![]() It follows the life of a mother who finds it hard to move past the pain brought by Marcos’ Martial Law. Desaparesidos, a novel by Lualhati Bautista, chronicles the experience of a desaparecido, who was tortured and eventually incarcerated. Many works continue to record this history of human rights abuses during Martial Law, not just through documents but also through art. They are just two of the thousands of victims who were either killed or who continue to be scarred by their past. ![]() After turning against the Marcoses, he disappeared and was never found, while his son, Luis Manuel Mijares, was killed shortly after. To make it even more concrete, Mijares himself, who used to be Marcos’ most trusted confidante, was one of the victims. The Marcoses’ corrupt desire for power led to all of this. These are fellow Filipinos, most of them political rivals, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, peasant organizers most of them fought the dictator. With these large statistics, we must remind ourselves that Martial Law victims are more than just numbers. It’s important to note that these are just the recognized ones, meaning that the numbers are even higher when we consider the cases that went unrecorded. While corruption ensued, media was repressed, cronies were favored, lies were propagated, shoes were collected, Filipinos’ human rights were also being directly violated.Īccording to an Amnesty International report that documents the human rights abuses during Martial Law, there are around 3,240 known extrajudicial killings, 34,000 documented tortures, 70,000 imprisonments, and 77 recorded disappearances. However, as terrible as this already sounds, from lies to theft to repression to corruption, the history of Martial Law gets worse as we dig deeper. He didn’t want his term to end which led to the declaration of Martial Law. Having proclaimed martial law, he proceeded to bribe, coerce and/or intimidate the Constitutional Convention members into drafting a new charter dictated by him.” Aside from corruption of funds and resources, Marcos’ propagandist-turned-whistleblower Mijares confirmed the late dictator’s greed for power. What do we expect from a president who repressed the media so that his failures and atrocities remain unknown anyway? Corruption and human rights during Martial LawĪside from mere lies, Primitivo Mijares wrote in his book, The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, “The corruption of the martial regime is not confined to the insatiable acquisition of the country’s material resources, but extends to the exercise of power itself. This packs on the deceit that Marcos upheld as a leader. In addition to this, during the 1986 snap elections, vote tabulators from the Commission on Elections or Comelec walked out as they noticed superiors manipulating the vote count to put Marcos in the lead. To have most of his appeal come from a lie is already questionable. He presented himself as the country’s “most decorated war hero” but this was proven to be untrue. Firstly, Marcos’ character was questionable. However, Ferdie and Imelda’s identities went beyond this swooning couple, and beyond the praise that people gave them. ![]() To be a little blasphemous about it, they can be juxtaposed with KathNiel, AlDub, LizQuen or JaDine. It’s not difficult to see why the Filipinos loved them – aside from Marcos being from the north and Imelda being from the Visayas – they were seen as a couple, a love team people could root for. They campaigned together which earned them patronage from the people. ![]() Imelda, as a beauty queen who sang for the crowd, was a vote-getter. When he ran for president, he campaigned with his wife, the “endearing” Imelda Marcos. He became a senator in 1959 and finally, the president in 1965. Marcos started his political career in 1949 as a congressman in Ilocos Norte. And so, based on various sources, here is why we must not forget. ![]()
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