When Martial Law Was Declared : University of the Philippines (UP)

Introduction

It was a Saturday, September 23, 1972. I woke up at about 5 am. I half-consciously settled my bathroom business. I then put on my newly pressed, fatigue Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) uniform. Next came the struggle with the painful combat boots. I noticed there were no broadcasts on TV, just static, which was very unusual. I did not pay attention to this anomaly because I was such in a hurry.

In those days, it took me only an hour to commute 37 kilometers by bus from our sleepy town, Bulacan, Bulacan, to the sprawling UP Campus. I reached UP at about 7:30 AM. Our Military Science classes started at 8 AM, but because there were routine briefings, we were required to be at the UP Department of Military Science and Tactics (UPDMST) premises, which was behind Abelardo Hall, a few minutes before that. 

When the red JD bus stopped in front of the University Theater, I jumped out and ran about 50 meters to find my co-cadets already starting to gather around. When we were already in neat military formation, our ROTC commandant, in heavy Ilocano accent, began his routine address to the hundred or so cadets: "This is our first training under martial law," he declared in a menacing tone.

Martial Law Changed the Course of My Life

In fact, I told myself, that remark was anything but routine. It took some minutes for it to sink in, but my senses were telling me that this thug was proudly declaring to our faces that starting today, his ilk was in charge of our luckless lives. I bit my lower lip and tried to digest all the implications.

What everyone was expecting or predicting the past two years or so had happened. Little did I know, however, that that day would change the course of my life. I began to assess what would happen next to the Philippines. Of course rumors flew thick and fast, and we youths lined-up in the September sun managed to talk secretly among ourselves.

Each of us caught and passed around rumors as fast as they came.  Ninoy Aquino had been arrested. Enrile had been ambushed. There was a firefight between government and rebel forces in the nearby Iglesia ni Cristo compound. This and that professor had been arrested. There was a 12 midnight curfew imposed by the military, with the violators to be hauled to Camp Crame. The New People’s Army would lead an uprising in Manila.

However, the rumor that we talked about the most was the forced “white side wall” hair-cuts forced by the military on any adult male who sported long hair, and was unfortunate enough to be accosted on the streets. In the early Seventies, lest we have forgotten, hippie culture was still in, and long hair for males was the norm. The aforementioned considered, the number of dudes whose hair was cut by the authorities must have been huge. A spin-off rumor to this one was that huge mounds of hair more than a meter high had built up in odd places in the thoroughfares of Manila and Quezon City.

On my way home that afternoon, the EDSA stretch between Balintawak Cloverleaf and the Bonifacio monument, where I got my bus to Bulacan, Bulacan, was very close to deserted. I considered myself lucky when my “F. Nito” bus came along, after more than an hour of waiting. I squeezed myself into the running board of the jam-packed vehicle and endured the ride home. I remember the poor bus’ diesel engine groaned as it made its way through the Manila North Diversion Road, as NLEX was called in those days.

Marcos Threatens, Tatad Orates

When I got home that evening, Information Secretary Francisco Tatad was already reading Presidential Proclamation 1081 on TV. The only channel that was airing was KBS Channel 9, which, I knew, belonged to Marcos crony Roberto Benedicto. After the long and laborious Tatad oration, a replay of that landmark address by Marcos telling the nation that he had declared martial law came up. This one got my undivided attention. His opening Iine was chilling: “My countrymen, as of the twenty-first of this month, I signed Proclamation № 1081 placing the entire Philippines under Martial Law...” I was surprised to hear him reveal that he had declared martial law two days before.  

I settled down in our kitchen to eat dinner. I continued listening to Marcos. Marcos said that he was declaring martial law through the powers given to him by the Philippine constitution as “commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” (AFP) He explained that the declaration was his move against the “oligarchs” who were trying to control the government and that it was expedited by a failed ambush of defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile.

After hearing the bit about Sec. Enrile, I told myself that at least, one of the rumors that went around that morning was true. The Marcos announcement went on for about another thirty minutes, as he railed against communists and rich people alike.  He then read several “General Orders.” (GOs)

I remember that in these GOs Marcos ordered the arrest of certain people included in a “list.”  I also remember him ordering a ban on all forms of group actions, and imposing a curfew from 12 midnight until 4 am. After hearing the curfew announcement, I told myself --- “that’s another rumor confirmed.”  As I finished my meal, I heard Marcos utter what I would remember most from his announcement. He said he was doing all of this ------ "to save the Republic and reform society." 

Classes Resume: Tutorial Method and Mass Promotions

After Marcos' announcement, classes were suspended for several weeks in UP. During that period, I stayed at home, out of my parents concern for my safety. I just followed developments as they appeared on KBS Channel 9, and on the only newspaper permitted to publish, a very thick tabloid called The Daily Express. It sold for ten centavos a copy. When I returned to UP when classes resumed, more rumors were confirmed.  I learned that not a few student leaders and faculty had gone underground or had been arrested.

I also learned that the student council had been abolished, the Philippine Collegian padlocked, and the university radio station DZUP shut down.   Marcos also banned all UP college based student councils and publications, and all forms of student organizations.   Many faculty members, because of the abnormal situation, opted to conduct their classes "tutorial" style. This meant that they just met their classes occasionally and gave their students uniform passing grades. The latter practice was also called “mass promotion.”

The semester was about to end. None of my professors had favored the “tutorial” method, so I prepared myself for a hectic semestral homestretch. I had an 18 unit load, consisting of English III, Natural Science 1, Pilipino 13, Political Science 11, Social and Political Thought, and Spanish 12.  I remember the first class I attended was Social and Political Thought under the comely and diminutive professor Natalia Miñeque of the   Political Science department.

Martial Law Muzzles Free Discussion

Of course, the first and only thing we discussed in the initial meeting was the recent declaration. Predictably, no one in the room, least of all the instructor, dared to criticize martial law. For us students, we were afraid to speak up and condemn the martial law regime even if we were itching to. For the first time in our lives, the threat of arrest was real. However, in the subsequent meetings, some of my classmates dared criticize the regime, but only briefly.

The “Soc-Pol Thought” class met only for about seven times, as it was already mid-October. The recitations and exams were perfunctory.  The new conditions hung in the air so thick that it was impossible to pretend things were back to normal. We knew, though, that it was not in our professor’s heart to fail us. We knew that she knew that we had missed the semester against our will, and that the current emergency in itself, was a very educative course in politics.

Things were pretty much the same in my other classes ------ the topic of martial law also kept cropping up, with the professor playing it safe. As the semester wore on, however, most of us UP students managed to muster enough daring.  One by one, we began to voice our opinions in class, albeit very judiciously.  All of my professors except one gave us final exams, which I barely passed because my mind was not into studying anymore.

The one who did not give the final exam was an activist physics professor named Victor Manarang, who, we were told, went into hiding a few days after the declaration of martial law. I later learned that Victor Manarang was a former editor of the Philippine Collegian.  I will never forget Prof. Manarang’s exam question regarding the trajectory of thrown objects, in which the example he used was the trajectory of pillbox bombs thrown by irate demonstrators at riot policemen.

From Oblation to Emasculation

Marcos made sure that the broad student movement in UP would be emasculated. It had been a major thorn in his side ever since he assumed the presidency in January 1966. UP students, especially those belonging to the leftist Kabataang Makabayan (KM), formed the spearhead in the rowdy demonstrations against the Manila Summit Conference of 1966, and against Philippine involvement in the Vietnam War. To add insult to injury, the UP Student Council, led by its chairman, Enrique “Voltaire” Garcia, even staged a huge anti-Vietnam War rally in front of Malacañang on September 11, 1966. It was Marcos’ first birthday as president.

UP students also participated heavily in the so-called “Battle of Mendiola” on January 30, 1970, which led to the historic rallies in the first three months of that year called the “First Quarter Storm” (FQS).  These demonstrations from the country’s best and brightest succeeded in depicting his administration as a beleaguered regime. Worse, the Diliman Commune of February 1-9 1971 showed that for one brief moment, UP students could brazenly put up a rebel government right under Marcos’ bloodied nose.  The archetype UP student activist was a double-edged sword. He/she had the brain to understand complex issues and explain these widely; he/she also had the physical jaggedness vital for the rough and tumble parliament of the streets.

From this media-magnified arena, UP student activists effectively contributed to a negative public opinion against Marcos’ administration, by skillfully articulating on the burning issues. This became   apparent after the November 11, 1969 Philippine presidential elections, when the Philippine economy nosedived because of Marcos’ campaign overspending. After this election, student demonstrations increased in frequency, size, and intensity, with the media giving extensive coverage.  

Quick Witted UP Students

The fact that radical students were gaining access to mass media showed that a budding alliance was forming between the radicals and the mass media owners, whom Marcos referred to as the “oligarchs.” Marcos knew this, and that early, he already had in his cross-hairs the Lopez family, who owned ABS-CBN Channels 2 and 4 and the Manila Chronicle, and the Roces family, who owned ABC Channel 5 and the influential Manila Times. For similar reasons, also earning Marcos’ ire at this time was the Teodoro Locsin family, who owned the then very credible Philippines Free Press.

For example, at the height of the FQS and the Diliman Commune, UP student leaders Gary Olivar, who was then the chairman of the Movement for a Democratic Philippines (MDP), and Fernando “Jerry” Barican, who was the chairman of the UP Student Council, became household words because of their frequent TV appearances.  The Philippine Collegian, under fearless editors like Antonio Tagamolila and Oscar Yabes, was often quoted by the mainstream press. UP President Salvador Lopez himself at one point had the boldness to lead an anti-Marcos demonstration.

I recall one incident in February 1971 on DZBB Channel 7. It showed the kind of logic and mental grasp UP students of those days were capable of. The Diliman Commune was a few days old. In one late-time TV talk show on Channel 7 which was hosted by Bob Stewart, a motley group of Marcos cabinet members and pro-Marcos congressmen were trying to befuddle UP student leader Raymond Altarejos on the oil issue. I am not sure but one of the tormentors must have been Leonardo Perez.

The quick witted Altarejos was seated in the middle of a row of folding chairs, flanked by two or three Marcos underlings. Altarejos was not even considered a heavyweight in the movement. He was earlier left to his lonesome after his famous companions suddenly left the set. The pro-Marcos side raised question after puzzling question, in a vain effort to pin down Altarejos. They wanted to out argue Altarejos into admitting that the students’ demand for an oil price rollback was unreasonable. Altarejos, who was an engineering student, did not flinch under pressure. For more than thirty minutes, he coherently answered or otherwise parried every question. Altarejos ended up patiently giving the elders a lecture.

Because UP students had become such a public opinion force, muzzling the voice of the “Diliman Republic” became Marcos’ obsession. Once the instruments of dictatorship were in place, Marcos did what he had drooled to do since the Sixties --- put those Maoist UP professors and students behind bars. To him, they had masqueraded as nationalists long enough. They had to be put in their place. UP had to be pacified, if his still shaky martial law regime were to fully stabilize. Ironically, Marcos himself was a product of this vexatious institution, whose pleasantly wooded campus lay in geographic proximity to the foot of the Sierra Madre Mountains, the lair of the emerging rebel forces.

Salvador Lopez Plays Dictator and Democrat

To both activist and non-activist UP students who wanted to join or establish organizations, 1973 was a year of adjustment. They had to adjust to regulation. Gone were the days when student power ruled the campus and they could do and say almost anything. It was not the case that the UP administration, now under a tamed Salvador P. Lopez, was out to eliminate student organizations and activism outright. “SP” Lopez knew better than that. He knew in his heart that if stopping the activities of young people was next to impossible, what more in the case of UP students with their tradition of rebellion?

They were incorrigibly political and outspoken. Besides, I was not convinced that Lopez, who sincerely took the cudgels for the students during the Diliman Commune, had completely decamped to Marcos. To me, he was too much of a democrat to act as the campus fascist. Besides, Lopez loved UP too much. This affection showed in his landmark policies. Later in his tenure, he fashioned UP into a “UP System” and allowed the faculty and personnel to participate in UP’s decision making processes.

What the Lopez “admin” did in the early martial law years was allow the existence of non-militant UP organizations and publications, but heavily regulate their activities and publications. Egged on by the military, it also implemented an absolute ban on all pre-martial law leftist organizations like the KM, the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan, (SDK), and the Student Alliance for National Democracy (STAND).  Also prohibited were all forms of political demonstrations and manifestations, regardless of the issue. This ban included class boycotts which had become a standard activist weapon, and a revered UP ritual.

President Lopez was obviously doing a balancing act, between Malacañang and his constituents. I vividly remember him trembling, holding his anger as he spoke, during one of the numerous meetings he had with haughty student leaders. Looking closer, I remember imagining smoke coming from his bald pate. At this point, I surmised, all this highly lettered man wanted  as his legacy was a well maintained and peaceful university. His overarching aim was to prevent UP activism of the Diliman Commune type to rematerialize. This principle would best explain what the Lopez administration did starting in 1973, vis-à-vis student affairs.

Student Council Abolished, Enter Concomsa

First, the student council was to remain suspended, because apparently this was not negotiable with Malacañang. For an indefinite period, the council could not be allowed to exist. However, there was also a need to create an air of normalcy in the campus, because many still felt jittery on the effects of martial law. With these conditions in mind, the UP Office of Student Affairs (OSA), under Prof. Armando Malay and his assistant, Prof. Oscar “Vangge” Evangelista, created a body that would approximate, even remotely, a genuine student council. They called it the Consultative Committee for Student Affairs ---- “Concomsa” for short.

The word “consultative” said it all: Concomsa was not to be the independent, and self-determining UP Student Council of old. Concomsa would have no power to make decisions on its own. It was to be merely consulted by the UP administration, or make recommendations on its own.  The UP Administration was to make all the final decisions on matters heretofore within the purview of the UP Student Council. However, President Lopez allowed the Concomsa to represent the students in the policy-making bodies of the University. He also ordered that funds be allotted to the body for student welfare projects.

The Concomsa projects I like the most were Pasiklab ‘74, a musical number contest for the organizations, and Palakas ‘74, a sports fest with the same participants. In Pasiklab ’74, I was a member of the UP Political Science Club singing group which sang a merry patriotic song. It was held in the early evening, at the cavernous University Theater. In Palakas ’74, I played for the UP Lipunang Pangkasaysayan (Likas) basketball team. I remember that when we played against the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) team on the asphalt court just outside the old gym, we gave the "born agains" a serious drubbing.

Second, and this hurt as much as the first, the new Concomsa was not to be elected at large. It was to be composed of representatives from student organizations. At this time, the OSA had approved about fifty or so organizations, and it deemed that this number was big enough to constitute a base for even a make-believe student council. These representatives were to be nominated by the organizations themselves, with the OSA approving or disapproving the nominations.

I remember that when the first Concomsa was convened in March 1974, its chairman was Roberto “Bobby” Crisol who was, at that time, the Lord Chancellor of the UP Alpha Sigma fraternity.  The son of Magsaysay psywar expert and Marcos defense undersecretary Jose Crisol, Bobby was probably representing the fraternity sector.

Other Concomsa members whom I can recall were Elizabeth Protacio (UP Psychology Society), Renato S. Velasco (UP Likas and UP Alpha Sigma Fraternity), Ramon de la Llana (UP Economics Society), Maria Carmen Jimenez (UP Psychology Society) Oliver Jumao-as (Beta Sigma Fraternity), Arturo Calaguas (Epsilon Chi Fraternity), Jose Maria Nolasco (UP Political Science Club and UP Tau Gamma Fraternity), Regina Padilla (UP Beta Rho Sorority and UP Political Science Club), and Bibeth Orteza (Samahan ng mga Magaaral sa Komunikasyon or Samaskom). 

New Breed of Student Leaders

The Concomsa represented the new breed of UP activists, tempered by the conditions of repression. These “martial law babies” were made of sterner stuff, because they chose to be activists under the peril of military rule. They could be unceremoniously arrested, tortured, or executed. Less driven by fame, their work was harder. Less articulate, they nevertheless were calmer in demeanor, more patient, less confrontational, and better dressers than their predecessors. They waged their struggle not in tumult of the streets, but in the slog of countless meetings, consultations, and "position papers."  And, unlike their celebrated forerunners, they were practically unknown outside UP. For obvious reasons, the martial law media ignored them.

This “non-elected” nature of the Concomsa went against a sixty-year UP tradition, that of UP students directly electing the members of their council. In effect, President Salvador Lopez and Dean Armando Malay were trying to give the fiercely independent UP student body of the early Seventies an insipid student council, one that lacked authentic power and mandate. It was a “consuelo de bobo” that was being foisted on a heroic studentry.  These kids had recently waged one of the most eloquent and ferocious anti-dictatorship struggles in the Third World at that time.

Armando Malay and the OSA

Third, students seeking to revive suspended organizations or create new ones had to go through a tedious screening and approval process conducted by the OSA, no doubt with the military looking over its shoulders. To get approved, the organizers had to submit to the OSA the name, list of officers and members, the constitution or by-laws, and set of activities of the organization. Most UP student organizations fell under the following types:  academic (the most numerous), fraternities and sororities, “varsitarian (based on provincial-linguistic origin),” and dormitory councils. Other types of organizations that I can remember included socio-civic, religious, recreational, and special interest.

All of these had to go through the sieve of accreditation. Complicating matters was that many student leaders had gone underground or were arrested or killed, so that those applying with the OSA were relatively greenhorns.  This meant they had to catch up on their organizing and leadership skills, and faced the daunting challenge of recruiting new members. Another problem was that since many organizations lost many documents and records in the confusion of the emergency, the new organizers had to write new constitutions and by-laws and think up new concepts. In short, most of them were starting from scratch.

Once the organization was set up and functioning, the regulation did not stop. Major public presentations, like a symposium, a play, or a debate, including the posters announcing these, had to be green-lighted by the OSA. I remember all posters on the CAS walls bearing on one of their corners the familiar three-inch long, oval shaped, violet, and rubber-stamped OSA seal of approval. OSA held its office at Vinzons Hall, and that is where I often saw Dean Malay pacing about in the corridor like the wise old man, bushy eyebrows and all. I also frequently bumped into the amiable and goateed Oscar Evangelista, who cheerily greeted everyone in the hallways.

DZUP’s Demise

Fourth, DZUP, the official AM radio station of UP, which had been broadcasting since 1957, was to remain off the air. Its studio was raided and its equipment destroyed with sledge hammers and axes by the Philippine Constabulary Metropolitan Command (PC-Metrocom) in those momentous dawn hours of September 23, 1972.

The military had good reason to put down DZUP, as it had a tactical value to the communists. The latter could have used it to relay vital information to their armed units. They could have broadcast calls for massive demonstrations. Worse still for Marcos, DZUP could have been a rallying point for the broad but scattered opposition.  Letting DZUP broadcast anew, even under a new management, was a risk the new military government could not take.

However, I don’t remember my fellow students being particularly concerned about the station’s demise. I certainly did not miss it. By hindsight, I surmise that DZUP’s credibility at this time was already compromised. It had become essentially a communist mouthpiece. This had been the case since the Diliman Commune.

The station did not even have the tongue-in-cheek to broadcast mainstream local and foreign songs, which it doubtless denigrated as bourgeois. It catered to a significant but limited audience, and alienated quite a lot.  I was put off by its constant fare of Tagalog revolutionary songs, which included a Tagalog version of the Internationale.  The vast majority of UP students could not identify with it.

This front page of the Philippine Collegian pretty much sums it up for the role of the paper during martial law in the Philippines. It spoke not only for the UP students, but also for the entire silenced nation. Kudos to managing editor Fides M. Lim who conceptualized the cover, and who was the moving, albeit silent spirit behind the Collegian of these heady days. It happened during the editorship of Abraham "Ditto" Sarmiento Jr. who, in fairness to the man, also gave his own brand of courage to the Collegian. For his actions against the dictatorship, Sarmiento was imprisoned for a long time, an experience which contributed to his health problems. Ditto Sarmiento died prematurely at age 27, of a heart attack.  

 

The Philippine Collegian Rises

The only bright spot was the Philippine Collegian, that symbol of free and critical expression, that criterion of journalistic excellence. The paper did not undergo restraints as debilitating as those imposed on the student council, or as brutal and brazen as that which bludgeoned DZUP.  Unlike the UP Student Council, the Collegian was permitted to operate, after about three months in the freezer. I surmised that the paper was treated with kid gloves because its editor, Oscar Yabes, was not identified that closely  with the radicals. Yabes also belonged to the College of Law based UP Sigma Rho Fraternity, and was therefore a “brod” of defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile. It is nearly certain his brods interceded for him, fast tracking the resumption of the Collegian.

The paper’s nearly seamless return was certainly good tidings to many, not in the least because the Collegian, in 1972, was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its establishment. What can be more propitious in celebrating a paper’s golden birthday then, than to see it survive a vicious clamp-down and be reborn under martial law?   The Collegian was fortunate. In contrast to the fire breathing DZUP, the paper in recent years had not become thoroughly radical, at least in form. It had not estranged many. The big difference was that many Collegian writers, though closet Marxists, were able to present Left ideology in intellectual or academic terms. By doing so, they preserved the paper’s long-standing respectability and credibility.  

Mr. Yabes himself was only briefly “detained” by the authorities, during which the UP College of Law student was given a pro-martial law lecture by Col. Noe Andaya of the Camp Aguinaldo based AFP Office for Community Relations (OCR). Finding him amply connected, a mild threat to the state, and perhaps as a concession to Collegian continuity and campus normalization, the OSA permitted Yabes to serve out his term. It ended in 1974. In fairness to Yabes, the Collegian that he edited in the first two years of martial law was not the servile paper many people had expected.

To Yabes’ credit, he devoted many Collegian pages to student rights and welfare.  Its content, though, had to be approved by the OSA, and by the government’s notorious Mass Media Council. For good measure, the OSA later appointed a faculty adviser, in the person of literary giant Prof. Francisco “Franz” Arcellana, to observe the Collegian’s operations. Even this was a blessing, because as it turned out, Dr. Arcellana was more the doting parent to the Collegian staff than the petrifying censor. The Collegian staffers I talk to today still refer to “Franz” with fondness and respect.

Campus Under Siege ---- For a While At Least

Aside from putting up with restrictions on their organizational life, UP students also had to adjust to restrictions on their personal movement. UP police and security guards began to inspect bags, attaché cases, and notebooks at the college entrances. I distinctly recall a bald headed member of the UP police who was nicknamed “Kojak” by the students. He was tall and slender, walked with a swagger in his almost skin-tight khaki uniform, and always wore bikini sunglasses. His black shoes were always immaculately shiny. He was particularly arrogant. The students never took him seriously though, and often laughed behind his back.

The security guards were under instructions to confiscate weapons, explosives, and underground publications or documents. Most of us did not carry these items, but the hassle of having to go through persons with new-found superiority was annoying in the least. Of course, the Filipino “ningas cogon” mentality prevailed soon enough ---- the moronic guards began to wave in students in droves as the year wore on. The Lopez administration also imposed a 10 p.m. to 6. a.m curfew in the colleges, which was progressively relaxed until it disappeared unnoticed.

With the rallies and boycotts gone, and the firebrands silenced, UP students also had to adjust to a quiet and uneventful campus --- at least for the time being. The second semester of school year 72-73 was the first uninterrupted one in decades, during which class syllabi content was fulfilled 100% by most faculty.

The conservative students who were indifferent to the activists exulted at this new situation. Now they could pay full attention to their studies, which, to them, was what UP life was all about. This was nowhere more true than in the College of Business Administration (CBA), where students, enticed by the prospect of high paying jobs in big corporations, were the most pro-capitalist in UP.

Faculty Disappearances

In the critical second semester in ‘72-‘73, UP students continued experiencing having their professors unceremoniously disappear in the middle of the semester, and be replaced by another. This was because military surveillance and harassment continued in school and in their homes. More UP faculty members are known to have gone underground in those uncertain days, in addition to those who hid immediately before and after the declaration.  Some were to resurface a few years later.

Aside from my aforesaid natural science instructor, another professor of mine also vanished: Prof. Vivencio “Vencio” Jose, who handled my English I course. Vencio was identified with the Moscow leaning Filipino communists. He was one of my best professors. I was told that Prof. Jose was so hounded by the military that he decided to take a leave.

Prof. Jose was replaced by Prof. Elmer Ordoñez who finished the course quite hurriedly and gave us glowing grades. I later learned that shortly after that semester, Prof. Ordoñez packed up his bags to join the US based anti-Marcos opposition. I also remember my political science adviser doing the disappearing act: he by the name of Prof. Temario “Temy” Rivera. We would later meet again in 1979  as co-detainees at the Bicutan Rehabilitation Center (BRC).