Forty-two years ago, on 21 September 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. We have since then been living under the shadow of those dark years–a time recalled by many with much hatred, but also a time romanticized by others as a direct rebuttal of lingering problems.
Of the latter, we could only commiserate with this truism: people do forget their history. But as Esther Inglis-Arkell once noted in her thought-provoking study of real-world dystopias: “There are very few regimes so terrible that they can’t be romanticized.
This is especially true after they have been defeated. It’s easy to be sentimental about something when nobody has to deal with it anymore. Sometimes regimes can even come back.
There is a British monarchy today because, after executing the British king and establishing his own supremacy, Oliver Cromwell died and left management of the land to his ineffectual son. A royal family began looking pretty good.”
With the Chito Mirandas and Carlo Celdrans of the world increasingly being brazen about Marcosian love, the same could be said about the Philippines and the Marcoses.
We have gone through the years after 1986 in a strange lurch, which has provided fodder for historical revisionism.
The Martial Law has become a passage in history that has increasingly become blurred, as if it has nothing to do with us all. We forget that if only we can dig deeper, many of us are still around who can give witness to the stark darkness of those years.
This is one such story, the account of the first Sillimanian arrested by the military in the very beginning of martial rule in the Philippines.
By 1969–two years before Marcos declared martial law over the country–Joel Tabada had served two years of pastoral service for the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Mangagoy in Surigao City.
He had started a small family with wife Grace, who had graduated cum laude with a degree in music from Silliman, and to pass the time while serving churches, he had gone on to develop an interest in black and white photography.
But all over the country, activism by students was on the rise, in response to the growing despotism of the Marcos regime.
Silliman University struck a resputation as being a hotbed of student unrest: there were open demonstrations around campus, and big streamers screaming for social justice were scattered everywhere.
He decided to go back to Silliman to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Divinity–later transformed into a master’s degree–and was happily clicking away taking pictures around campus when he was chanced upon by Dr. Harry Pak, the Korean-American pastor of the Silliman Church.
“Dr. Pak challenged me to help him minister Silliman Church,” Reverend Tabada recalled–an offer he reluctantly accepted.
With that, he said goodbye to his photography, and soon became associate pastor for Silliman Church. His contemporaries included Rev. Lydia Niguidula, who led the Christian Education ministry of the church, and Gideon Alegado, who, as lay pastor, was in-charge of taking care of the young people in church.
“We decided to have a team ministry, with Dr. Pak as the administrative pastor as well as the chaplain of the University,” Reverend Tabada said. “My work was to be with the University’s Buildings and Grounds crew… My task included the outreach ministry of Pangas in Bantayan, and the more immediate–and restless and troublesome–Lo-oc.”
He was also given the responsibility of taking care of the Involvement Task Force, where Silliman Church people, especially students, could freely voice their concerns about city life as well as about the national situation.
“My office at the left northeast side end of Silliman Church was always filled with students who had all sorts of concerns,” Reverend Tabada recalled. “They would leave their books and other things in my office.”
Each of the members of the team ministry served a monthly duty to preach at Silliman Church, and they did so with gusto.
Dr. Pak delivered profound sermons on the theme of reconciliation and interpersonal relationships, while Reverend Niguidula and Mr. Alegado tended smoothly to their individual responsibilities. (To be continued next week)
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Author’s email: ian.casocot@gmail.com
