Salingkit: A 1986 Diary

salingkit

A 1986 Diary

a novel by

Cyan Abad-Jugo

salingkit: a 1986 diary

by Cyan Abad-Jugo

Copyright to this digital edition © 2012 by

Cyan Abad-Jugo and Anvil Publishing, Inc.

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Version 1.0.1

For my sister Cybéle,

who had to live through the eighties with a nutcase of an Ate,

and

For my cousin Cecile,

who laughed and loved and dreamed with me.

contents

introduction

by Cyan Abad-Jugo

with thanks to Katrina Nessa M. Abad for the text boxes

growing up during martial law

MARTIAL Law Babies—that’s what they called those of us born in the seventies, or around the time of Martial Law. I wasn’t even a year old when President Ferdinand E Marcos declared Martial Law on 21 September 1972.

So I did not know what it meant and hardly paid it any attention, even when older members of the family—my parents, aunts, and uncles—discussed it over family dinners, or when teachers mentioned it in school.

Still, some of their talk must have sunk in. My father worked for the government’s state university. He witnessed a lot of student demonstrations; possibly, he even joined some of them. I had terrible dreams of my father missing, or of being tortured, of coming home flattened by a steamroller, with one arm left. The dreams might reflect that I lived in confusing, turbulent times. This was in fact the reason given as to why Martial Law was declared: there was too much unrest in the streets, too much brawling, even some bombing. People went missing. Public order had to be restored; newspapers were closed down and new rules were established, including a curfew to observe. People had to be in their houses by twelve o’clock midnight.

MARTIAL LAW is the exercise of power in which the executive branch of government establishes military jurisdiction over civilians. It is declared when there are serious public emergencies such as insurrection, rebellion, invasion or imminent danger thereof

(Aquino v. Enrile).

There have been lots of talk since the seventies about the character of Ferdinand Marcos. Some accuse him of contributing to the unrest going on, to give him an excuse to declare Martial Law and suspend the elections that were supposed to happen in 1973. With the draft of a new constitution approved by November 1972, Marcos found a way to stay in power indefinitely.

In the seventies I was too young to understand all of these. At first I thought Marcos a wonderful man; I would see him on TV with the First Lady, surrounded by children who looked very happy and very lucky to be there at all. His eldest daughter had interesting shows on TV as well, shows that were meant for kids. But then one day I came home from school to find my favorite program cancelled. By the end of March 1978, Voltes V, along with all the other Japanese robot cartoons, had been banned from Philippine TV.

The official reason given for the banning of these shows had to do with the students’ poor performance in school. They were becoming too distracted by all these cartoons on TV. But some believe that Marcos had these shows cancelled to lower the ratings of his rival channel, a channel he could not control completely; others believe it was because the stories and themes in Voltes V began to match too closely what was happening in the Philippines (Voltes V). A mighty and alien oppressor named Prince Zardos, along with his Lady, general, and other supporters, brought ruin and despair throughout the land, and only the Voltes V team protected the people and kept them from utter destruction. Who was going to be the country’s Voltes V?

Voltes V became a symbol of resistance and hope for the people. I remember attending UP Diliman’s Lantern Parade and cheering along with the rest of the crowd because, there, among all the other floats, was a huge mock-up of my favorite robot, and very near my father too, who was marching and smiling and waving.

Then something happened on 21 August 1983 that changed the course of Philippine history forever. I remember waking up to a very dark and full house, every eye glued to the television, which made the only noise. I gathered that someone named Ninoy had been shot, and had died on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. In the days to come, we would see images in the news, of his body in a coffin, his face still disfigured by a bullet and his shirt still bloody from the assassination. On 31 August, a funeral Mass was said by the Manila Archbishop, Jaime Cardinal Sin, followed by a funeral parade attended by two million people on a 26-kilometer route, from Sto Domingo Church to the Manila Memorial Park (Sumpay 29).

We followed the funeral on the radio; nobody in the house seemed able to talk about anything else except that which had to do with Ninoy. It was the first time I ever saw my father cry. A few days later my older cousins would tell me that my father and their father were second cousins to this dead man. But I had never seen him before, my father must have barely known him in life, why would he be so affected by him in death?

It was of course very sad and moving to see photographs of the man’s family gather round him, and cry or pray. The youngest girl, particularly, caught my eye because she was the same age as me. I could not bear to think of my father’s own death; I could only imagine how much of a nightmare it must have been for her.

ninoy aquino, hero

WHO WAS this man, Ninoy, also known as Benigno Aquino Jr, who had become the hero of at least two million people, a real man, rather than a robot? Why had he been shot? Marcos’ ready answer was that either the communists or the rebels had planned his murder. But others began to say that it was in fact Marcos who had planned Ninoy’s death all along.

The LIBERAL PARTY is a political party founded in 1946 by Pres Manuel Roxas. In the 1970s, it was led by Ninoy Aquino, Gerry Roxas, and Jovito Salonga. They would time and again hound the would-be dictator [Marcos] on issues like Human Rights and the curtailment of Freedoms (Liberal Party).

The SENATE is the country’s Upper House of a Bicameral Congress (with the House of Representatives as the Lower House), whose primary purpose is to propose and make laws.

In 1967, when Ninoy became one of the youngest elected senators at age thirty-five and the only one in the Liberal Party to make it to the Senate, he also became the greatest threat to Marcos and his allies.

He delivered fiery speeches denouncing every misdemeanor and every act of violence committed by the administration against its political enemies. He uncovered scandal after scandal involving Marcos’ men and warned of an impending ‘garrison state’ (Magno 259).

When Marcos declared Martial Law, Ninoy was one of the first to be imprisoned on charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms, and subversion (Benigno Aquino). In November 1977, he was tried by a military tribunal and would have been put to death by firing squad, but for protests worldwide (Sumpay 29). Instead he was allowed to remain in his prison cell and even vote for an interim parliament called the Batasang Pambansa. His friends and supporters ran under his political party called Lakas ng Bayan or LABAN.

It is interesting to note that Lakas ng Bayan could be loosely translated to mean People’s Power (a term which would sound new and wonderful in 1986). None in the LABAN party won, and many suspected widespread election fraud. In 1980, Ninoy left the country for heart surgery in the United States. Instead of coming back he spent three years in exile with his family, going around the country, joining symposia, speaking in freedom rallies, where he continued to denounce Martial Law, criticize the Marcos government, and urge the President to restore democracy. In 1983, he decided to return before the Philippines deteriorated beyond all help and hope, knowing full well that he could either be imprisoned or killed.

The BATASANG PAMBANSA was a distinct and special Unicameral Legislature composed of 120 elected members, created so that the Philippines would one day have a true parliamentary system as ordained by the 1973 Constitution. In such a system, a Prime Minister would be head of government and Commander-in-Chief of the army. It replaced the National Assembly in its legislative duties, and, based on all the amendments to the said constitution, was yet another body that legitimized and strengthened Marcos’ absolute power (Peralta v. Commission on Elections, et al.).

In a speech entitled In the End We All Must Die, dated 31 August 1983, the day of Ninoy’s funeral, Ninoy’s friend Abraham Sarmiento wrote:

Ninoy came back to reason with the dictatorship. He thought that the peaceful path leading to a return to democracy, no matter how risky, must be given a last chance. He set out to convince those who hold power that we must restore the rights of the people and trust them to know and decide what is good for them because they are intelligent enough and responsible enough and do not need the whip of a tyrant nor the singular intelligence of one man or one woman or a small group of men and women to direct them in the proper way. (151)

A DICTATORSHIP is a system of government run by someone with absolute authority.

A DEMOCRACY is a system of government run by the people through their elected representatives.

Our lives changed after this man’s death. My parents began to act and look really strange to me. From time to time, they would dress in yellow shirts instead of business attire, and come home at night all sweaty and grinning. When I asked where they had gone, they would reply with to a rally, which I began to understand as an event rather than a place. It was a gathering of a large group of people, usually at the Luneta, and there they would call for justice and freedom, flash L signs with their fingers, and chant Ninoy, hindi ka nag-iisa. I soon knew what they did in these rallies because they would sometimes take my sister and me along. There we would join other family friends and their children, and we would sit on mats on the ground, and eat sandwiches and drink juice. I would look around at all these crowds and crowds of people and think that the entire country had gone on one big picnic. The funny thing is that everyone looked happy instead of angry; there would be a stage where some people made statements about being oppressed or about loving one’s country, and everyone around me would cheer and clap.

Other times my parents did not take us. I remember a night when my mother came home drenched from head to foot. She said they had been tear-gassed by soldiers. Then I began to understand that despite the happiness in my family, there was something very wrong in the country where we lived. I began to understand what my parents had joined; it was not one big picnic. They could die, too, like Ninoy Aquino. And this was what they meant by Hindi ka nag-iisa. They had taken up his cause, along with so many other Filipinos, and they were willing to die for it. Many of my father’s writer friends, in fact, had lost their jobs because of what they had written against Marcos and his government. They now had very little money with which to feed and support their families.

people power

THE EVENTS which led to the EDSA Revolution of 1986—also known as the People Power Revolution, the February Revolution, or