Beyond the Usual (Mis)Commemoration
Why Marcos' Framing of Martial Law Has Endured And Become Rejuvenated
Above: The Explainer from September, 2020. Every year I return to this topic: the proper commemoration of the imposition of Martial Law in 1972 should take place not on the date Marcos chose and tried to enshrine as Thanksgiving Day, but rather, on the date it actually became a reality for the majority of Filipinos. This means September 23 and not September 21. I wrote about this in September 23, not 21 (2018) as well in and Time bandit (2020). You can also read more about Martial Law in Heroism, Heritage, and Nationhood. There is a connection between this date and my own life story, as I wrote about in 2006: see Understanding the Way My Father Rejected the Marcos Dictatorship
I would like to share some readings on this, and associated topics I’ve thought about for some time. In 2022 I wrote,
The real question we have to ask in remembering #ML50 on its real anniversary, which is today, is less how did Marcos manage to get away with it, but rather, how did so many who knew what was coming, fail to stop it? The timeline reveals to us it was like a train wreck in slow motion. (For a comprehensive timeline, 1965-86, see: https://philippinediaryproject.com/…/a-timeline-of…/ )
I have my own theories from reading up and listening to those who were active then. My theory is it took 1967-76 because he actually did it in a lot of stages. What Makoy had going for him: every institution that could resist had cells of Marcos minded people. In media, Doroy Valencia. In the courts, Fred Ruiz Castro, the Ilocano generals and all the colonels pissed off with the Commission on Appointments; legions of parents freaked out by hippies, priests and bishops freaked out by Reds, ditto businessmen big and small.
Against him the usual intelligentsia but with the intelligentsia with no political sense but so much righteousness, it pissed off the middle class, but also a sub-group of them entranced by the idea of recreating society in a grand social experiment at Marcos’ instigation; again, media that was sounding the alarm but pissing off people like businessmen, and most everyone who thought they had more time because FM wouldn’t move until closer to November 1973, as his term was ending.
Most of all Marcos had sized up everyone’s price: and most everyone proved to have a price. Sen. Pres. Puyat and Speaker Villareal and most everyone in Congress were ok with replacing Congress with a unicameral national assembly; Concon delegates looked forward to sitting in the national assembly provided they approved the Marcos-written charter.
I strongly suspect even ex-Pres. Macapagal and then VP Lopez looked forward to the chance of being ceremonial prexy with FM as PM. They all thought after a temporary crackdown by 1973 they would all be back. This was FM’s deal to all of them and they happily took it.
Then FM double crossed them repeatedly: he postponed convening the interim National Assembly to 1974. Then he postponed convening it to 1975. By the time he abolished the Interim National Assembly in 1976 no one could fight him anymore.
So everyone could be divided and conquered. There’s a great quote in Raissa Robles’ book where a decade after martial law had been imposed, former Speaker Villareal told Marcos, you had us fooled, we thought it would last only a year or two and here you are, still, or something.
I. The Man Marcos
From 2007, Marcos in Retrospect, in two parts: Part I and Part II: the Seven Eras of Marcos’s life and career. From 2017, Ferdinand Marcos and Us: how he was a man of his era and continues to reflect strong urges in our society.
Aspects of his being are covered in these entries: A Marcos Mystery Story (on Marcos’ wartime doings, including some wartime correspondence in our family archives), and Notes on the Marcos Medals; from much later, Notes on William Saunders, Ferdinand E. Marcos, and Harry Stonehill: The Name That Binds.
II. The Era
See The Defiant Era (2010): my favorite, because most revealing, vignette is, as students tried to turn the University of the Philippines into a Maoist Commune, professors and other residents banded together to hunt down students to defend their (the home owners’) property rights. In 2016 I suggested in Martial Law and Parental Guilt that Marcos understood and took advantage, of hippie hatred on the part of his fellow parents.
III. Means, Motives, Opportunity
I proposed a longer framework, 1967 to 1981, for the unfolding of the dictatorial era, and expanding the cast of characters that made it possible; and also put forward the factors that provided means, motive, and opportunity for Marcos: see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. From 2014, Showdown with the Supremes looks at Marcos and the Supreme Court as a case study of how he neutralized potential threats.
It’s interesting to compare and contrast two nearly-simultaneous accounts of events: the diary of Ferdinand E. Marcos and the diary of an oppositionist delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Augusto Caesar Espiritu. See: The Delegate and the President: Contrasting Diaries on Martial Law in The Philippine Diary Project.
The irony is that by the time the dictatorial project was completed, in 1981, the beginning of the end was soon to come. See: The fabric of freedom, 10 Years After Edsa which covers the years 1973-1986. After the Fall of the House of Marcos (and prior to its Restoration in 2022), would come the wierd mutation of the Marcos Mythos into a kind of Cargo Cult. See Manna from Marcos from 2017.
IV. You Can See It Now
The history of Martial Law, the prelude and aftermath to its formal existence from 1972-1981, can become more accessible by viewing newsreel footage from the era. This includes reports by independent media, as well as state propaganda. Together, these videos provide a never-before-experienced immersive review of the end of the Third Republic, the dictatorship (the New Society and the New Republic), and People Power which created the Fifth Republic. Watch the videos in my playlist in YouTube.