UP ChemSoc alumnus, Agri eng’g student martyr added to Bantayog Wall of Remembrance
By Paul Christian Yang-ed
QUEZON CITY — Two science professionals joined fifteen (15) of their departed Science & Technology colleagues honored at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani’s Wall of Remembrance in an inscription ceremony held at the Bantayog’s park, November 30, 2016.
Manuel Gabito Dorotan, a native of Sorsogon, graduated from UP Diliman with a degree in BS Chemical Engineering in 1970, while having been a member of the UP Chemical Society (ChemSoc) and a vice president of KEM, a chemical engineering students’ organization. At the same time, Dorotan is a member of one of the progressive-nationalist scientists and engineers’ groups that time: the Pambansang Samahan sa Inhinyeriya at Agham (PSIA). After he graduated, he helped organize workers and advance their interests in his home company Refrigeration Industries Inc. (RII), and later also those of the workers in the factories of Mead Johnson, Wyeth Suaco, and Nestle Philippines. He also joined the underground resistance movement against dictator Ferdinand Marcos after the declaration of Martial Law in 1972 where he became known as Comrade “Brigs”. After soldiers from the 45th Infantry Batallion (IB) killed him in Camarines Sur in 1983, an autopsy showed that he had a slow, tortuous death as his several of his fingers were missing and a foot appeared almost hacked off.
The other honored martyr, Hernando Mondoy Cortez, was a student aiming for a degree in BS Engineering, major in Agriculture at the then Gregorio Araneta University Foundation (GAUF) in Caloocan City. Cortez, who hails from Butuan City, Agusan del Sur, was a member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), served as a chairperson of the PSIA chapter in his school, as well as a writer for their school’s campus paper “Ang Tudling”. He eventually quit his studies in 1975 when state agents raided his apartment, joining the underground resistance movement as “Adrian”. Cortez was one of the pioneers in trade union organizing in Mindanao, contributing to the formation of Kilusang Mayo Uno’s (KMU) Mindanao chapter comprising of over 200 labor unions as member unions. Since unions such as the ones led by KMU opposed the dictatorship and called for the overhaul of the country’s economic and political system from which the country’s pro-Marcos oligrachy only benefitted, the Marcos regime targeted them as enemies of the state. Soldiers claimed to have killed him during an encounter in General Santos City in 1983, but documentation done by the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) suggests that he was captured and skinned alive before being killed, contrary to the claims of the military.
While the Duterte administration allowed the burial of the dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB), in contrast, the perpetrators of the deaths of Cortez and Gabito were never punished until this very day. The only thing that the Martial Law victims had was at least an inscription of their names into the black slabs of the Bantayog’s Wall of Remembrance, in hopes that their sacrifices would never be forgotten. The two persons’ surviving relatives and colleagues received the honorary plaques that had been signed by Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Chairperson Wigberto Tañada.
Cortez and Gabito were only among the nineteen (19) new names added to the Wall of Remembrance. Among those who graced the inscription ceremony were Vice President Leni Robredo, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, and the National Democratic Front’s former Chief Negotiator for the Peace Talks Luis Jalandoni. There are now 287 names inscribed in the Bantayog.
The ceremony coincided with Andres Bonifacio’s 153rd birthday anniversary and with mobilizations organized by various groups across Metro Manila concerning issues such as the Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, contractualization, and doubts over the administration’s sincerity to push just and lasting change.
