ILIGAN City ― “What do you want to interview me about?” I asked the twelve-year-old who wanted to interview me on something.
“About World War 2. Your experience.” Damn. What do I experience during that time? I wasn’t born at that time.
And anyway, I got this ambivalent feeling to re-interview myself. I’d rather be the interviewer than the one who is interviewed. But I always oblige.
So I readied myself for it. I sat on a chair with this kid readying herself too. She then sat on a chair facing me even as she fiddled with her cell phone and readied it for a live video.
“Tell us about your experience with Martial Law.” Oh, I thought it was about the War. But I didn’t say that. Maybe it was a technique to catch me off guard.
Well, I was in my middle twenties then. I was teaching at the Cebu Institute of Technology after an eight-hour job as an accountant in real estate private company. That was a part-time job in the Accounting Department of the said institution (sort of trying hard). After I was through with that particular teaching job for the day which was already past eight, Bert, my husband, picked me up there. An unusual thing to do. But he had to be sure about my safety, he said. After all, martial law has been declared!
Needless to say, ML sent numerous shivers down our spines. And during the following days, we noticed that all newspapers stopped being circulated in the streets of Cebu City where we were then living.
All except one, the “Daily Express.” All the others were closed down. The paper said that it was a “smiling martial law.” After some time though, we got accustomed to saying Law. FM ruled by decree. Congress was abolished then and there was the Batasang Pambansa instead which was perceived as a “stamp pad” body. There were mantras heard in our midst like “New Society,” or “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.”
We heard too that vocal critics such as journalists were hurriedly placed on stockade even as opposition leaders like Nene Pimentel, the Dioknos, Ninoy Aquino, and several others were rounded up too and became PDLs.
Ordinary people, though, went through their lives in a routine fashion. And more routine.
But in 1973, there was an acute shortage of rice, and people went through many difficulties just to get that precious rice. There was even that joke that some women carrying that precious thing on their heads after going to great lengths to obtain that would tell others, especially the men who were interested in that valuable thing in their heads not to take away what they were carrying. Instead, they may take “their bodies” instead!
In time though, that precious thing called “rice” reappeared and things got too “normal” again. Even if ML was still there. No problem, was the thinking of us, ordinary mortals.
So the years went on for most of us, normally even if here and there were reports of imprisonments, of several being taken to stockades and things like that. It was said that by 1981, ML was “lifted.” Yet, it was no big deal really for the Marcoses were still there, lording it over and I suppose the general perception is “who cares?”
Yet the stories told of “some businesses being taken over by Marcos.” And now I remember the frogs after some rain that croak “ako, ako,” which is Bisaya for “mine, mine.” Or if not they will declare some percentages for some business of their fancy that they get 30 or 40 percent of that, “or else.” So, the word “crony” came up with much negativity in terms of meaning.
So, by the early 80s people got so restless. And oh, by the way, the government departments were now called Ministry, as in “Ministry of Human Settlements,” etc. There were also pictures of a handsome Ferdie Marcos and his lady, the “Imeldific” dressed as some kind of “Ministers.” Maybe Prime Minister and his Wife? I even had one placed on a wall of our house which was now in Cagayan de Oro as we had resettled in the said city as Bert was reassigned there as an executive of a gas company.
I also got a government job as a cooperatives examiner and sometimes acted as Officer in Charge of the Cooperatives Development Division of the Department of Agriculture. And in an assembly of a cooperative in CDO where I attended being an OIC, there I met Atty. Reuben Canoy was the mayor then. In his speech during the said occasion, he talked, among other things, a narrative about the Marcoses, especially the “Imeldific.”
He talked about that structure, I think it was the Cultural Center of the Philippines, where several construction workers were “buried alive” below said structure because they wanted to catch up with the target date of completion!
People then believed that what triggered the beginning of the end of the brutality of a regime was the death of Benigno Aquino on the tarmac on August 21, 1983. Which gave rise to a movement called “ATOM” or the August 21 Movement.” Or “Jaja” which is Justice for Aquino is Justice for All.
There was also that narrative about Primitivo Mijares who wrote a book. I think it was a “Conjugal Dictatorship.” It is reported that he disappeared from the face of the earth because of that. And even his teenage son also met a similar fate because of that. Reportedly, he was “tortured” and “dropped from a helicopter” afterward. But I don’t know if the latter phase is true.
The rest, they say in a cliche, is history.
Now I know of some media friends who were given some amount by some lawyer from America for their “sufferings” during those ML years. It was only P50,000 considered “meager” by some people. Even then, there’s a great difference between 50,000 and zero. Although many people from the media I know who also suffered during said regime did not bother filing for such because they didn't think that there was such kind of possibility.
It was then reported later that during ML time, the country got “bankrupt” and the Central Bank of the Philippines was changed to “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas” and there was a record in the Guinness Book of Records as “the biggest robber.”
The kid who requested such an interview then was very thankful. Ok, she revealed that such was a project of a cousin of hers; she was only requested to do it!
Anyway, I had another interview last February 8 of this year, by a student from the University of Sto. Tomas about some “displays of media populism in a democratic state: A grounded theory of practicing editorial balance” which I also obliged even if I had to forgo seeing some hot movie on Netflix like “All of Us are Dead.” Because I had to do some preparations on it. Shall I talk about it? Yes? Oh, no, not this time, maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe never, as some song lyric goes…
Email: norasorino2@gmail.com
