黑料社

Bongbong Marcos and I are close in age. Given that he is often in the news lately, I watched an old CBS 黑料社 video showing him partying with the Marcos clan in the early 1980s. The video shows a handsome young man, with dabs of face paint and glitter, and sporting a conspicuous plastic bow tie blinking at regular beats. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was singing 鈥淲e Are the World鈥� into a microphone. The popular song written by Michael Jackson was recorded to raise funds for a starving Africa.

There are people dying

And it鈥檚 time to lend a hand to life

The greatest gift of all 鈥�

We are the world, we are the children 鈥�

On Aug. 26, on the ANC program 鈥淗eadstart,鈥� Marcos, now 57, claimed that 鈥渞ecent political history鈥� looked favorably on his father鈥檚 legacy, and that he often heard a 鈥渃onstant refrain鈥� that started with 鈥淏uti pa noong panahon ni Marcos鈥� (It was better during Marcos鈥� time).

The son of Ferdinand Marcos claims to have a following among the youth today, who believe him when he says the Philippines would have been as prosperous as Singapore today had not the Edsa People Power Revolution interrupted his father鈥檚 rule.

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In his ANC interview, Bongbong Marcos pointed to the thousands of kilometers of roads built during his father鈥檚 administration, the self-sufficiency in rice, the adequate power generation. When questioned about his father鈥檚 corruption and human rights record, he answered, 鈥淲hat am I to say sorry [for]?鈥�

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His generation

While Bongbong was partying and belting out a song into a microphone, what were other Filipinos of his generation doing? Was Bongbong鈥檚 memories of the Philippines then shared by others belonging to the same generation?

I am of that generation. And my peers and I recall those years differently.

Bongbong did not have to look to Africa for starving children. About the time he was singing into that microphone, there was a famine in Negros and the gaunt, pot-bellied children of sakada (wage farmers) were dying of hunger and poverty.

READ: 鈥楳artial law really happened, we were there!鈥�

The song 鈥淣agbabagang Lupa,鈥� sung by a little-known protest singing group called Patatag, speaks of the desolate sakada.

Walang bulaklak sa burol ng dukha

Pawang natabunan ng biro at luha

Sa ilalim na lupa鈥檡 nilugmok ang bangkay

Diyan magmumula ang tamis ng halaman

Pagtubo ng dahon masakit makasugat

Maglilimos muli ang poong mayaman

Habang ika鈥檡 hawak ang kanyang larawan

Tatanggap ng abuloy alang sa kagutuman

Most of the members of Patatag were college students or young professionals in their early 20s, like me, and like Bongbong Marcos.

Patatag worked closely with a street theater group called Peryante, of which I was a member.

The two groups had been trained in Augusto Boal鈥檚 Theater of the Oppressed, a theater form meant to be a mirror of society鈥檚 ills.

Peryante portrayed Philippine society in satire, the nation as vaudeville, 鈥渁ng perya ng bayan, perya ng lipunan (the fair of the nation, the fair of society).鈥�

After the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, street protests gained momentum. Both Patatag and Peryante were standard performers at rallies, as well as labor strikes, peasant marches, campus forums and youth festivals.

If it was any indication of the intensified number of public protests held then, Patatag and Peryante had at least 72 street performances from July to October 1984.

All said, there were at least two or three rallies a week, with 300 to 60,000 people in attendance. Our 鈥渟tage鈥� varied depending on what was available鈥攖he backs of flatbed trucks, traffic medians, the post office steps at Liwasang Bonifacio, school cafeterias and even church altars.

Clapping in unison or striking the bamboo percussion instrument patatag, we led thousands, mostly students and working class youth, in chanting:

Hindi tayo titigil hanggang 鈥檇i nagwawagi

Sa ating mithiing magkapantay-pantay

Walang magsasamantala, walang mang-aapi

鈥橸an ang sandigan ng ating pamumuhay

Remembered reality

Throughout the late 1970s and the mid-1980s, there were rice shortages, not once but often. There were long lines at government stores called Kadiwa Centers, of people waiting their turn to buy rice.

In fact, there was so little rice available that the government was mixing ground corn with poor-grade rice to sell. And even the corn-rice mix had to be rationed; you couldn鈥檛 buy more than 5 kilos at a time.

Despite the TV and radio ads and jingles proclaiming that ground corn was good for you, frequent trips to the bathroom proved otherwise.

There were days when gas stations also 鈥渞ationed鈥� diesel and gasoline. And again, one could buy only a few liters at a time unless you were a government official.

There were frequent power outages and electricity, too, was rationed daily per district.

I remember that the outages were so frequent that I could set my watch to 2 p.m. when my elderly neighbors would drag their chairs and bring their fans outside their homes, saying, 鈥淏rownout na!鈥�

The power shortages were so bad that Marcos, the father, commissioned Westinghouse to build a nuclear power plant in Morong, Bataan province, to supply power to surrounding cities and their industries.

But the plant鈥檚 design was outdated, plagued by some 4,000 defects and was sitting on a known earthquake fault line. Of the $2.3 billion borrowed funds used to build the plant, $80 million allegedly lined the pockets of Marcos and his crony Herminio Desini.

From June 18 to 20, 1985, I witnessed a solidarity unprecedented. Our theater group joined a people鈥檚 strike against the nuclear power plant that immobilized the entire province of Bataan.

Some 33,000 students, working-class youth, workers, farmers, professionals, priests, nuns and seminarians from Central and Southern Luzon, marched to Balanga town to protest the misappropriated funds used for the nuclear power plant, and to prevent its use.

READ: Bataan Nuclear Power Plant gets no funds in 2013 / Bishop eyes conversion of Bataan nuke plant into a tourist spot

Even local businessmen agreed to close shop to allow their workers to join the protest. Everything was at a standstill; no businesses were open, not even a sari-sari store.

We joined about 200 students and teachers from the University of the Philippines (UP), marching from one barrio to another, performing at each stop, encouraging residents to join the protest.

When night fell, we found ourselves walking in the dark, drenched by the incessant rain, and relying on the few who were wise enough to bring flashlights.

Then we heard the jeeps, and the heavy shuffling of feet. Before I knew what was going on, soldiers with guns came out of nowhere and blocked the road. If we were to be killed or arrested, only the rice fields around us would have witnessed it.

The most senior professors, mostly women, stepped up to negotiate. After about an hour, we were miraculously allowed to proceed, unharmed.

We learned the next day that others were not as lucky. Several protesters were hurt or arrested as they faced tanks at military barricades.

As the protest movement swelled in number, the threats to life and limb increased. Patatag and Peryante gained a reputation for foolhardy courage.

During dispersal of rallies, I would hear the zing of bullets that missed my cheek by centimeters. Although one may say that reckless bravado and imagined invincibility are the hallmarks of the young, for the most part, the activists then were well aware of the danger they faced.

A Patatag member, while breaking into a run during a violent dispersal, felt a bullet puncture his right lung, traveling internally and piercing his liver twice before exiting through his chest. It was a miracle that that UP math student survived.

Family of activists

It was a conscious choice for me to be part of the protest movement after five of my elder siblings were arrested, tortured and sexually molested in Marcos jails.

By the time I joined my first rally, my brother Ronald Jan had already mysteriously disappeared after the military raided our home and Jun, another activist brother, had been gunned down in Nueva Ecija province.

Foolhardy or not, the activist youth of the day, the tens of thousands of us, felt that if we stayed in the safe confines of our schools and homes, then we would have tolerated, and thus inadvertently supported and furthered the crimes of the dictatorship through our inaction.

And thus, we filled the streets, singing:

Bangon sulong, baya鈥檡 magwawagi

Sabay-sabay sigaw ng tagumpay

Lungsod, baryo, eskwela鈥檛 pabrika

Ihuhudyat, sigaw ng kalayaan ng bayang may apoy

Sa diwa at dibdib

Kapitbisig, hindi malulupig 鈥�

Sumulong ka bayan, tayo鈥檡 ngayo鈥檡 lalaban!

Ubod lakas ng tinig, isisigaw ang sulong!

That鈥檚 鈥淎wit Tagumpay,鈥� a Chilean protest song translated into Filipino by Lulu Torres.

It amazes me that Bongbong Marcos has a glaringly different recollection of the days under martial law. Perhaps it is because he spent his high school and college years studying in England, only coming home to party on his father鈥檚 yacht.

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And when he came home to become vice governor, perhaps he spent those days in the cloistered province of Ilocos, where, yes, his father had built kilometers of beautifully paved roads in time for his sister鈥檚 wedding.

Perhaps as vice governor, then governor there, he failed to watch the evening news, which, even under strict government sanctions, would sneak in footage of the thousands of youth massing to protest against his father鈥檚 dictatorship.

Perhaps, like the students and youth who surround Bongbong today to say to him, 鈥淲e are with you,鈥� and repeat the 鈥渃onstant refrain鈥� of accolades for his father, he doesn鈥檛 know what he鈥檚 talking about.

[Editor鈥檚 Note: Susan F. Quimpo is coeditor and coauthor of 鈥淪ubversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years,鈥� Anvil Press, 2012.]

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