In September 2014, my father—along with several hundred others—lined up at the University of the Philippines Diliman to file his application for compensation as a victim of human rights violations during martial law. A tattooed fiftysomething artist, my father did not look out of place in that diverse group of applicants—some relatively young and some alarmingly old and requiring assistance to walk; some very poor and some prim and proper in their professional clothes. These people coming from all walks of life were the supposed beneficiaries of Republic Act No. 10368, the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.
My father had spent the better part of the previous evening collecting evidence to back his claim and his incarceration as a student activist—letters exchanged between my grandfather and the dean of the UP College of Fine Arts; photos of the “model prison” where my father had been sent following a student demonstration; newspaper clippings about their arrest and the lack of due process afterwards. The phrase he and other victims of hasty arrests use is peculiar: They say “Pinulot kami.” They were picked up. It was a time of deep worry for the family because of the lack of certainty that my father would make it out alive. Apparently, it was de rigueur in those days to be picked up by the police and then never to be seen again.
Twentysomething years later, my father was sitting calmly in the line of applicants, alive and well. Other claimants were not as lucky; many of those lined up were not the victims themselves but the families that the victims left behind. It is chilling to realize that it is only by some freakish good luck that my father escaped torture and death, especially since, when he was released, he picked up right where he had left off in the fight against the dictatorship. He couldn’t simply watch history unfold, and had been bullied, harassed and tear-gassed as a result.
Human rights victims under RA 10368 were promised some little share in the supposed P10 billion allotted by the government for the purpose of compensation. Former Vice President Jejomar Binay was then quick to point out (and only rightly): “It’s not the money, but the recognition of the justness of our fight against tyranny and oppression.” While the money would be nice, what would be even nicer is some concrete proof that, underneath the noise and outcry made by Marcos loyalists and the fluid nature of so-called Philippine history on social media, the Philippine government recognizes for posterity that martial law victims were real. That they mattered enough for their struggles and their deaths to be documented. They might become a mere footnote in history, but a footnote is so much more than what they have so far been granted.
Two years later, my father and the other claimants are still waiting. That makes for roughly three decades between the event of a human rights violation and its process and resolution. No wonder then that the Philippines is touted as a terrible place for human rights.
I imagine that my parents must have watched martial law unfold and claim its victims with the same sick, rising horror that I feel when watching news reports on the rising death toll of President Duterte’s war on drugs. It was like this, too, back then: killing sprees masked as legitimate operations; policemen claiming that people they had shot in the head were armed and resisting arrest; bodies found trussed and gagged. It’s open season for anyone with a grudge and a gun.
It is with rising alarm that human rights groups ask for inquiries into the killings; it is with even deeper alarm that we see Philippine officials shrug at the death count. The President himself stays silent, oblique. Funny how former veep Binay, in a speech on RA 10368, was quoted as saying that it was a way of “reminding ourselves of the tyranny that made [human rights victims’] struggle justified, a tyranny that must not be repeated.” And yet here we are.
I wonder now how long it would take before the Philippines finally and officially recognizes that human rights violations are happening under President Duterte’s watch. Is 30 years the turnaround time for the recognition of blatant injustice and for any attempts at restoration? When the Philippines finally comes to its senses, I wonder how long the lines of claimants will be.
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