Lessons from our parents’ stories

THIRTY-FIVE years ago, my mother, then a colegiala, met my father, then a dashing fine arts student of the University of the Philippines Diliman. It would have been a romcom-worthy meet, cute but for one thing: It happened while my dad was in prison.

On Sept. 26, 1980, around 200 students from different universities mounted an antigovernment protest on España, Manila. Nineteen of them, including my father, were arrested in the fray. The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus meant that no further process was necessary. He was detained at a rehab center in Taguig. My grandparents were devastated.

My father, who had feared the worst, knew that he was lucky to be alive. He was also lucky to be held in a “model prison,” where the detainees could move freely within the walls and a budget was allocated for their meals. It was small consolation while my father was held there, uncertain of when or if he would be allowed to resume his education, or the rest of his life.

Into this picture came my mother. She belonged to a student organization whose activities included visiting political detainees, spending time with them, getting to know their stories, and offering comfort and company. It was during one of these visits that my parents met. It was not a traditional romance; they were, after all, in difficult times.

The detainees and their relatives, along with support groups, appealed for their release through letters and—as a last resort—a hunger strike. Their appeals went unheard until, on Dec. 24, 1980, President Ferdinand Marcos, still at the height of his power, deigned to release them as a Christmas gift. As though he had done them a favor.

These family stories are all that I know of the ordeal that our country endured during the Marcos administration. If not for these secondhand memories, my awareness of political events at the time would have been as abstract to me had they occurred in another country. As much as we might complain about the present state of the Philippines, we millennials have at least been spared the unspeakable burden of living under martial law.

It’s natural that as the presidential election approaches, my generation should be looking for a new kind of leader. Someone with integrity; someone not entrenched in a political dynasty. Someone with experience. Someone with gravitas worthy of Malacañang, but charming enough to capture the loyalty of the masses. And—I hear this most of all—someone with a firm hand to scare Filipinos into discipline.

In the search for one with all of these virtues, I hear many of my peers cite Rodrigo Duterte as the best candidate. Given that track record for efficiency, I am sometimes inclined to agree, but all the same it is disturbing to hear people my age talk almost fondly about the rigid discipline enforced during martial law and connect that to Mayor Duterte’s personality and principles (with varying degrees of accuracy). “Did you hear of that time he forced a tourist to eat his own cigarette butt?” they say, impressed. “The Filipinos need that kind of leader!” “Eh buti pa noong may martial law may disiplina ang mga Pilipino.”

The legends around Mayor Duterte have grown to the point of drawing us to a certain brand of Dirty Harry, vigilante justice. We paint him as a superhero, immune to bribery and trickery, speeding around his city on a bike; we see his gruff personality and the way he refuses to simper and smile just to win the masses, and we find it refreshing. At one end of this extreme, we hear that the Philippines needs a dictator to whip it into shape, and that we’ve found him.

This is not an attack against the figure of Mayor Duterte. He may well have all of these virtues. It is entirely possible that he is the answer to many of the country’s problems (though he has said he won’t seek the presidency), as he certainly has been the answer to many of those in his city. But it would still be beyond the pale for me to admit that the Philippines will ever be in need of a hypothetical dictator, whoever that might turn out to be.

A lot of us, never having lived through the Marcos administration and given only secondhand impressions, tend to imagine the country then as less congested and more prosperous, and Filipinos as more well-mannered and more law-abiding. It can be easy to gloss over the human rights violations that were committed at the time. It can be easy to forget that a fine line existed between firm discipline and tyranny, and that the line was crossed. The number of claimants for the Martial Law Human Rights Victims’ Reparation and Recognition, my father among them, is just one small proof of that.

Given that we live in what seem to be lawless times, when figures of authority can publicly get away with a multitude of sins, when politicians can walk away from the consequences of their misdeeds by pleading illness, the idea of a firm hand is attractive. We associate the fear of punishment with an ideal world where traffic rules are obeyed, or where theft and corruption are not tolerated. We tend to forget that, for a time, fear did rule the Philippines in the name of “peace and order.”

We millennials—those of us caught on the cusp of adulthood, with all its responsibilities, but still armed with the spirits and desires of the youth—have the responsibility to vote wisely. That goes without saying. We are motivated by frustration and the desire for change. This is only my appeal that in wishing for a more strict leadership, we don’t desire to inflict on our country the tyranny of long ago. This is only a small reminder that as my generation looks to building a better future, we seek to learn from the lessons of the past. In this regard, our parents may have interesting stories to tell.

* * *

[email protected]