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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