Martial Law Remembered President Ferdinand Marcos signed Proclamation 1081 placing the entire archipelago under Martial Law on Sunday, 17 September 1972. The effectivity of the Proclamation was, however, set on Thursday, 21 September 1972, but was only publicly announced in the evening of Saturday, 23 September 1972. The time gap, the interim period between the declaration and the announcement of the military rule, was apparently designed to put the opponents and enemies of the strongman off-guard. This led to their easy and quick arrest, capture and detention in various safehouses and military camps throughout the country. I learned of the declaration of Martial Law only in the morning of Sunday, 24 September 1972. I was then a young college instructor at the MSU – Sulu College of Technology and Oceanography in Bongao, Sulu (now Tawi-Tawi) at that time. Upon waking that Sunday morning, for reason I could not explain, I was moved by a peculiar urge to go the beach alone. The Halun beach was some 700 meters away from the MSU Bongao campus and I was all alone there at around 7 in the morning. It was a sunny bright morning. Yet the beach was cool and a little dark as it was wrapped by the ubiquitous shadows of huge mangrove trees that dotted its shoreline. The sea was exceedingly calm and was almost foreboding in its silence. I waded to the waters outside the shadows of trees and, at chest deep, allowed myself to float, to relax, and to meditate on the pristine and enchanting beauty of my marine surrounding. A lazy humming of a DC plane from a distance interrupted my reflection. The plane was apparently approaching Sanga-Sanga Airport in another island some 8 km from the MSU Bongao campus. At around 8:30 a.m., I retraced my way back to the MSU Panel Locks faculty dormitory on campus. What I saw when I reached the place distressed me: fully-armed Philippine Air Force personnel in their grey overall were everywhere. Although they maintained a decent distance from the dormitory and staff houses, their presence was definitely threatening. The scene in my room was equally disturbing. My locker was in chaos; all my books, reading materials and notes were gone. No one was in the dorm to explain the situation. I looked around outside the building and saw the dorm tenants in a nearby staff cottage, apprehensive and sullen, all ears to a radio set. As I approached them, I heard the baritone of President Ferdinand Marcos cracking the air: he was justifying the imposition of Martial Law throughout the land made two days earlier. I supposed it was a replay of an announcement made earlier. So that was it. The dorm occupants were alerted by the neighbors on the declaration of Martial Law before the arrival of the Air Force assault personnel. The lady faculty members rushed to my room, force-opened my locker, hauled all my books and reading materials and buried them to a location that until now has never been disclosed to me. The little red book of Mao, the nationalist essays of Renato Constantino, the speeches of Recto and Tañada, including the relatively harmless but provocative “Atlas Shrugged” of Ayn Rand, the “The Little Prince” of de Exupery, and the history, sociology and English textbooks I borrowed from the campus library were put to rest under the ground inside a tall tin biscuit can. My disappearance early that morning alarmed the ladies. They thought the military had kidnapped and already detained me somewhere. Thus, they had to hide the “evidences” against my person. (An excerpt from my piece “A Journey to Uncertainty…”)
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 05:03:03 +0000
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