YouTube Video — Transcript

A newborn child, a new life.

A new nation, a new joy in a new society.

Everything changes toward progress.

The immediately noticeable effect was the coming of peace and order.

The business community, especially foreign investors, welcomed this.

They had long been complaining about the strikes and demos.

We had no experience of martial law in the media, so I didn't know what it was.

It seemed like fun, smiling martial law, there was discipline.

For the nation to progress, discipline is required.

It cannot be denied that many citizens cheered.

No more crime.

No more lewd movies.

It really looked like a new society.

We used to see a rotten society.

Why didn't we resist, because Marcos said, "We're restoring order, we're building a new society," etcetera, etcetera, so I think many were intimidated.

But soon it became clear that what prevailed was the peace of the graveyard, the order of the concentration camp.

Many who were not criminals were detained in military camps.

Remember, at that time, there was hardly any justice.

Many of our compatriots were killed, tortured and killed, women detainees were raped, many disappeared, to this day, nobody knows what really happened to them.

What was police brutality became human-rights violations.

To extract confessions, they beat you up, electrocuted you, they would keep you awake for three days, that is unpardonable.

I mean, the thought of a Filipino torturing another Filipino.

The military is not traditionally used against their fellow citizens.

So for them to smack a fellow Filipino.

They had to be taught that this was the enemy.

With the coming of martial law, People Power seemed to have weakened, or disappeared entirely, it was like a Samson whose hair had been cut.

On the surface, former protesters seemed to have been knocked out, many seemed quietly resigned to the suppression of civil liberties.

The fear was very real.

And then you get stories from your other friends, this one arrested, that house raided, this one killed, that one abducted, these were people you knew, you may have been talking to them only a few weeks ago.

But not everyone slept in the night of the military dictatorship, those who had not been imprisoned or killed continued to be active.

On January 15, our hope of becoming a stable nation is at stake, the people flexed their muscles during the planned referendum for the new constitution.

Under the old 1935 constitution, Marcos could no longer run for president.

He pushed for amendments during the 1971 constitutional convention, but some delegates blocked his moves.

When martial law was imposed, a lot of delegates got arrested, we who were not arrested were threatened with jail.

He controlled the convention, so the constitution he wanted got written, making him a dictator.

We must yet submit this proposed constitution to the people, the final repository of power and authority in this democratic polity.

What came to be dubbed the 1973 Marcos constitution still had to be ratified by the people in a referendum.

The vote was for "Yes" or "No."

We felt "No" would really win.

Statements by Ninoy Aquino, Pepe Diokno, Father Pacifico Ortiz, we reproduced these, we distributed them far and wide at airports, bus terminals, train stations.

It wasn't just me, a lot of people were speaking out.

Marcos didn't want to take a risk, so he cancelled the scheduled plebiscite.

And just had a show of hands, and just had a show of hands.

Even kids who were not of voting age were allowed to participate.

They would say to the assembly, "Whoever wants free rice, raise your hand."

Naturally, everybody wanted free rice, then they would take pictures, and the following day those pictures would come out in newspapers like the Daily Express and in government-controlled television stations, pictures of people raising their hands and they'd say, "See, it's overwhelming, the ratification of the new constitution."

The Supreme Court issued a ruling.

It said ratification was not done.

It said ratification was not done.

In accordance with the constitution.

But further down it said, "There is no further judicial obstacle to the implementation of the new constitution."

Still, slowly, step by step, various sectors tested the limits by raising particular issues against the dictatorship.

Slowly, we revived the masses' faith in themselves in fighting for their rights.

We had a "walk offering," more than two thousand members of the urban poor walked from Tondo to Malacañang palace.

Strikes were prohibited, but workers at La Tondeña factory went on the first ever strike under martial law.

Our stand was, if we were going to die anyway, we might as well die fighting.

The strike succeeded because it forced Marcos to lessen the strictures on mass actions under martial law.

Well-known youth organizations were declared illegal, but students were not paralyzed.

They fought for the restoration of student councils and campus papers.

Marcos made a mockery of the law by issuing decrees and proclamations.

But lawyers boldly questioned those issuances.

Large demonstrations were banned, so protesters held prayer vigils.

Press censorship was strict, so the underground press reported the truth that was suppressed in the Marcos-controlled media.

We even had "xerox journalism." If the foreign press published a report critical of the regime, that was photocopied and widely distributed, BBC tapes about the torture of Filipino political detainees circulated, even though they were banned.

Some things got through the controlled media.

A seemingly harmless poem came out in Focus magazine.

The first letters of the poem, when read downward, turned out to be a subversive slogan.

Marcos, Hitler, Dictator, Running Dog.

Political prisoners went on hunger strikes to protest dictatorial methods in and out of military prisons.

The longest hunger strike was made by Ninoy Aquino: 40 days.

Prison struggles won outside support.

The Catholic Church set up Task Force Detainees to help prisoners of conscience and their families and to fight for humane treatment and the release of the detainees.

Even Filipinos abroad took part in the struggle.

They roused the world's conscience.

One such group was the "Movement For A Free Philippines" headed by former Senator Raul Manglapus.