As the country remembers – still with much anger and horror – the dark years of the Marcos-declared martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, it is somehow reassuring that there are excellent books for those who did not experience martial law to be given the chance to immerse themselves in the era. So that 54 years after, it is still remembered in all its ugly and dehumanizing details, prompting them to say, never again. Such a deprivation of life, liberty and the rule of law ought not to be allowed ever again.
The impact of the importance of the youth’s involvement and participation is further reinforced with the current well-received run of the movie ‘Edjop’ which is on the life of the young activist leader from the Ateneo, well-remembered for his demand, relayed in a face-to-face audience with the dictator Marcos, for Marcos not to run for reelection for a third term. He was rudely rebuffed and dismissed, ‘a grocer’s son.’ Edjop went on to become a firmer and more determined activist, earned a P80,000 price on his head, was killed in a military raid in Davao also on the same date as the martial law proclamation, 10 years after. The excellent screen production shows Edjop’s relentless passion to sacrifice everything for love of country and how all these affected his wife Joy and their three children.
I have two highly recommended books for my martial law reading and remembering this year: ‘Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage: The First Quarter Storm and Related Events’ by Jose F. Lacaba (Salinlahi Publishing House, 1982) and ‘Not on our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened. We were there,’ edited by Jo-Ann Maglipon (Publications Group, LEADS-CEGP, 2011).
At the outset, I have to say that these two titles are from my library and thus, I cannot answer inquiries about where to purchase them. My apologies.
Lacaba does not write as a historian viewing events from an impersonal distance but as an involved journalist covering the First Quarter Storm (FQS) and other events. To him, these assignments were not mere coverages to undertake. He does not hide his bias, that he is more sympathetic with the students in protest rather than the Establishment. Fortunate for us, the readers, his is not a detached account, rather a personal one that brings us to how the events ‘looked, sounded and felt from within the opposition movement.’
Lacaba is a writer and a poet, as evident in his very choice of title. ‘Disquiet’ conjures anxiety, uncertainty and a society becoming unsettled. ‘Rage’ is a much stronger and powerful word, suggesting that the political crisis has moved beyond dissatisfaction into confrontation.
Lacaba has been praised for his literary journalism, demonstrated in the book when he makes the student activists and protesters the main characters. It is remembered that in usual such accounts, presidents, political leaders, military officers usually take center stage. In a sense, this is history from below.
Among his eyewitness accounts, revealing his personal engagement, is seeing student protesters physically beaten. How can he remain distant? ‘I stood there paralyzed by a mess of emotions – rage, outrage, frustration, fear and hate,’ he wrote.
There is in the eyewitness, many contradictory feelings of ‘a glorious time, a time of terror and of wrath, but also a time for hope.’
‘Not on our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened…’ is an interesting collection of martial law accounts of student editors during the early years of the dictatorship; this, their collective act of remembering, especially for a nation that tends to forget so easily.
At a reunion of these campus editors four decades after, they decided to put together this collective memoir of an important period in their young lives. They did not mean to produce a history book, but to ensure that their memories are not lost. There was no specific structure to their recollections, thus their memories may be best described to overlap, contradict, illuminate and sometimes supplement one another.
Their accounts reveal their transformation, from young people who began as campus journalists and became adults under authoritarianism. They are not portrayed as victims, though they were so in a sense. For there was fear, imprisonment, violence and political repression. But their narratives also show humor, youthful bravado, friendship, romance, confusion, idealism and even absurdity. And the many difficult choices they had to make.
The long title is interesting because every word matters, was well-chosen: ‘We were there’ looks backward, while ‘Not on our watch’ looks forward. In other words, this is not to be forgotten and not allowed to happen again.
There is much strength, courage and inspiration from these former student journalists turned successful prominent professionals.
The late activist and academic Roberto Verzola, who underwent the worst of physical torture and indignity but never buckled down, wrote, ‘When we of this generation go, our memories should not leave the world with us. No, we must never forget.’
The editor Maglipon wrote, ‘In the fight against a dictator, it (writing) was my only slingshot.’
The book is not the history of martial law from an abstract political episode but a ‘collection of lived human experiences.’
These books ensure that we never forget the nightmare that was martial law.