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Martial Law Remembered

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The article Martial Law: Days of Disquiet by Dionisio Baseleres was a powerful blast from the past for someone like me who was also caught up in the same turbulent whirlpool. His description of the dreadful events surrounding the early days of martial law brought back memories that have long been repressed. Reading a third party account of events that personally touched me felt surreal. The fear, anger, feelings of uncertainty and confusion all came back in droves. Yes, I was there. I was a staff member of the Silliman University student newspaper, The Weekly Sillimanian.

I was a sophomore at the College of Business Administration in September, 1972. It started as a very, very busy school year for me. I was in the Student Government as a representative of my college. I also played and seriously studied chess as president of the chess club and captain of the varsity chess team. I contributed to the Weekly Sillimanian as chess columnist and photo editor. And then there was my involvement with student activism as a member of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), a moderate student organization at that time.

Martial law was declared on September 21, 1972, but wasn’t announced until September 23. I don’t know how they knew, but the Weekly Sillimanian staff was confident that martial law was looming. The September 15, 1972 editorial of the Weekly Sillimanian, which was the final pre martial law issue, even published the following warning: “… we are in for something disastrous. You have been warned. You already know what to do.”

Early Saturday morning, Sept. 23, a fellow boarder unceremoniously jolted me out of bed with the news that martial law was declared. He handed me a transistor radio, and I turned the dial from end to end. I heard nothing but static. Not a single radio station was on the air! He said that there was one station earlier that mentioned a short wave broadcast from Radio Australia announcing that martial law was imposed throughout the Philippine Islands.

My first instinct was to rush to The Sillimanian office to finish the “cleanup” that the editor-in-chief, Dionisio Baseleres, ordered. I can’t remember if I ate breakfast or how I got there, but I distinctly remember draping my surplus US Air Force jacket on the back of a chair before gathering up some paperwork.

Before I could make any progress, two guys from the boarding house came by on a motorcycle with a stern warning, “Don’t go back home, your room was ransacked by Philippine Constabulary soldiers, and they’re still in the restaurant downstairs waiting for you. They said you’re number one on their list!” My friends handed me a bag of clothes that they gathered from my room, and some money from our landlady, Mrs. Chuang.

Why me? How did I become the most wanted man in Dumaguete?

Just the previous summer, I was one of 12 student leaders from different colleges and universities who were chosen by the National Union of Students of the Philippines for a month long visit to the Peoples Republic of China, ostensibly under the invitation and sponsorship of the Chinese Student Federation. NUSP was an alliance of student governments throughout the country, and was moderate compared to the militant Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and other radical groups. Our delegation head was Edgar “Edjop” Jopson, the brilliant student leader and Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardee. The trip turned out to be an unabashed propaganda tour designed to steer the NUSP to the left.

The Philippines and China had no diplomatic relations back then. Conservative media referred to it as Red China, the godless enemy of democracy. Mao was revered by left leaning activists, but was a dirty word among conservatives.

Realizing that I was the subject of a manhunt, I had to be careful with my movements. Somehow I made it to Doltz Hall, my former dorm, where I still had friends. I decided to alter my appearance, so I shaved off my mustache and goatee. It was a dull razor blade that someone lent me, and I can now recall that it irritated my face badly. However, it did the job.

I moved around the campus with friends, and early that Saturday evening I sought shelter at the home of Tony and Florence Jubela, who were close friends of my family. When I arrived, they were having a small gathering, among them Silliman University faculty members, discussing the significance of that historic day.

My predicament was brought up, and without hesitation Bruce Hutchison, dean of the College of Business Administration and his wife, Mary, volunteered to hide me in their house until things cooled off. Their live-in helper conveniently left that same day to be with her family, and their two children were immediately dispatched to the home of another American family. “Nobody will look for you in the house of a CIA agent”, quipped Mr. Hutchison, citing the campus rumor. He was a US Marine veteran, martial arts black belt and scuba instructor, had no Phd, but was acting Dean of our college. So that rumor did have legs.

The Hutchisons provided me with plenty of reading materials, but my mind was in turmoil and fear kept me from concentrating on anything. I actually spent most of the time lying wide awake on their son’s bed.

Getting captured and incarcerated was not in my immediate plans, so I concluded that I needed to get back home to Bacolod as soon as possible. Taking public transportation was out of the question, because of the presence of soldiers and check points. Mr. Jubela, who was a manager at Coca Cola, hatched out a plan. A delivery truck was leaving for Bacolod shortly, so he arranged for me to be the driver’s assistant, decked out in a Royal Tru-Orange shirt.

It was an uneventful ride, except for a bad headache and eye strain because I didn’t wear my prescription eyeglasses for about 8 hours as part of my disguise. As a precaution, I asked the driver to drop me off in Silay City, 14 kilometers short of his final destination, and to proceed without me to Bacolod. My mother was from Silay, so it was an easy matter to hail a tricycle for a ride to my grandmother’s house.

I didn’t get to spend the night in Silay. My relatives immediately drove me to an uncle’s farm in the outskirts of Murcia, on the foothills of Canlaon Volcano. Finally, I could be at ease. No one could find me in that small farmhouse in the middle of sugarcane fields.

While I was enjoying my unplanned vacation, negotiations were actually underway between the military and my relatives for my eventual surrender. The military was given assurances that I was not an armed rebel or insurgent, and the PC Provincial Commander guaranteed my personal safety if I surrendered promptly. It actually was a great strategy, because I would surrender in Bacolod, which was in a separate region from Dumaguete, and had a different chain of command. The Bacolod soldiers had no axe to grind with me, unlike their Dumaguete counterparts who were royally ticked off because I eluded their dragnet.

Political detainees were housed inside soldiers’ barracks within the constabulary camp, with bunk beds fenced in with barbed wire. We referred to it as our chicken coop, and it was not unusual for a detainee to accidentally cut himself on the barbed wire. We also had a “chicken run”, an open air area adjacent to the barracks that had barbed wires on the sides and the top. At least it provided fresh air and sunlight.

Easily the most frightening moment of my detention was the interrogation. I was picked up by two men in civilian clothing who introduced themselves as MIG (Military Intelligence Group) agents. They took me by civilian jeep to a “safe house”, which was actually an apartment unit a few kilometers from the PC Headquarters. The windows were boarded up with plywood. It was dark inside, and you couldn’t hear street noises because of the very loud air conditioning unit. I couldn’t help but think that conversely, people outside couldn’t hear anything from the inside. Even loud screaming.

After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that they had a box full of stuff that the soldiers removed from my room in Dumaguete. Papers, negatives, pictures, books, notebooks, copies of the Weekly Sillimanian, etc. There were hundreds of negatives of pictures shot in China.

Laid out on a table were several pictures of me taken by their spies during rallies and demonstrations in Silliman and around Dumaguete. One thing I immediately noticed was that I always held a 35mm camera in each and every single photograph. So when they asked why I attended those demonstrations if I was not a member of any “subversive” organization, I immediately blurted out PRESS. I was taking pictures for the Weekly Sillimanian! I even pointed out my name on the masthead … Photo Editor.

The rest of the interrogation was a bit silly; Did you arrive by submarine from China? No, I took TWA from Hong Kong. Did you meet with Mao Tze Tung? No, he’s a head of state, I’m just a lowly student. Is so and so a member of KM? That’s common knowledge on campus, but he’s never shown me his KM ID card.

The interrogators were more focused on Bacolod based KM members, who I only met at the stockade, so I couldn’t provide them with any information even if I wanted to. I was glad that they were not keenly interested in me. If I were in Dumaguete, it could have been a totally different story. After a couple of hours, they drove me back to the stockade.

After a little more than a month of detention, I was released from the stockade. My biggest surprise was the return of the “stuff” that they took from my room. To this day I still have them, including a yellowed out copy of the September 15, 1972 issue of the Weekly Sillimanian.

Silliman University, if my recollection is right, was the last school to be re-opened by the government after martial law imposition. It was unfair, because Silliman was genuinely laid back compared to the militant campuses of Manila, especially UP-Diliman. However, it worked out to my advantage. I came back without missing much school time.

I came back to a University that would never be the same. The campus was fenced in, curfew was imposed, rallies, demonstrations and even meetings of more than a handful of individuals was not allowed. All clubs were abolished. The varsity chess team ceased to exist. The Student Government was dissolved. The Weekly Sillimanian was padlocked.

I wasn’t home free. I had to carry my release papers all the time, and had to report to the PC Headquarters once a week. I had to apply for amnesty. We had to do oath taking ceremonies for the cameras when high ranking military mucky mucks came to town. And the campus was crawling with informers. Practically minutes after I’d talk to a former detainee, I’d be called into the Dean of Students’ office to explain myself.

One day, while walking near the Weekly Sillimanian office, I was surprised to see people inside. I don’t know what they were doing, perhaps cleaning up, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to check if my surplus US Air Force jacket was still around. Sure enough, it was still neatly draped over the back of the same chair. I quietly retrieved it, a reminder of that fateful Saturday morning in September.

Jimmy Sarmiento
Vallejo, California

[email protected]

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