Martial-law activists now ready to tell own stories

bonfire

Author’s note: This is a feature article I wrote for GMA News Online in 2009. Fourteen years later, it gladdens me to note that more and more historical pieces are being written by the activists and other unsung dissenters of that period—to put their definitive stamp on the record about their own experiences, to combat the most insidious forms of historical distortion about the Marcos dictatorship, to reiterate the lessons about moral courage and mass struggle, and of course to show their kids that they were there, fighting on the frontlines, keeping the flame alive in the deepest dark long before the break of dawn.


By JUN VERZOLA, GMANews.TV
September 21, 2009 7:03pm

Most of us who lived through those times remember the day with stark imagery.

The most indelible detail that defined that Saturday morning was something very plain and obvious: we woke up with our radio sets silent, except for random static. Later that day, a few stations would come alive with music of marching bands and, incongruously, love songs of the soul group Stylistics.

The date was September 23, 1972. Rumors took flight and disquiet grew thick among the citizenry throughout the day. Then, as dusk fell, then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos went on nationwide broadcast to announce the declaration of martial law. He had signed Proclamation No. 1081 two days earlier, on Sept. 21, and had put the deadly plan into effect before dissenters could react.

At this point, one could turn to cliché and say, “And the rest is history.

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Not really adobe, but even better

Adobe wall in our old family house

As children growing up in Kamuning, which was dotted by stone quarries in earlier times, we were used to calling this type of rough stone “adobe.” That’s because this was how our parents and all the adults around us called it.

But the stone we are familiar with is not really adobe. Adobe is the Spanish term for “mudbrick” (from Arabic ‘attob’). The real adobe, particularly the sun-baked or unfired type, was the quick-and-dirty earthen material used for Mediterranean construction since time immemorial.

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My aquatic micro-ecosystem

There are these two big, clear-glass jars that I’ve long refused to throw away, but allowed to just lie around the house because we couldn’t decide what to use them for.

These jars are at least 50 years old, probably manufactured ca. 1950s, perhaps even earlier. I remember my Lola Itang used one such jar for her magickal liniments of garlic and ginger soaked in coconut oil and kerosene, which she used as remedy for miscellaneous muscle, joint, and tummy aches. I remember the other jar was formerly the fuel base container for a gas-lit lamp. The rusty tin caps have long been discarded.

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