DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 22 September) – Dabawenyos pushed for accountability, justice, remembrance and truth in four mass actions here to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the declaration of martial law on September 21 – at the Freedom Park and Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU) — and a day earlier, at the University of the Philippines-Mindanao campus.
Amid disinformation, historical revisionism and other threats to democracy, ADDU President Fr. Karel San Juan on Saturday said the fight for democracy should continue because democracy is respect for human rights, human freedoms and differences.
What democracy is not, is “intolerance or self-entitlement, lack of accountability,” he told a crowd of students, faculty and representatives from various sectors that gathered after the 5 p.m. mass near the Our Lady of the Assumption statue near the university’s Jacinto gate.
San Juan did not mention names but said government officials, “should account for everything, for funds, for performance. Everyone should be accountable for their actions. That’s part of democracy. You can be questioned anytime, even if you’re a high official.”
He said it is important to organize events such as Saturday night’s, because there is a need to fight “against tendencies to destroy and distort and change our history.”
The university, he reiterated, will “keep on teaching truth in our history classes” and will be “sensitive to social media influencers that will distort the truth.”
ADDU, he stressed, will continue to fight for the rights of people, “especially our Indigenous Peoples, the women, the children, the oppressed.”
Addressing the students in the crowd, one of whom held his mobile phone up with the message “Not on our watch,” San Juan said his generation grew up “during the dark times of martial law,” and the students now are enjoying these “privileges of freedom and liberty that many of our countrymen did not enjoy in that part of our nation’s history.”
“We will continue remembering and we will continue fighting. Amen,” he said.
Clueless at 17
Mags Maglana, ADDU Board Member, narrated how she was a “clueless 17-year old” who did not know about the Marcos dictatorship when she entered the ADDU campus in June 1985 but five months later, “had come to understand the effects of the Marcos dictatorship on our economy, on our people, on our futures.”
She attributed the changes in those five months to having “found the Ateneo community” where students were “courageous and vigilant” and teachers “taught me to question and not to just accept things.” She said non-teaching personnel also helped her “stay grounded and be mindful of what’s truly essential. Activism, she said, was living up to the university’s mission of producing graduates who are “persons for others.”
So when EDSA happened in 1986, “the notion of the people power revolution made absolute sense to me because I had understood what it meant to be a person for others.”
But while so much has changed since that period in history, “fundamentally, so many things remain unchanged,” Maglana said.
The people of Davao, she said, “will find ourselves in the middle of a huge maelstrom. We are in the middle of a huge storm” and residents are asking “what will we do?”
“Will we stay within our confines and commit the sin of what Pope Francis called pusillanimity, shrinkage, timidity and fear? Or will we be persons for others? I would like to believe that we will choose to be persons for others,” she said.
People Power, she said, must not be viewed as a mere event but as a “continuing reality in our lives.” She noted that is better for the youth to say “not on our watch,” and “never forget” rather than “never again” because Mindanao has experienced martial law twice after the Marcos dictatorship, under the administrations of Arroyo and Duterte.
“Padayon (Continue) people power because we want kalinaw nga nagsubay sa (peace towards) healing, sa hustisya (justice), and we always want to be persons for others,” she said.
Atty. Romeo Cabarde, Director of the Ateneo Public Interest and Legal Advocacy, urged those who attended to “feel the warmth that connects us all—one flame to another. This light, fragile as it may seem, holds the strength of our collective memory, our shared history, and our unshakeable hope for the future.”
“We are here because we believe in a better Philippines—one that never again falls to the darkness of tyranny, one that continues to rise with the spirit of People Power burning in its heart. Let these candles be more than symbols. Let them be our vow—that we will never stop fighting for what is right, that we will never stop defending the truth, that we will never stop keeping the light alive,” he said.
Faceless but not nameless
At the Freedom Park shortly after the candle lighting at the ADDU, a mixed group of young and old Dabawenyos, some of them political detainees during the Marcos dictatorship, lit candles and laid them on the bricks in front of a 2.8 x 6.6 foot tarpaulin bearing the names of 99 persons who fought the Marcos dictatorship and were martyred in Davao.
The list, compiled by Konsyensya Dabaw, is by no means complete, with a note at the bottom that there are many more unlisted who were killed or had disappeared. But it was enough to show from its heading that “Davao resisted martial law!”
Most of the names on the list were Dabawenyos while a few were not residents of Davao City but worked with the resistance movement here such as student activist Edgar Jopson who was killed in Davao City in 1982 and poet Emmanuel Lacaba who was killed in Asuncion, Davao del Norte in 1976.
The crowd sang “Bayan Ko,” the anthem of those dark days, as the candles were laid on the bricks.
Near the standee with the martyrs’ names was a 4 x 5 tarpaulin of a photograph of a protest action taken by Medel Hernani in 1984 at the area nearby that used to be referred to as Jones Circle; another tarpaulin had calls for “Padayon People Power,” “Without justice, no healing, no real change,” and yet another tarpaulin contained the text of the Preamble of the 1987 Constitution.
The 7:15 p.m. candle lighting was done simultaneous with 26 other areas nationwide.
Earlier at 2 p.m. Bayan Muna occupied a portion of CM Recto St. fronting the Freedom Park for their rally to honor activists who fought the dictatorship of Marcos Sr., and call for accountability, among others (see other story).
Rauf Sissay, Bayan Muna-Davao regional coordinator, had earlier said their rallying call for September 21 is “Marcos paninglon, Duterte panubagon! Batukan ang kurap, pasista ug papet nga paksyong Marcos-Duterte!’ (Marcos must pay, Duterte must answer! Fight the corrupt, fascist and puppet Marcos-Duterte faction!).”
At the University of the Philippines-Mindanao campus on September 20, the University Student Council and militant groups staged a snake rally from the Department of Human Kinetics to the UP Mindanao Atrium to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of martial law. They decried military presence on campus, corruption and violence under the Marcos Jr. administration, historical revisionism and oppression, called for justice and urged the UP Mindanao community to oppose the Marcos-Duterte regime.
The rally also called for the termination of the “Declaration of Cooperation on Strategic Studies, Research, Publication and Capacity-Building” with the Armed Forces of the Philippines that UP President Angelo Jimenez signed on August 8 at Camp Aguinaldo. The controversial declaration has been a subject of protests in UP campuses nationwide as protesters claim it compromises academic freedom and is dangerous for UP and its community.
Duterte supporters’ rally vs Marcos
A notice of road closures was announced on Thursday for a supposed rally that would be part of a “National Indignation Rally” or “Luksang Bayan” of the Hakbang ng Maisug in Liwasang Bonifacio, Cebu and Davao on September 21. The Davao City rally, however, was called off on September 20. MindaNews asked Maisug’s Leoncio “Jun” Evasco why the rally was called off but he did not reply.
The supposed Maisug rally in the city was organized by the Hugpong ng Tawong Lungsod (HTL), a local political party set up by long-time Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte that was registered with the Commission on Elections in 2011.
HTL deputy secretary general Mikhal Evasco in a letter dated September 5 and received by the City Transport and Traffic Management Office (CTTMO) on September 16, sought the September 21 road closures from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. for their group and supporters to commemorate martial law.
Evasco said HTL is a political organization “dedicated to promoting transparency, accountability, and good governance.”
Addressed to CTTMO head Dionisio Abude, Evasco said their event will “raise awareness about the historical significance of martial law, honor those who were gravely affected by its injustices, and remind our leaders that the Filipino people would never again want to experience such grim period in our history.”
“We are confident that this event will be a meaningful and impactful commemoration of martial law, serving as a reminder of the importance of upholding democratic values and human rights,” Evasco stated in the letter.
No explanation was made why the rally was cancelled. It was the first time that HTL organized a rally to commemorate September 21.
When Rodrigo Duterte was President, he was a no-show in all six February 25 celebrations of People Power under his administration — in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. was ousted by People Power on February 25, 1986, ending a 21-year rule, 14 years of that as a dictator.
Duterte as President gave the Marcoses what they wished for since the ousted dictator died in Hawaii in 1989: a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Marcos’s remains were finally buried on November 18, 2016 at the heroes’ cemetery, with full military honors.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating the former President for alleged “crimes against humanity” committed in the country during his bloody war on drugs, reckoned only during the period when the Philippines was a state party to the Rome Statude, the treaty that established the ICC: from November 1, 2011 to March 16, 2019.
Duterte notified the United Nations Secretary-General on March 17, 2019 that the Philippines was withdrawing from the Rome Statute. The withdrawal took effect one year later but Rome Statute permits the court to retain jurisdiction over crimes committed prior to withdrawal. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
0 Comments