly military man and a simple housewife living inside a military camp, were making love, the fabled two were screwing the country and its impoverished people; the difference of course is that while the former produced two of the most lovable kids in the family, the latter created a living hell for most filipinos who are still reeling until now from the ill-effects of that shameful era in our history.

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i was born in nineteen sixty-nine the year marcos won a much-disputed second term in office as president of the republic. my birthday was also exactly eight days after the communist party of the philippines, which became a thorn in the life and ambitions of the dictator, was born.

actually, the year nineteen sixy-nine was a historic one. aside from the political turmoil at home, it was the year when neil armstrong landed in the moon, becoming the first human being to have done so. it was also the year when the philippines produced its first ms. universe winner in the person of the intelligent, poised and gorgeous ms. gloria diaz, who dazzled judges with her effortless and witty answer to the question -- what will you do to entertain the first man who landed in the moon?

(here is a youtube link of that historic ms. universe question & answer portion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3eePuAd8ZA )

sadly these achievements, great as they are, could never brighten the bleakness brought about by the dictatorship and the cruelty, massive corruption and greed that followed after this momentous year. charles dickens' famous first line in his novel 'a tale of two cities' -- "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." -- amply describes that year.

not to be upstaged, the youngest in the family was born seven days before marcos and his ilk declared martial law on september twenty-one nineteen seventy two, using the spread of communism and the violence and terror spawned by its armed group, the new people's army, as justification for the implementation of the military rule and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

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of course i was too young when martial law was declared.

all i could remember was there was a dead baby (my youngest sister's twin sister who died at birth) in the living room, surrounded by flowers, candles and a statue of the virgin mary guarding over her. while my mother and the new baby in the family were still in the hospital, we held a funeral for other one. she was, if i remember it right, buried a day after.

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a few years later...

i would see men in civilian clothes cutting the grass on the ground where soldiers would do their morning exercises, as well as parades. their hair had also been shaved. i would ask my older sister who they were and she would tell me that they were put behind bars because they either had long hair (the dictator had banned long hair among men as part of his efforts to impose discipline in the country as he believed that a disciplined citizenry would be the key to economic glory), they were doing drugs, or they were caught on the streets at midnight. there's a curfew at midnight, she explained, anyone caught still outside of their homes would be brought to the jail house, where my father would sometimes hang out with the prisoners to play chess or dama.

i remember those young men. they were housed in a small jail inside the camp. like a pack of sardines inside a tiny jar. i and my playmates would sometimes see them sitting idly on benches made of wood and bamboos, talking to each other, or simply staring at the vast emptiness ahead of them. facing an uncertain future. like the rest of the country.

on the other hand, as poverty spread like wildfire and blatant corruption was unabated,  marcos, his wife, family and friends lived their royal dreams, amassed wealth, traveled all over the world like royalties, shopped like there was no tomorrow, partied like they owned the world. and for a moment, they did. until we all woke up from that nightmare and shouted "enough!"

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years passed, as the ugliness of martial law unravelled, more soldiers were assigned in the camp. tents where they would stay temporarily were built in the grounds where we used to play. i remember the foul smell from sweaty bodies and feet, unwashed uniforms, that permeated the air near those tents. i and my friends, curious and undeterred by the lousy smell, would sometimes get inside those tents when the soldiers were not around to play.

we loved their arrivals.

the more of them, the better. we made money out of them from cleaning their boots and sometimes even their rifles, doing little errands like buying cigarettes for them at the nearby sari-sari store, selling them iced water and snacks, or serving as pulot boys when they played tennis.

then came the huey helicopters, more six-by-six trucks, the tanks that carried soldiers to and from the areas where they fought with the npas or new people's army. it was like watching a war movie right on our front yards: bridge on the river kwai, the battle of bataan, a bridge too far, the deer hunter.

we would see the young soldiers, barely out of their boyhood, their thin, gentle bodies draped in full battle regalia running to and from the noisy choppers whose blades were still swirling and creating a strong wind that would make everything around them -- dusts, trash, dried leaves and grass -- spin, twirl, fly and sometimes hit us before falling into the ground.

but we did not mind. even if dusts would enter our eyes. we just rubbed them off with our tiny, dirty hands, cry a little tear or two until they were gone. we simply endured the discomfort because we loved what we were seeing.

we remained standing near those choppers, covering our ears, admiring their beauty and wondering how it would feel like to ride in one of them. (i was able to ride the choppers, six-by-six trucks, the tanks countless times, thanks to those friendly military men who were amused to see us, children of their comrades, have fun.)

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but it was not all fun.

sometimes, we would see dead bodies of soldiers being taken off those choppers. at the sight of those dead soldiers (sometimes it was bloody gruesome. some of them were tied like pigs on bamboos), i would sometimes hear my mother and sisters cry. later in the day, a mass would be held at the military chapel for the dead soldiers. a vigil would be held for days, with military men in uniform guarding their fallen comrades, whose coffins were draped with philippine flags.

once when a neighbor's son was killed in an ambush, his mother refused to accept the flag after it was handed to her at the cemetery. she told the officer that nothing could replace her son, not even a million flags made of gold. then after saying that, she collapsed. we would witness more such dramas, mothers losing their young sons, wives their husbands, children their fathers, to a war that nobody ever understood. that was the biggest tragedy.

all we knew then was that the npas, or insurgents, had to be defeated for peace to reign in the country.

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it was not only the soldiers' mothers, their wives, their children, who would grieve. who would have sleepless nights, who would pray night and day while they were in the battle zones.

there were also parents and relatives of missing young men and women (civilians) who were picked-up by the military because they were suspected of being communists or of being communist sympathizers.

some of them would come to our house asking for my father's help to find them. free them from the prison. these poor folks would bring gifts -- vegetables, live chicken, fish -- just to convince my father to help them. my father, of course, would help them but he would refuse the gifts. he was an idealist, even if he was a staunch supporter of marcos like thousands of his fellow military men.

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aside from the rise in the number of soldiers living in tents near our house inside the camp, i would also see young men and even women being put behind bars. my older sister would tell me that they were npas, others were students who sympathized with the "enemy." i didn't know what happened to them after. whether they were freed or eventually killed like thousands of other people who disappeared during the reign of terror.

in those days, i would often wonder what drove these young men and women to join the npas knowing that they were the enemies, that in the words of my playmates, they were trained to kill the military men like our fathers. ah, how i hated them then. they would give me nightmares. there were nights when i could not sleep, fearing that the npas might suddenly attack the camp and kills us all.

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there were other unforgettable, "happy" memories of martial law. not just the atrocities.

at the grade school, we were taught about the benefits of the new society (literally, ang bagong lipunan, the slogan of the marcos martial rule), sang may bagong silang, pledged allegiance to the flag every morning during the flag ceremony.

we were also fed those nutritious and tasty buns (the thick, square nutribans sold very cheaply at schools around the country) during recess, a project of the then first lady to combat malnutrition among the children. ironically, she ignored the fact that it was their family's (and cronies) undoing why a lof of children were undernourished. some of us would bring star margarine and sugar to make them tastier.

as for me, i loved them plain.

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as i grew older, as i read more, learned more, able to discern what was happening around me, i started to understand everything. started asking questions.

in high school, i would sometimes have an argument with my older brother, a military officer, about why the npas should be respected instead of scorned. my brother, brainwashed naturally by the system, would tell me that the npas deserved no pity. nor respect.

like a typical military man, he would wonder and then lament why the human rights groups would raise hell every time an npa or a militant was killed, but were quiet if it's a military man who suffered the same sorry fate. i would tell him that it was the military's job to guarantee the safety of every citizen, to protect their rights under the constitution. of course my arguments then were crude, foolish, petty, and so i would accept defeat from him. what do i know about the world then?

but these were the things that i knew then:

- that it was the widespread poverty, injustice, abuses, corruption, that drove these men and women to join the communist party or cpp and the npa. that they were forced to fight because nobody, even the military and the police, would do it for them. even religion had failed to protect them.

- they did it because they love this country and would hate to see it go to waste because of the greed and the selfishness of the few in power.

- that the military, instead of fighting these npas, should empathize with them because they (especially the low-ranking soldiers) too were victims of the powerful few who used them to protect their own selfish interests. they were all just pawns in the games of the generals.

- that it was not right to put these men and women behind bars, or worse silence them forever, just because they were brave enough to fight the dictatorship and its evil spawns.

i still believe them until now.

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at that time, we were living inside the military camp in catbalogan, samar, the biggest military camp in the whole of region eight.

i was in high school already when a promising young doctor for the poor, dr. bobby dela paz, was shot inside his clinic in nineteen eighty-two.

it was strange, actually. everyday, i would pass by his clinic, which was quite near our school, but i didn't know then that inside, one of the most noble souls was trying to save lives without expecting anything in return. it was only after he died that i learned more about him: that he was a graduate of the university of the philippines who chose to work in our town to help the poor get much-needed medical attention. (please click here to read more about dr. dela paz: http://opinion.inquirer.net/4656/bobby)

bobby was just one of the thousands of idealistic and promising young men who were killed because of their love and dedication for the country. imagine what they could have contributed to the country had they lived longer.

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then a year later, senator benigno "ninoy" aquino was shot and killed. i and my high school classmates were inside a friend's house, enjoying a feast of lechon, morcon, torta, spaghetti, menudo, empanada, ice cream, and what have you, because it was the town fiesta. when the news hit us, we became quiet. someone said this was the start of a revolution. i feared for my father and brother's lives.

i already knew about ninoy then. one of my older brothers (a student activist who later vanished and was believed to have gone "underground", the euphemism for joining the npa), would tell me, nay educate, about ninoy, especially his determined fight to topple the dictatorship.

my brother would show me copies of underground newspapers such as malaya and mr. & ms. that published stories and black and white photos about ninoy's assassination, the massive turnout at his funeral, the protests that followed, then the decision of his widow, cory aquino, to run as president against marcos.

my other brother, the military man, would scold me for reading those newspapers. he even warned me that i could be arrested and land in jail for reading them. i didn't mind. i was confident then that my father would not allow such a thing to happen.

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in my freshman year at the university of san carlos in cebu city, i saw cory and her youngest daughter kris, then a nerd looking teen-ager wearing a black shirt, thick glasses, with her long hair simply tied at the back. a far cry from the glam up kris that took showbiz by storm when her mother became president. but i was getting ahead of my story.

cory then was at the university gym for a weeklong ninoy memorabilia exhibit. cory was dressed simply in her signature yellow dress, flat shoes, and eyeglasses. the gym was blasting with speeches of ninoy in the united states on the teevee screens. aside from audios and videos of his speeches and lectures denouncing the dictatorship, there were also books and newspaper articles written by him or were about him. there were also photos of him as a young journalist, as a politician, and as a fallen hero in tarmac, his lifeless, bloody body lying on the cold pavement.

every day, i would drop by the gym just to scan the books. listen to his speeches. i wanted to buy one audio tape then, but sadly i did not have any money.

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it was also around this time that i started hanging out with the student activists in the campus belonging to the league of filipino students (lfs), college editors guild of the philippines (cegp), national union of students in the philippines (nusp), among others. i became a member of some of these groups including the lfs, but i was more active with the cegp. i joined those anti-tuition fee hike protests, anti-us bases rallies, those calling for the dictator's resignation.

but every time i did, i felt like a traitor, knowing that the money that put me to school, buy food, pay my dormitory, came from my military father and older brother.

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years later, i would meet cory again, six years after her coup-plagued presidency ended. that was in nineteen ninety-three.

this time, it was at an event when i was already a reporter covering then president fidel v. ramos, former defense minister of marcos. ramos led the uprising against the dictator in february nineteen eighty-six, now famously known as the miracle on edsa, or the edsa revolution, or the peaceful people's uprising, or the people power that helped install cory to power.

she was still her simple self, in yellow dress and eyeglasses, speaking softly to us reporters. i could not remember the topic of our ambush interview. but she was still the same cory that i saw and met when i was a freshman at the university. in contrast, her youngest child, kris, was now a famous actress, glamourous beyond recognition (eyeglasses gone), starring in movies that earned millions at the box office, and peddling soaps, shampoos, and other products.

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fast forward.

i am deeply saddened every time i hear people sigh with resignation that there is nothing that we can do to prevent the corrupts, children of the kleptogarchs, from returning to the malacanang palace. to the presidency. i hate to read "sad but true" posts from people who are already giving-up without even putting up a good fight. just because they already have well-paying, stable jobs, accumulated substantial money in the bank, they no longer want to lift a finger to help prevent this disaster from happening.

of course we can still do something about it. first of all, we should help spread the word that we are against corruption, that we are against the return of another dictator, that we won't stand another reign of terror and greed. let our voice be counted, be heard. let us use our head. stop hiding from the mantle of apathy and helplessness.

helplessness is only for the dead.

forgive me for being preachy. i got carried away. no chos this time!

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also, i am aghast to read articles praising the dictatorship. of news reports and opinion pieces written by his supporters trying to revise history. putting a different spin on the reign of terror and greed. taking advantage of the people's a bit too late anger over the misuse of billions of so-called pork barrel funds that were diverted into the pockets of some legislators and their cohorts in fake non-government organizations, instead of going into projects that would benefit the public, especially the poor.

it pains me to see people praising the former first lady for her elegance, her poise, her beauty, and for championing the "arts" in the country. for putting up the cultural center of the philippines, the philippine international convention center, among other white elephants. (for this, the former first lady became known as having an "edifice complex").

they forget that in return, the first family and their cronies pocketed billions of dollars from those projects. they also forget or tend to ignore the fact that "art" meant nothing to the majority of filipinos who didn't even have a roof over their heads and a food on the table (heck, they don't even have tables to begin with).

as a lover of fashion and everything shallow and beautiful, i understand the fascination towards the first lady. she really carries herself well like a queen, her tall, graceful bearing can very well carry those stunning gowns elegantly. but please, let us not forget what is behind the glamourous facade.

(please read this piece from w magazine about her unrivaled lifestyle years after she returned to the country after living in exile, then weep: http://www.wmagazine.com/people/2007/04/imelda_marcos/)

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don't get me wrong. i am not blinded by the shortcomings of the cory administration. of the opportunities she wasted.

for one, i can't understand why she did not pursue the killers of her husband and lock them up in jail. put a closure to everything. she owed it to the entire filipino nation. why she did not put behind bars the people who robbed the treasury dry. why her administration failed to jail the habitual coup plotters for good, instead of allowing them to run for government office. the list is long. but still, i would never forget the sacrifices she and her husband made for the country.

being able to write these things down without fear of being put to jail is already a big thing that deserves an endless gratitude to cory and ninoy.

(as for their son, it's a different story.)

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yes, i was a martial law baby. and i hope that i learned something from those dark years to make me say this with utter conviction: "never again!"

(next if you care, the massive vote buying in my youth during elections)

(ps: all photos were taken from different websites. no copyright infringements intended. please notify me if you want your photos removed. thank you.)