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Remembering Martial Law

The crux of the matter is that no amount of compensation could ever indemnify the lives claimed, thousands of which are unnamed, during the Marcos dictatorship.

It is true that the basis for such retribution remains valid. And to look at it more intelligently, unlike the grandstanding unlearned critics, $2 billion compensated to over 10,000 human rights victims is nothing compared to the immoderate lifestyles the Marcoses continue to indulge in. Not to mention that many of those who actively participated in the tortures and murders enjoy high ranks in government. They are now addressed as congressmen, senators, police and military generals. Yes, scoundrels projecting responsibility on the outside but rotting with filth in the inside. It is too bad that politicians, high ranks in the police and military have become associated with the ills of society.

Imelda Marcos cannot be left unnamed in this mad game of power at the expense of the Filipino people.

Mrs. Marcos’ mind remains not in an indeterminate state, only in a state of consistent deceit and treachery to the Filipino people. Until now, she vehemently denies the massacres that took place during the dictatorship. For Imelda was not just the strongman’s wife. She was, and perhaps is, his partner in crime.

Now, the unlearned intend to whip up another issue by claiming that these martial law victims are demeaning themselves by putting a price tag on their sacrifices. No “special group”, they say, should be compensated.

But as Luis Teodoro puts it, have they forgotten? Or have they really understood?

While it is true that every Filipino suffered during martial rule, this “special group” suffered in the cruelest tradition of militarism precisely because they were “special”.

Besides, nobody ever though of getting paid for joining the broad movement against the Marcos dictatorship.

These men and women resisted the dictatorship, refusing oppression, risking and losing lives fighting the US-backed regime – the real sons and daughters of this nation. They wrote for the underground press to battle the dictatorship’s propaganda, they organized in schools and took the struggle to the streets. And the ultimate expression of struggle against the regime, taking up arms and heading to the countrysides to unite with the peasants and workers who were also brutally tormented then.

Like our country, they endured. The desaparacidos, the nameless, are part of this country’s nationhood.

No price can ever compensate stolen lives and liberty. Culprits still need to be punished –

But not in this system, not now. And we ask, are they even up for admission for these crimes?

In a generation whose mind is fogged ignorant by state-controlled machinations on this period of Philippine history, this is the time to learn. This is the time to remember. And that is the whole point of compensation, that once, there was a dictatorship that cruelly stole our freedoms, a generation of the best and brightest men and women.

With these realities at hand, there is more to compensate. What has been gained now, the recognition of over 10,000 human rights victims, is but part of a greater struggle. The Marcoses have much, much more debts to pay.

Government, on the other hand, has no business keeping in their confines what was never theirs. Enabling measures should be immediately carried out for the compensation to take place.

Justice has long been denied. But this will not stop the growing movement of enlightened Filipinos, a legacy left by those who struggled against the dictatorship. #

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