EDITORIAL – Martial Law’s untold story

THIS story about Martial Law is told for the first time during the last 40 decades.
Proclamation 1081 placing the country under Martial Law was signed by President Marcos on September 21, 1972. But it was not until September 23, 1972, that it was publicly announced.
When it came, very few practicing media persons were caught unawares. Weeks before the proclamation, the late senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. came to Davao several times. His warnings about Oplan Saguitarius and other codenames used by Marcos to hide the impending emergency rule were headlined by local newspapers. Many local newsmen did not believe Ninoy’s exposes then, but the intense media play given to it somehow removed the element of surprise when it finally came. We, at least the working journalists, especially those who had covered the almost daily street demonstrations by radical students, the lifting of the privilege of habeas corpus on two occasions and the other violent and dramatic events were not that stunned. However, fear of the unknown gripped most of us and gnawed at our confidence in the future.
It might have been serendipity, but a second man somehow cushioned the impact of martial law. Following the relief of a provincial commander of the then powerful Philippine Constabulary after he was accused of raping a young woman from Davao del Sur, a new commander took his place. He was Col. Jose Pascua, an amiable Panggalatok who was very friendly to media.
He was on the third day of his assignment in Davao City when martial law was announced. While Ninoy Aquino, other opposition politicians and a great number of journalists had been rounded up and detained in Camp Crame, and newspaper establishments and radio-TV networks padlocked in Manila, it was surprisingly business as usual in Davao City.
Almost daily, Col. Pascua would invite media persons to accompany him in his rounds of the city and marvel at the sepulcher-like peace and quiet of city streets at night, thanks to the curfew imposed then.
On the second week of martial rule, Pascua gathered media people to tell them of the sad and scary news that he got a dressing down for allowing media establishments to operate as if nothing happened.
That afternoon, the airlanes fell silent. The following day, none of the half a dozen news local weeklies appeared in city streets.
Out of work, the lives of media men and their families were in limbo. It was only a month later when the announcement that media establishments could re-open, subject to some forms of censorship. Dozens of media persons who were namesakes of wanted kidnappers, murderers, swindlers, and rebels could not return to work unless they were first cleared by a processing unit in Camp Crame. Even a network general manager who could hardly stand because
of polio acquired in childhood had to make a difficult trip to Manila with many of his staffers because their names appeared as suspects in some heinous crimes.
Later, Davao media people were required to submit their daily news manuscripts in advance to the Philippine Constabulary barracks for scrutiny before they could be aired or published. Radio and television stations were made to maintain daily programs through which New Society propaganda materials could be aired.
Meanwhile, sources of local and national advertising had dried up as the economy worsened. Only cronies of the dictatorship were in business and laughing their way to the bank.
Some media men who had enough space in their backyard started planting vegetables. Others went back to the provinces where the communist insurgency was still in its infancy, to try their hand at farming. A few went underground. The name of Ninoy Aquino continued to seize the national consciousness all the way to his murder on the tarmac which eventually catapulted his widow, Cory, to the presidency. He continues to be remembered and revered as his only son and namesake rule the country president with his “daang matuwid,” and while the nation giggled at the antics of Kris, Ninoy’s well-loved little princess.
Joe Pascua, the amiable constabulary commander, died soon after serving as the peace and order consultant for the Davao City mayor, Elias Lopez.