Martial law, Asin, and ‘never again’

I UNDERSTAND that the way history is taught is through narratives, apart from figures, names and dates. The narratives may be slanted at times, but the events remain to have happened, even if seen in a select perspective. I still cringe when my parents tell me their own narrative, of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. I remember them telling me that the effect of martial law here in Mindanao wasn’t as bad as it was in other places, but it wasn’t something to be glad about either.

What I was told is that freedom was rarer than food in those days. Speaking up against the government was almost a taboo. People disappeared without explanation, and one could only imagine what happened to them. Tortured? Mutilated? My father would say it was a terrifying thought that to go out of the house during curfew could mean jail time.

When I was a kid, my father used to play tracks of Joey Ayala and Asin on our audio component on Saturdays. While singing along, he would insert a comment or two about how these artists, along with many others, were courageous people unfazed by the threat of the martial law government, writing and singing songs about injustice happening in the country at the time.

By then I was already wondering why the government became a threat to its people when it was the same government that should take care of their welfare. I understood then that sometimes, the system must be challenged in order for justice to prevail. My parents told me and my siblings that protest songs were banned, and radio and TV stations and newspaper offices were forced to close, all because they were airing opinions that were against the government.

We were all into campus journalism, my siblings and me, and I think it is safe to say that we hated the idea of censorship.

In school, almost every year there were discussions on how the Philippines bounced back from the Marcos dictatorship through People Power. It was through a bloodless revolution in 1986 that the people liberated themselves from martial rule. Edsa 1 was a glorious event commemorated every year to remind the people of how bad things were back then, and how badly people wanted to get away from the dictatorship.

Moving up the educational ladder, I got to meet people with different perspectives. I met people who told me that it wasn’t really Marcos who was at fault but his wife Imelda. Some told me that it wasn’t just his wife but also his cronies. Others also told me that the time of Marcos was a golden era: Food was cheap, and the incidence of crime was minimal. They even went so far as to say that they would love to have martial law back.

All this talk shocked me. Why would anyone want to go back to a time when people were almost like cattle imprisoned in a barn? Yes, people may have had food, clothing and security, but the one thing they did not have that made them human was freedom. If an animal were to go wild and attack his owner or his friends, he would be tied up, mauled or even killed. That was how I saw it then, and up to this day.

What they told me irked me, but I could not hold it against them. It was their opinion, and I was all for having an opinion and the freedom to voice it. If only they’d realize that if it were still martial law and we voiced our respective opinions out loud, I’d probably disappear the next day and they’d still be in their homes, comfortable and safe, just like cattle. If only they’d realize how lucky we are now to be able to express our opinions without fear in public.

But what is freedom? Why do democracy and freedom appeal so much to me? Was I an existentialist even before I knew I was, which leads me to be very defensive in such matters? No. Yes. Maybe. It doesn’t matter. People need to understand that we are nothing without our minds. We are nothing without our ability to express ourselves and fight for our beliefs.

Now, maybe some of my friends were told differently by the people around them who lived through martial law. Maybe they had times when food or finances were scarce, and they’d rather have food and security over something as abstract as freedom. I don’t know.

What I know is that whatever you tell me about martial law or about Marcos—whether it’s about how great he supposedly made Ilocos, or how much progress the Philippines supposedly achieved under his rule—I will not listen. Or I cannot listen because your voice will be drowned out by the whispers and cries of thousands of others who suffered, disappeared or were killed during those dark years in our history.

I will remember Asin, hailing from the same province in which I grew up, singing songs about that terrible time. I will remember the melancholy in its melodies and the poetry in its songs. I will remember how people in the tens of thousands once marched on Edsa in the hope that God’s hand will brush the hearts of the oppressors. And I will remember that God did, and if it wasn’t him, then someone or something else.

Whatever you say, all I will hear are the songs of the dead and missing, telling me, “Never again!”

David Jayson B. Oquendo, 19, is a fourth-year electrical engineering student and campus journalist at Mindanao State University-General Santos City. He was born in General Santos but raised in Polomolok, South Cotabato.