Musings
A Martial Law Experience — Being Slapped an A.S.S.O.
On September 21, 1972, martial law was proclaimed all over the Philippines by the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. He ruled as president for more than 20 years until he was ousted by People Power in 1986.
Thanks to resilience borne of our Faith and our family and social culture, we look unscathed and act friendly and peaceful despite some horrible experiences in the past. One of these experiences was the martial law regime in the Philippines.
On September 21, 1972, martial law was proclaimed all over the Philippines by the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. He ruled as president for more than 20 years. He was first elected in 1964 and kept the office until he was ousted by People Power in 1986.
More than thirty years later, some of their loyalists and sympathizers are attempting to revise Philippine history. They either deny that martial law ever existed in the country, or that Marcos ruled as a ruthless and abusive dictator, or that atrocities were committed against the Filipino people for at least an entire decade. All of which millions of Filipinos witnessed and knew to be true.
Here is an episode in the martial law experience of one Filipino.
On January 13, 1978, I was getting ready to lead a small Philippine delegation to the ASEAN capitals to discuss with our counterparts in the housing and urban development sector the organization of a regional forum on planning and housing.
I decided to pass by my office in Makati City very early that morning to complete some documents that would be needed while I was away. My plan was to go home later, pick up my luggage, and proceed to the airport which was a short distance from my residence.
I never got home. I missed my flight. And the delegation had to leave without me, not knowing why I did not show up nor even bothered to call.
While working on the documents in my office, a security guard came and said there were two gentlemen asking to see me. I said let them in. They wasted no time. They carried a message from the Department of National Defense. They said my presence was needed for an urgent meeting in Camp Aguinaldo, headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, several kilometers away from my Makati office. They were sent to pick me up and deliver me back after the meeting, which would not take too long. I said I had an international flight to catch, but they said not to worry. I would have enough time to do everything else after the meeting at Camp Aguinaldo.
A vehicle was waiting for us. I was seated at the back, with two men — one on each side of me. There was another vehicle which tailed us as we drove out of the parking lot.
The gentleman who sat at the passenger seat in front spoke into a radio and gave some remarks that I could not decipher. After a while, my curiosity was aroused. I asked why we seemed to be going south when Camp Aguinaldo was in the northern direction. Someone replied that we were taking a side route to avoid traffic so that we could get to the meeting place on time. After a longer while, I sensed that we were really bound south instead of north. I remonstrated and said the roundabout way could waste more time. Could I read the DND message again, please? The guy in front refused and curtly told me to just keep quiet because they were just following orders.
We finally reached a military camp. But it was not Camp Aguinaldo. It was Camp Vicente Lim and it was the headquarters of the southern regional command.
I asked if I could make a call. (There were no mobile phones yet during those years.) No reply. Instead, I was led to an office and seated at a desk where I was asked to fill up a form, with instructions not to leave any question unanswered. The form was three sheets long, with back-to-back pages. I was given a pencil and told to start. Again, I asked to make a call. I was, instead, advised that the sooner I finished filling up the form, the earlier I might be able to go back to Makati.
So, I started answering the questions. The way these were worded, many of the answers had to be much longer than the usual replies to a survey questionnaire. Soon, the pencil had to be sharpened several times, until it really became quite short.
In the meantime, I noticed different people coming in and out of the office. All were in civvies, none in military uniform. A few even sported long hair and hippie-looking garb. I found out later that I was in an intelligence-and-counter-intelligence office.
When I finally accomplished the form, I was asked if I wanted water or coffee. I asked instead to go to the restroom. When I returned after a few minutes, someone brought me a copy of the same form and said I would have to fill it up again, just to make sure. I asked what was wrong with my replies to the first form, and could I just limit the take-two to replies to the items that did not seem acceptable to them. The guy said he was just following orders, so please fill up the entire form, and the sooner I completed the task, the earlier I could head back for home. I was given a new pencil.
By the time I finished answering the questions in the second form, I knew I might not be able to make it back to Makati in time to complete the documents and then head for the airport. I asked to make a phone call. I was told, instead, to concentrate on completing the form.
In all, I was asked to fill up six different copies of the same form. No questions left unanswered. All replies written in long hand and with a pencil.
By the time I got to the third copy, my hand began to quiver involuntarily. My handwriting became wobbly. I had to stop once in a while to shake my hands and massage my fingers to quiet down the spasms.
Through the windows, I could see that the sun was setting and soon it was evening. There was a television set in a corner of the office and the volume was loud enough for me to hear the government television evening news anchor announcing that an official of the Development Academy of the Philippines had been caught by military agents in a remote village in the hills of the Sierra Madre mountain range and was now being interrogated at the military southern regional command.
With that piece of fake news being blared on national TV, I knew I was done for. Why? On what charges? For how long? Could I call someone or a lawyer for assistance? I had no idea.
(I was later to learn that my fellow delegates to our ASEAN mission were anxiously waiting for me at the airport. When I did not show up at the agreed-upon time, they called up my home and my office, but no one knew where I was. They had my name paged several times to no avail, until it was time for them to go on board. They had to leave without me.)
It was really quite late at night when I completed the last copy of the required form. My handwriting looked atrocious on the fifth copy and was barely discernible on the sixth.
I was given dinner on a single plate. I felt hungry but had little appetite. I also felt very tired and spent. I must have dozed off through sheer exhaustion. When I came to, I was still seated, with my head rested on the table. I asked two men who were at nearby desks if it was possible for me to talk to their officer-in-charge so I could make the proper arrangements on my behalf. They simply advised me to wait until office hours in the morning.
It was much later on the following day that I had any official inkling on why I was being detained. Even then, the official reason was always veiled and tentative. It was only a full week later that I was finally shown a copy of an “Arrest, Search, and Seizure Order (ASSO) For Subversion and Rebellion Against the Republic of the Philippines signed by Juan Ponce Enrile, Minister of National Defense.”
On the second day, I finally met the commanding officer of the unit — with a rank of major — that was detaining me. He was quite friendly and gentlemanly in his ways. He had obviously seen the forms I had filled up and read my handwritten responses. He was able to infer correctly that one of my younger brothers might have been his schoolmate in the Catholic college which they had attended some years back. That factor could have helped somehow in how I was treated or handled in the following days of my 40-day ordeal as a detainee.
It was evening of the second day when I was allowed to make a telephone call to my home. It was the first reliable news about my whereabouts that my wife and my mom received after nearly 40 hours of my unexplained disappearance.
The next morning, they arrived at the camp to visit me. They brought a bag of clothes and toiletries, a folding bed, pillows and sheets, and some food. They were allowed to wait up for me to freshen up and change clothes before they had to leave the premises.
But in the short span of an hour that they were allowed to be with me, they had their own personal experience of the rigors of forced detention. They were frisked and everything they gave me was subjected to thorough inspection, including the extra rosary beads and the copy of the Bible that they tucked in my bag. They could not talk to me privately; a guard was seated near us as we chatted. I had to hug my wife in a lingering embrace so that I could quickly whisper some important private messages in her ear. I did the same with my mom. Of course, I tried to put on a brave and casual front. The two women I loved most were going through such an emotional ordeal, what with all the stories they had heard about abuses and torture in detention camps ever since martial law was proclaimed in 1972.
Fortunately, in my case, I was treated a bit differently. For instance, I was not placed in a military stockade with the rest of many detainees in the camp. Instead, I was confined in a small room inside an office building, but with enough space for a folding bed and a small side table. The glass walls and windows were one-way. They could see me from outside. I couldn’t see them.
Also, they did not make it difficult for me to receive visitors, provided there was advance notice and proper screening procedures were followed. The procedures included pre-screening of the visitors’ identities.
When I marked my 37th birthday while in detention, my wife and mom arranged a surprise birthday party for me in cahoots with the major who was the commanding officer of my detaining unit.
For the first time, our little firstborn son was going to come and visit his detained dad. (He never knew that I was being detained as a prisoner. All he knew was that Daddy was very busy at work in a faraway office which made it difficult for him to go home as he usually did. But one day soon, he would come home after his work in the office was completely done.)
Together with my secretary in the office in Makati, permission was also obtained by my wife for each of the members of my core staff to come and visit.
And so it happened. It was really a nice party. There was a lot of food, balloons, and even streamers. Everyone sang and danced. Even some of the soldiers in civilian garb went along with the celebrations.
Little did I know the joyous party would lead to the most anxious moments of my detention. We had said our goodbyes and the convoy of visitors had begun to drive away. The sight of my little boy waving his tiny hands through the window of our family car as they drove off hit me hard. Unexpectedly. I suddenly felt the rush of mixed emotions welling up. What was I doing here? Why could I not be with my family? What had I done to merit this?
For the first time, I felt the pain, frustration, disappointment, protestation, and rage — all surging up within me to uncontrollable levels. To shake it off, I asked the guard to lend me a broom and coconut husk. I said I wanted to clean my room after so many visitors had come in and out that day. As I vigorously scrubbed the floor, I must have passed out. When I came to consciousness, I was being carried bodily into the camp clinic. There, the physician on duty had me laid on a bed and the usual tests were made. Then, I heard him whispering to me: “Don’t let them break you, sir. You’ll be okay. I will see to it.”
I was kept in the clinic overnight. My wife and mom, accompanied by a brother-in-law, arrived that same night. Apparently, while I was in the clinic, one of the guards in my detention area thought of calling them. They had just arrived home when they learned of the incident and they quickly turned back. They were allowed to linger until the next morning, when the physician cleared me to be returned to my detention cell.
Not knowing how and when my ordeal would end, I realized I had to be in better control of myself. I had to keep myself sane and healthy for my family. I decided to structure my personal schedule to ensure better balance among my essential activities — prayer and Bible reading, physical exercise, and social interaction with my captors.
Thankfully, the ordeal eventually came to an end. I found out that the ASSO had been issued in a fit of anger and embarrassment by then martial law administrator Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile. My immediate boss at the DAP who was very close to them and who met with them regularly on national development concerns had suddenly disappeared and gone underground. He even issued a public manifesto against the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos on the night he was being awarded as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines by a well-known civic organization. Not knowing where he had gone, they felt thoroughly embarrassed. So, they decided to arrest several officials of the DAP including myself in the hope that we could tell them where he might have gone. Which we, of course, did not know.
But what really got me finally released was the intervention of my sister-in-law who was married to my second brother. She turned out to be the favorite first cousin of the Head of the Presidential Security Guards of Ferdinand Marcos. When they heard about my plight, they came home to the Philippines from the United States where they were living. They talked to the PSG Commanding Officer who was one of the most powerful and influential generals of the martial law regime. They convinced him I could not possibly have committed any of the charges they had falsely filed against me.
Within a week of their intercession, the release papers and orders were issued. I was officially escorted back to my residence in Makati City by the commanding officer of the intelligence unit of Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna in the third week of February.
There were several conditions: return to work at the DAP as though nothing had happened, no press conferences or releases, and report once a week for an indefinite period to Camp Vicente Lim for debriefing.
Was there any bright spot at all in that entire 40-day ordeal?
One bright spot still stands out clearly in my octogenarian memory today, 42 years after that entire ordeal. This was the Tutorial Sessions that I unwittingly conducted for out-of-school soldiers during my period of detention.
Several military servicemen assigned to the unit where I was detained learned of my academic background and working experience. They would come around to my cell during their off-hours to ask my opinion on this or that concern or issue. I found out they were going to evening school to catch up on academic credits that would enable them to obtain their chosen academic degrees and merit, maybe, a promotion in rank. But they had very little access to reading materials and very little time for academic consultation with their professors. So, they began picking my brains.
I asked my wife to bring some of my past issues of Time, Newsweek, and Fortune magazines. I gave them the magazines as part of their supplementary reading materials. Then, we agreed to meet after dinner every evening for at least one hour. It would be a time for academic discussions on any subject matter of their choice.
Through all these, I was careful not to give them anything in writing. I only dictated what they had to write when this became necessary. Sometimes, the hours would extend to very late at night. But I was in no hurry to go anywhere anyway And they seemed so eager and ready for work on their academic submittals. In all, we were able to complete several term papers and mini-theses which they submitted in school.
Word quickly spread throughout the camp. Pretty soon, I was facilitating seminars for 20 to 30 people in the evenings.
I also dictated a letter for an old friend of mine, the then Director of Higher Education at the Department of Education and Sports Development. I told him about the plight and situation of the student-soldiers. I suggested certain subject areas which they had taken up in military seminars and workshops which could be accredited academically towards their degree programs. They all co-signed the letter of request, with my endorsing signature. To our surprise, the Director of Higher Education (now deceased, God bless his heart!) was able to work out the proper accreditation. The soldiers were beside themselves with joy.
On the day of my release, word had apparently gotten around the camp. I was advised to get ready to leave camp by around 3:00 p.m., after the mandatory physical examination by the camp physician and his release order.
But shortly after lunch, the student-soldiers started showing up in small groups. They wanted to bid me goodbye, they said, and thank me for the assistance I was able to give them. An hour before my release, the Commanding General of the Camp appeared at the building where my cell was located. Later, together with the commanding officer of the unit, he came around to see me. He joked that he decided to come because he had heard there was some massing of soldiers in the intelligence building and he wanted to find out what it was all about. He said it might be a good idea to release me already before I could subvert and influence more of his soldiers. We all had a good laugh.
After I was finally released from detention, I received invitations from some of those student-soldiers to attend their graduation together with their parents and spouses. I also stood as wedding sponsor to two of them a few years later.
Truly, “to those who love God, all things work unto good.”
Ave Maria!
