SurveilUps and downs

After the burning of Jolo, Sulu (Feb. 7, 1974) during the early years of Martial Law, my family lost everything we had back home. Only the cement staircase of our house remained to remind us of our idyllic life. A stairway to nowhere — a painful reminder that sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down. Today, even that is gone. Only a picture in my mind remains.

I was studying in the University of the Philippines when Jolo was bombed by the military to reclaim the town from the Moro National Liberation Front that had, in a show of force, occupied it days before. There was no news about Jolo in the newspapers, radio, or television. Government controlled the media. We only found out from relatives abroad that called, panicked about the situation of family members.

Jolo has never recovered.

With the bombing of Jolo and other communities, we in Muslim Mindanao suffered a triple whammy — loss of infrastructure, capital flight and brain drain.

According to some media reports, over 100,000 of our men were killed in military operations in one decade. Overnight, our prosperous community became a basket case. We may not have been one of the richest towns of the Philippines, but we were a major exporter of abaca and seaweeds, we had barter trade with Sabah, we benefitted from working utilities — telephone system that linked us with world, electricity, and water. Our people respected law and order and the civilian government, obeyed the decisions of the court.

Today, Jolo — like the rest of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao — is a basket case.

After more than four decades, the effects of the triple whammy that impoverished us as a direct result of Martial Law have turned us into an inferno of armed conflict, extremism, and poverty. Paradise lost. We were up, now we are down.

Former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr., architect of Martial Law, who sought to rule us indefinitely in order to bring back discipline, law, and order (remember the government slogan “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan”), was finally removed from office in 1986. People rallied together and forced the Marcoses out of Malacañang to take refuge in Hawaii. They who were up, crashed down for the count.

Well, they are up again. I must admire the Marcoses’ determination. The late former President Corazon C. Aquino allowed them to return from exile but without the body of Marcos, Sr. Since their return from exile, they reclaimed their political home bases in Ilocos Norte and Leyte. Madame Imelda Marcos and eldest daughter Imee have repeatedly won their elections. Only son Bongbong Marcos became governor of Ilocos Norte and then senator. He lost the vice-presidential elections by a small margin and is contesting it. They never gave up.

They moved heaven and earth to bring back the late strongman’s body. A deal struck during the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos allowed the Marcoses to bury their patriarch’s body in his home province on Sept. 7, 1993. But their dream was to see him buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, the resting place of heroic soldiers and former Presidents. The burial of the former President at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani had been opposed by families of Martial Law victims who had been killed, tortured, human rights, and democracy advocates for decades.

The Marcos family finally succeeded. Staunch supporters of the candidacy of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, their wish have been fulfilled. President Duterte allowed the burial at the Libingan. Oppositors brought their case to the Supreme Court, which decided that the burial broke no law.

The late dictator’s body was interred at the Heroes’ Cemetery after being flown from Ilocos Norte on Nov. 18.

Contrary to the statement of the Philippine National Police Chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa that the burial, per request of the family, would be “simple and private,” Marcos was buried with full honors. Stealthily and hurriedly, but with full honors.

Former President Ramos, a decorated war hero, stated last Monday that he “felt very bad especially for the veterans.” Angered by the possible collusion between officials and the Marcoses, he stated: “Those military, police and other uniformed personnel involved must be investigated and if necessary booted out of the service because they were disloyal to the service for failing to inform their immediate commanding officers.”

My children, who grew up in a post-Martial Law environment, are all human rights advocates and democrats. They trooped to the People Power Monument, with their fellow millennials, to protest. They felt that the burial was a bad move on the part of government, a decision that would divide our nation further. My mother, former Senator Santanina Rasul, however feels that we allow the dead to rest in peace. At 86, she — who has suffered so much due to Martial Law — has forgiven and says that we should also remember that Marcos is a former President and soldier who, according to law, can be buried in the Heroes Cemetery.

My family is divided. Although we all agree that we should forgive, many of us also believe that justice is due to the victims of torture and imprisonment, of the military operations that “hamletted” Muslim Mindanao and converted our homeland into the living hell that it is now. We believe that the burial of the late Marcos, surreptitiously done, will not allow the dead to rest in peace but will be the trigger for continuing turmoil among the living who have been victimized by Martial Law.

The nation, like my family, will be divided. How this division will affect our country and the administration of President Duterte, only time will tell. Meanwhile, I see in my mind’s eye the haunting picture of the staircase of our home in Jolo and wonder. Are we climbing up? Or down?

Amina Rasul is a democracy, peace and human rights advocate, president of the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy.