Martial Law & Torture

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

There can be no talk of martial law without mention of torture, for it played one of the most prominent parts in the Marcos dictatorship�s arsenal of terror. Very rare was the political prisoner of those times who was �fortunate� enough not to be tortured, physically or mentally.

A form which martial law victims under the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda, an organization of ex-political prisoners) used to file cases defines torture thus: �Torture as used herein means any act, directed against an individual in the custody or physical control of the Philippine military, by which severe pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering arising only from or inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions), whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on that individual for such purposes As obtaining from that individual or a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual for an act that individual or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind.�

Torture also includes mental pain or suffering from prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from:

- The intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

- The administration or application, or threatened administration, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

- The threat of imminent death; or

- The threat that another individual will be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

Torture methods

The methods of torture during the martial law years can easily be compiled into a sort of encyclopedia of barbarism for their sheer number.

Benjamin Pimentel�s The Unusual Journey of Edgar Jopson is an account of the torture of a certain Laura, an underground organizer in the same team as Jopson. She was stripped naked in an airconditioned room and her breasts mashed by her interrogators. An eggplant dipped in crushed chili pepper was inserted into her sex organ.

Jopson himself was heavily tortured. He was repeatedly punched and slapped while under interrogation. In some instances pictures of his wife and children were dangled in front of him while he was being questioned.

A document in the files of Selda tells of a man squeezed into a rubber tire with his knees to his chest. He was left in that position for some time.

In his book, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader�s View, Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, founding chairman of Kabataang Makabayan (Nationalist Youth) and the Communist Party of the Philippines, tells of having a towel pressed against his mouth and water flushed through his nostrils. He also relates being physically beaten, usually in the form of punches to the floating ribs and solar plexus. There were times when his interrogators threatened to bang his head against the wall. But the most painful form of torture for him and most other victims was psychological, especially long periods of solitary confinement that physically isolated him from loved ones, friends and fellow political detainees.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo is one of the better-known political prisoners of the martial law period, not only because he was one of those held longest (1976-85), but also because he had the utter misfortune of being subjected to many of the worst forms of torture. He has described his experiences as a torture victim in various media interviews. He was electrocuted in the genitals, nipples, and forehead, had his head banged repeatedly against a wall and was made to lie naked on a block of ice.

An article by Elizabeth Lolarga for Planet Philippines narrates how Rep. Ocampo, at one point, was made to eat human feces. He was also slapped several times in the ears; as a result, he said in a guesting on Larry Henares� Make My Day, his hearing was affected.

Writers Pete Lacaba and Boni Ilagan both recount being made to �lie in air,� or to rest their heads and feet between two benches placed far apart�which means that the rest of the body has to be suspended in air. They were also subjected to punches, especially whenever they were sliding down as a result of the fatigue from �lying in air.�

May Verzola-Rodriguez was newly wed when she was arrested. In an article written by Lorna-Kalaw Tirol for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1999, Rodriguez is quoted as saying she was repeatedly punched, slapped and sexually molested. Bullets were inserted between her fingers and her hand was squeezed whenever she was asked a question.

Luisa Posa of Iloilo City, in the same article by Kalaw-Tirol, is quoted as recalling having been undressed, slapped, and given a soft-drink version of the water cure (gallons of soft drinks were poured on her face, blocking her mouth and nostrils). She was also subjected to the Russian roulette, whereby the barrel of a revolver is loaded with a bullet and spun, and the trigger pressed in between verbal threats.

Prof. Judy Taguiwalo�s first torture was also physical. She was undressed and made to sit on a block of ice overnight. She was also given the water cure. After that ordeal, she escaped from prison but was again arrested shortly after. The second time around, the torture was mental: pregnant by then, she was given a book to read, a Latin American novel about a pregnant woman who gets raped while searching for her husband.

The case of former navy captain Dan Vizmanos, which he has written about in his book Through the Eye of the Storm as well as in the forthcoming Martial Law Diary: Part One, is more of mental torture but no less severe. While undergoing interrogation, he was given several injections of truth serum, a mind-altering substance. He was also subjected repeatedly to the Russian roulette.

Torturers

The website NeverAgain.net (http://www.neveragain.net/) of Gaston Z. Origas Peace Institute has lists of military officials and personnel, as well as civilian employees of the armed forces, who were involved in prominent torture cases.

The name that appears the most frequently is that of the late Rodolfo Aguinaldo. (He was executed by the New People�s Army in 2001.) He had a hand in the tortures of Ocampo, Lacaba, and Ilagan, as well as that of former presidential spokesperson now Palace chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao.

Another name that appears more than once is that of Victor Batac.

The NeverAgain.net lists mention several more names: Miguel Aure, Cesar Alvarez, Robert Delfin, Cecilio Panilla, Virgilio Saldajeno, Laurel Valdez, Cirilo Batingal, Cayetano Fajardo, Cesar Garcia, Eduardo Matillano, Lucio Valencia, Alejandro Galido, Luis Beltran (not the late journalist), Jesus Caluanan, Welen Escudero (civilian), Florante Macatangay, Joseph Malilay, Pablito Pesquisa, Eduardo Sebastian, Charlie Tolopa, Hernani Figueroa, Amado Espino, Benjamin Libarnes, Lazaro Castillo, Arsenio Esguerra, Eduardo Kapunan, Rolando Abadilla, Billy Bibit, and Gregorio Honasan.

Alfred McCoy�s Closer than Brothers, from which the NeverAgain.net lists are culled, also names Panfilo Lacson as one of the torturers.

In Selda documents are the names of Balbino Diego, Roger Anista, Felicito Ricardo, and Pat Ordo�a.

The widespread practice of torture during the martial law era can be partly traced to the fact that hazing is sort of a standard operating procedure in the military.

Project Sea Hawk: The Barbed Wire Journal, a prison diary by writer and UP professor Dolores Stephens-Feria, who was detained during martial law, tells of one officer whom she calls �Reggie� (most of the persons mentioned in the book appear under code names) defending the practice of hazing at the Philippine Military Academy, where he graduated.

The admission of �Reggie� is corroborated in an interview Lacson gave to the Philippine Graphic in 1999. In that interview, Lacson admitted to having experienced hazing at the PMA, where he graduated together with Honasan in 1971, and even said, �You can�t stop hazing any more than you can stop murder.�

Military officials who experienced hazing in their cadet days often replicate the process on their subordinates and other people under their physical control such as detainees as a way of getting back at those who hazed them. The case is the same with their subordinates who bear the brunt of their �vengeance.�

But the roots of torture in the Philippines go back even further. Torture in the country is in fact a carry-over of both Spanish and American colonialism, under which occupation troops and police popularized the use of water cure and other brutal methods against revolutionaries and resistance fighters. Many AFP officers who trained in U.S. military institutes were also taught interrogation techniques including torture.

Not well known

The widespread employment of torture on political prisoners during martial law is one aspect of the period that is not known to many people today. To many, even to some who claim to have lived through martial law, the period was simply one of quiet throughout the country, one when Filipinos were exceptionally �well-behaved.�

Such people are at risk of falling into the trap of martial law apologists, such as Ilocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos, who takes every opportunity to claim that martial law was the best thing that happened to the country.

Awareness of the prevalence and severity of torture during the martial law era should be enough to prevent anyone from justifying the declaration of PD 1081 on September 21, 1972, or any new form of martial law.

Edjop & the Battle of Mendiola

Benjamin Pimentel’s new book “U.G.: An Underground Tale.” The book profiles Edgar Jopson and traces the “unique and dramatic” odyssey of the most intriguing figure of the First Quarter Storm.

In the aftermath of the January 26 confrontation, as the radicals called for more militance, Edjop and other student leaders of the moderate bloc agreed to a dialogue with Marcos on January 30.

A few months earlier, during the bicentennial anniversary of the Ateneo, Edjop and other members of the Ateneo student council had visited Malacañang at the invitation of Imelda Marcos. Romy Chan remembered it as a social visit in which the First Lady herself showed them around the Palace. But they expected the January 30 meeting to be different. “We had just gone through a sudden awakening,” Romy Chan recalled.

The dialogue was scheduled to start at 2 p.m. But Marcos kept the student leaders waiting for about an hour and a half. According to Freddie Salanga, Edjop was about to walk out when Marcos’s executive secretary, Ernesto Maceda, walked in with the president. Marcos was “arrogant and intimidating’’ giving the impression that he had a lot of things to do and the students were keeping him from his business as president, Salanga recalled.

Salanga later recalled the meeting in the October 10, 1982 issue of Panorama magazine: “It was mid-afternoon by the time the President got to see [Edjop] in the latter’s study, a small room easily jam-packed as much by reporters and student leaders as by curious Malacañang personnel and hangers-on out to catch a glimpse of the boy who had led what was, till then, the bloodiest student demonstration in history.

There the demands of the 26th were threshed out, Edjop’s normally deep baritone quivering at first but then slowly gaining confidence as the President began to nod his head at a number of points he was raising. As the tension eased in the room, people began to notice how like a boy indeed he was, his feet barely touching the polished floor as he sat on a stiff high-backed chair by the left-hand side of the President’s table. To the President’s right was an equally small person, Portia Ilagan, who then headed the National Students’ League, an organization of students from state colleges and universities. To many in that room, it must have seemed highly improbable that these two could have actually marshaled thousands of students, but that was the stark fact.”

As the meeting went on, students were massing right outside Malacañang Palace. The NUSP, the National Students League and other moderate groups had come early, taking their positions at Freedom Park.

KM, SDK and other radical groups had held their own rally in front of Congress, but at around 5 p.m., they began marching to Malacañang.

Journalist Jose Lacaba recounted what happened next:“It was growing dark and the lamps on the Malacañang gates had not been turned on. There was a shout of ‘Sindihan ang ilaw! Sindihan ang ilaw!’ [Turn on the lights!] Malacañang obliged, the lights went on and then crash! a rock blasted out one of the lamps. One by one, the lights were put out by stones or sticks.”

Dicky Castro recalled that, in the darkness that followed, rocks were hurled from inside the Palace at the students mobilized outside, and the youths reacted by hurling them back. That, he said, was when the Palace guards attacked.

Meanwhile, inside Malacañang, another confrontation was brewing. Freddie Salanga’s account continued:“The question of whether the President was going to endorse the demand for nonpartisan elections to the Constitutional Convention was getting pretty near to some kind of resolution, when Edjop finally came up with the surprise demand of the afternoon. He wanted an assurance that the President would not seek a third term by circumventing the Constitution.”
“I am constitutionally bound not to run for a third term,” was Marcos’s calm reply.

But Edjop was adamant.“Mr. President, we want you to sign a document pledging that you will not run for a third term,” demanded the student leader.

“Who are you to tell me what to do!” Marcos shot back, followed by his famous mocking remark about Edjop: “You’re only a son of a grocer!”

Portia Ilagan, in an effort to break the tension, cracked, “Tingling! Ops, break muna! Break!”

Marcos simply shrugged and smiled sarcastically, Freddie Salanga recalled. Jun Pau, who also attended the meeting, said Edjop was nervous. “His voice was louder than usual. When Marcos snapped, we were silent and stunned. After all, it was the President of the Republic who had just barked.

If he had had a gun with him them, I think he would have probably shot all of us right there and then.”

Before the dialogue could proceed, a Palace aide came in with a report on the melee outside the Malacañang gates. The dialogue abruptly ended.

At a little past 6 p.m., Edjop and the other student representatives were seen to the door. But a battle was already raging right outside the Palace. In his account of the uprising, Lacaba wrote: “Jopson and company fled back into the Palace, taken aback by the fury that had broken out at the gates.

They were graciously shown the back door, ferried across the river, and allowed to go home safely, presumably to watch television. They missed out on all the action.”

Edjop may have missed all the excitement––but his car parked right outside the palace gates did not. Some of the more fired-up radicals, aware that the vehicle belonged to the leader of the moderates––the “clerico-fascist reactionary’’ who, four days before, had tried to deny one of their leaders the right to speak––smashed the windows of Edjop’s American Rambler.

The militants were prepared for bigger onslaughts. They commandeered a fire truck protecting the Palace, and sent it crashing through Gate 4 of

Malacañang. With the Palace gates opened, the radicals attacked. Lacaba wrote: “Once inside the gate, the rebels stoned the buildings and set fire to the truck and to a government car that happened to be parked nearby.”

Also covering the event for his school paper was Ed del Rosario who said the students actually were surprised to suddenly find themselves inside the Palace.“I don’t think the students really had any intention of assaulting the Palace. After they had broken in, many of them simply milled around not knowing what to do. The soldiers didn’t have a hard time dispersing them.”

Lacaba’s account continued: “Before they could wreak more havoc, however, the Presidential Guard Battalion came out in force. They fired into the air and, when the rebs held their ground, fired tear gas bombs at them. The rebs retreated; the few who were slow on their feet, or were blinded by the tear gas, got caught on the Palace grounds and were beaten up with rifle butts and billy clubs and good old-fashioned fists and feet.”

The Battle of Mendiola, as the confrontation came to be known, lasted until the wee hours of January 31, boiling over to Azcarraga, now called Recto Avenue, España and Divisoria. When it was over, four students were dead.

During most of that night, Edjop was at his house with NUSP officers and leaders of other moderate groups, monitoring developments and drawing up plans to help students caught in the fighting. Freddie Salanga said he thought his friend was scared. “But as usual he didn’t show it. As usual, he was the one who helped us calm down. We were the ones who were agitated.”

Eighteen years later, during a reunion at Freddie Salanga’s house in Quezon City, a few months before his own death, Edjop’s NUSP friends looked back to that historic day and year. They initially disagreed on whether Marcos provoked the 1970 riots. Jun Pau said Marcos used “the chaotic atmosphere as an excuse to declare martial law.” Romy Chan believed “the Reds, more than anyone else, were responsible for the violence. They had more to gain from the trouble than Marcos.” Pau offered a compromise view: “Let’s just say it was a combination of the Reds and Marcos. Talagang sinundot nila ang mga pangyayari. They really stirred things up.”