Martial Law: A Pill I Had to Take

I was raised by my grandfather, a Marcos man, who was a police chief investigator during Martial Law. He was a strict man. This modifier is an understatement. I can vividly remember how framed certificates with titles like Outstanding Policeman of the Year, Most Outstanding Officer, among others, were displayed on the wall of our living room. Growing up, I looked up to him. I thought he was a noble man.

“Marcos is the best president.” This was a statement I used to hear before he passed away in 1998. He knew how to apply the law of averages. But after he died, talking about him, his beliefs, and his actions was not taboo anymore. During those lazy afternoon conversations with my grandmother, I learned how cruel he really was.

I learned about how he pointed guns at anyone in the house, and how he placed his child in a chicken cage as a form of punishment. My grandmother was not spared from this domestic violence. She explained why, when I was in grade school, we needed to escape to my aunt’s house whenever my grandfather started to booze up on Tanduay.

Going to college, I found the passion in reading through my literature courses. The Dogeaters of Hagedorn opened my consciousness about Marcos and the Martial Law. I became more inquisitive. I asked a lot of questions about my grandfather and his loyalty to the dictator. My aunt told me that she experienced erasing a casted vote to favor Marcos. My grandmother told me that she saw for the first time my grandfather crying when Marcos and his family were chased out of the country in 1986. She narrated how my grandfather tore the calendar down, and punched the wall because of disappointment and anger.

Hearing my grandfather how proud he was having Armin Gustilo as his close friend brought “prestige” to the family. I remembered him telling me that the house of Armin Gustilo in Cadiz City is open should I decide to study in Bacolod City. But the “prestige” brought more eerie feeling to me when I read the Escalante Massacre in September 1985. The name Armin Gustilo was involved in that “Bloody Thursday” that took twenty lives and wounded twenty four more. The question which I deliberately ignored to find answer is, “Was my grandfather involved in the Escam more than three decades ago?” This question is giving me goose bumps. I hope when I finally have the courage to find the answer, I will get a NO.

In my grandfather’s house, the name Marcos and the idea of Martial Law was like a pill that could cure a malignant disease. But the pill is so bitter, and even unfit for human consumption.

I am not a Martial Law baby. But do I have to be in that darkest period of our history to tell what really happened? I don’t have to be with Archimedes Trajano in that forum and be discovered lifeless on the street. I don’t have to be in the detention cell with Liliosa Hilao to feel how the muriatic acid ran through her throat. I don’t have to be Johnny Escandor to experience how one’s head was opened. The house where I was raised was like a small version of the country under dictatorship. It was full of bitter and violent memories.

Link to Rappler published on Sept. 21, 2019 https://www.rappler.com/views/imho/240408-martial-law-pill