A personal experience under martial law

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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday. September 21, 2017
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IT BAFFLES us that President Rodrigo Duterte has declared today a non-working “national day of protest” to enable anti-martial law organizations to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the day the late President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law – Sept. 21, 1972.

Why would Duterte be so accommodating to protesters when he himself has threatened to impose martial law nationwide and has not yet lifted his martial law declaration in Mindanao? Ironically, he has also threatened to resign the presidency if legally feasible.

Duterte must be testing the waters. If he intends to gauge the strength of the opposition to his own regime by the number of participants to today’s commemorative rally at EDSA, then it would be to the rallyists’ advantage to generate huge crowds in key cities. Otherwise, the President would think he is so popular he could galvanize massive public support for martial law, Digong style.

I was a victim of Marcos’ martial law regime.  I recall the morning (Sept. 23, 1972, if I remember right) when I turned on the radio but could not hear a sound. Soon enough, my neighbors were complaining of similar “damage” to their radio sets. There were no newspapers, too.

Marcos had by then signed Proclamation 1081 declaring martial law but kept it secret while rounding up and jailing politicians and activists critical of his regime. I had no inkling that such declaration would determine my destiny. I was only 22, newly-married, and was working as ghost writer for a columnist of the Philippine Sun and Evening News (now both defunct).

The evening of Sept. 23, 1972 saw me attending a birthday party at a friend’s house. Nobody was smiling. All the birthday guests were apprehensive, their attention glued on TV that had just gone back on the air. On the screen was a video recording of a stern President Marcos belatedly confirming that he had declared martial law “to reform society and build a New Republic.”

Marcos eventually allowed radio, TV, magazines and newspapers to resume operation on condition that every bit of information would redound to “developmental journalism.” Media practitioners criticizing the New Republic would be arrested.

Rabid anti-Marcos journalists and politicians were already behind bars, victims of ASSO. It was no dog but acronym for “Arrest, Search and Seizure Order” issued by Juan Ponce Enrile, Marcos’ martial law administrator and defense minister.

I thought I had no problem because I was then pounding the entertainment beat for the Marcos-controlled Daily Express.

One day, Pete Vael – the editor of the then famous Hiligaynon magazine, where I was also writing an entertainment column – talked to me. He would give up Hiligaynon in favor of a “juicy” government job at the Ministry of Information, which was headed by Information Minister Francisco “Kit” Tatad.  Would I like to join him there? I initially resisted, having criticized President Marcos while still a columnist of the Quezonian, the school paper of MLQ University, but yielded while pondering the future of my wife and our son.

Unfortunately, I had to be interviewed by a certain Col. Vicente Tigas, who was in charge of screening job applicants to Tatad’s office.

To my horror, Tigas pulled a sheaf of clippings of my anti-Marcos, pre-martial law columns in the Quezonian.

“Don’t worry,” Tigas said. “Just go to Camp Aguinaldo for your clearance.”

I did as asked. I was ordered by a Philippine Army official to sign a promissory note to the effect that I would never again criticize Marcos.

Guilt-stricken, I did not anymore return to Tatad’s office. I must have lost a “good future” for that change of heart but regained my dignity as journalist. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
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