“Authorities ordered me to find my uncle’s documents. They could not locate him, so they arrested Armada instead. The police were looking for her uncle, a union worker. One of them was Pacita Armada, 62, who was just 16 years old when police raided her family’s Manila home in the late 1970s. Many of the survivors now live in poverty, such as in cramped houses located in Dagat-Dagatan, a suburb in Caloocan City north of Manila. Ībout 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 tortured, and over 3,200 were killed during the regime, according to Amnesty International. “Those were the dangers, the perils the country was facing.” Pacita Armada, 62, a victim of martial law during the first Marcos administration, is photographed with her husband and their grandchildren at their house in Dagat-Dagatan, a suburb of Caloocan City, near Manila, Sept. “Martial law was declared because of the wars, the two wars we were fighting on two fronts,” he said in an interview that aired on the ALLTV channel Sept. He also defended his family from accusations of distorting facts. In his first televised interview since his electoral victory, the younger Marcos defended the 1972 martial law proclamation, saying it was necessary then because the Philippines was facing national security threats from communist rebels as well as Muslim separatist guerrillas in the south. has refused to apologize for his father’s brutal rule. Aquino’s assassination later unleashed the movement that culminated in the peaceful revolt against Marcos in 1986. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was shot dead at Manila’s international airport in 1983 upon alleged orders of the elder Marcos. had also remained silent and did not issue a statement - as was customary among Philippine leaders - to mark the death anniversary of former Sen. At the time, the new Philippine president was visiting the United States. He died in a Hawaiian exile in 1989, three years after a people-power revolt, aided by powerful senior government officials who had abandoned Marcos, toppled his regime.Īs of late Wednesday (Manila time), the Office of the President had yet to issue a statement marking the anniversary. Two days later, he went on national television to announce that decision. 21, 1972, then-President Marcos signed a proclamation placing the entire country under martial law. I was one of them until I found out I was believing in lies,” said Manalato, a recent graduate and call center agent who voted for Leni Robredo, a rival contender to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It’s sad that they have become victims of fake news. “It is good that people are here to commemorate it but, unfortunately, many more Filipinos are blinded. Jared Manaloto, who also took part in the commemorative activities, echoed that sentiment. Marcos, at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, Sept. Students and activists take part in a protest as they mark the 50th anniversary of the martial law proclamation by then-President Ferdinand E.

It’s time for the young generation, us, to continue the fight and not let their (victims’) stories die,” said Joy Renato, a university student who is not old enough yet to vote.

“I wish my friends who do not believe in martial law were here to know what really happened then. They were protesting against the return to power of the Marcoses and what they see as historical revisionism and attempts to whitewash atrocities committed under the patriarch’s rule. Many of the protesters wore black shirts and chanted “Never forget.

The milestone commemoration was particularly bitter and painful for some because the late dictator’s namesake son was elected president in a landslide in May, a turn of events that has baffled critics of the dynastic Marcos family. Some 8,000 people gathered in and around the University of the Philippines’ main campus to pay homage to the thousands of Filipinos who, human rights groups allege, were killed, abducted, tortured or imprisoned during the martial law era (1972-1986). Marcos’ martial law declaration, as victims recalled the horrors they endured under his regime and young people urged peers not to forget that dark episode in Philippine history. Filipinos on Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of Ferdinand E.

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