I don’t know which woke me, the jangling ring of the phone or my husband leaping out of bed, his whole body on alert. As he spoke, his answers sounded curt and serious.
“Who was it?” I asked when he hung up.
“Bing.” His secretary, a Filipina who, I came to realize, knew people who knew people who knew what was about to happen.
“She called you at five in the morning?” I still thought the call had something to do with one of his projects. Eugene was a project officer at Asian Development Bank.
“In a few hours,” he said, his eyes darting around the room as though to process what he’d just heard, “the President will declare Martial Law.”
I understood that he wasn’t talking about our president, Richard Nixon; he was talking about Ferdinand Marcos, the president of the Philippines where we’d been living for the past year.
Having no idea what the consequences of living under Martial Law would mean for us, I didn’t know whether or not to worry. I decided not to worry … at this point anyway.
Besides, it was almost time to feed the baby.
Eugene, on the other hand, was more likely to worry. He was born in a war zone, his early childhood spent under occupation by a hostile foreign power. He knew that everyday life could be disrupted in the blink of an eye.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, barefoot and wearing the same undershirt and shorts he slept in, he spent the morning calling friends and listening to the shortwave radio.
I’m not sure what stations he was listening to because Philippine radio and TV stations had all gone black. Maybe he tuned in to the US Armed Services radio or to someone somewhere who knew or guessed what was happening.
At one point, he warned me, the maids, and the children not to leave the house.
But by lunchtime, curiosity had overcome caution, and he suggested we pile in the car with two of our daughters and drive around.
What we found was a tense quiet and highways that were nearly empty. We stopped for lunch at Barrio Fiesta, a popular Filipino restaurant in Mandaluyong. It was a roomy place with few customer that day until a group of Philippine Constabulary (i.e. military police) came in and filled up the space with their bulky uniforms and guns.
The Declaration of Martial Law wasn’t publicly announced until 3:00 pm (September 23, 1972). They opened up the air waves, and the President’s press secretary read it. The President didn’t speak until 7:15 that evening.
By then, more than 100 of Marcos’ political enemies had been detained, including Senator Ninoy Aquino and various members of the media.
Flights were cancelled. Overseas calls were prohibited. The mass media was shut down. A curfew was imposed. And Congress was disbanded. Henceforth Marcos would rule by decree.
So what was the excuse for declaring Martial Law? There was a Communist insurgency in the north, and Muslim rebels in the south. There’d been various bombing incidents. But all that had been going on for months, even years.
Marcos needed a pretext.
The “manufactured crisis” he chose was an assassination attempt on Defense Secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile. The night before the declaration, Enrile’s convoy was leaving Wack-Wack Village when a car pulled alongside and opened fire, riddling his car with bullets. Luckily he was riding in another car.
This “national emergency” had become the justification for declaring Martial Law.
Later it was learned that the attack was stage managed. The shooters were Enrile’s own men.
Martial Law didn’t end officially until 1981, eight years later. Marcos stayed in power until he was removed as a result of the People Power Revolution of 1986.
Who would have guessed that the “national emergency” of a fake assassination attempt would have led to so many years of dictatorial rule?
Maybe that’s why any talk of declaring a “national emergency” makes me nervous.
It all seems crazy in retrospect, yet it was life for so many years. And, as you imply, many things are not so very different now. Glad you’re here to tell the tale. There are some people you don’t make enemies of. 🙂 🙂
Thanks, Jo. Events that make it into the history books do seem crazy until we get used to them. Then they’re just “the way things were.” Before the declaration of martial law, Marcos’ enemies were very brazen in making their opposition public. I’m not sure all of them knew what they were risking–or maybe they did.
So interesting. Thanks for educating me! It sounds like it was a very intense time.
Yes, at times it was intense. And then we got used to it.
So scary! Even more so because it sounds like something that could happen again… Anywhere.
Yeah. You never know. I think we’re vulnerable because our president is the type who would prefer being a dictator rather than a president.
I am so tired of greedy self-serving narcissistic power-hungry politicians.
The range of human behavior might be fascinating if it wasn’t so consequential for so many people. Until recently, I think I only partially understood what a narcissist was. Now I know.
Lovely recollection, Nicki. I like how you focused on the events that were going on around you, and that gave gravity to the situation which involved manipulation on a large scale. Definitely a well-thought out, carefully masqueraded tactic to gain power and the upperhand. It’s stages like these were the innocent live in fear and wonder when it will all end. Hopefully we don’t see anything like this in our time ever again.
Yes. I, too, hope we won’t see anything like this in our time. Reading now about the imposition of Martial Law, I see that Marcos had been thinking about it for a couple of years.
What a story. What a time. I remember we were living in Chiang Rai (the first time) when the Thai military look over the gov’t, and they declared martial law. It was scary because CR is in the North which is where BIG support for the overthrown gov’t lay.
It was also nervy to drive through military checkpoints (which had been set up) with men and AK-47s and all that. There was a lot of military presence in Chiang Mai (also in the North) too, but I no longer lived there.
But since I grew up in Hawaii, and Hawaii has a HUGE Filipino population, I feel like I grew up hearing about Marco’s and Imelda’s shoes. But it’s another thing to have lived there during that time.
That’s another reason why I wanted to leave Cambodia by a certain date (elections). Hun Sen removed the opposition side, and silenced the airwaves and independent media. Scary stuff happening. Sometimes I wonder how life goes on, but it does.
After all the drama is over, the real harm to the country is still there. But it’s easy to ignore. Like the frog in the slowly heating pot, people get used to the new regime and the loss of a true democracy. In the Philippines, although we got used to seeing men with assault rifles, Martial Law probably affected poor Filipinos and opposition leaders more than it did us.
The kids and I left the Philippines in 1984, near the end of Martial Law, because someone at the US Embassy (probably CIA) told my husband there was going to be “blood in the streets.” After a dozen years, opposition was building. We were surprised to see it turn out to be a peaceful “People Power Revolution.” And then, for a number of years, there were the coup attempts.
Yes, we often use the frog in the pot analogy. Things have gotten ‘comfortable’ – but what will be the repercussions?
My experience is that people get used to it. But there are always those who will be willing to sacrifice to bring about change. The repercussions will hurt people, and eventually activists will take action. Years later, the historians will count up the costs.
What a nail biter! Your husband had to have been very worried for all of you having been through a similar situation. Now you’re the one to be more worried as you witness the US flailing about. I guess I actually don’t know what a national emergency would mean to us, now that I think about it!
I guess we’ve had quite a few national emergencies called. But those were for a specific purpose, like blocking the property of criminal organizations. But declaring a national emergency in the United States gives the President authority to do lots of things, including: freezing bank accounts, shutting down many kinds of electronic communication, and deploying troops within the country. I hope we never see that.
Powerful story – too bad no one really pays attention to history so indeed we’re condemned to reliving it.
I hope not, Judith.
Sounds familiar. Staged crisis. Someone riding in on a white horse to “save” us. Many still don’t see it. We don’t seem to learn from history.
It’s so easy to stage a crisis. Proving that it was staged might not be hard, but it takes time, and by then the deed will have been done.
I feel like I’m living in a reality show (where nothing is really real).
I suppose all this will seem more real in a few years when it becomes part of history. But right now, our “reality show” seems crazy.
A very timely reminder. My dad, former Republican Congressional staffer and consultant, believes Trump will try and cobble together some similar excuse to give himself emergency powers.
I agree with your father. It’s definitely possible. Trump has an authoritarian mindset, and he’s having a very hard time sharing power with the Democrats. So it all depends on what he can get away with.
Nicki, you paint a vivid picture of the time, transporting us to the morning of the phone call, your drive around the empty streets and it must have been frightening as the police filled the restaurant. What did you do during the years of martial law? Did you stay? I remember Marcos being ousted and all Emelda’s shoes! You do right to draw an analogy with the uncertain events of today. Hoping that all works out well in the end.
Yes, Annika, it was a frightening morning. But we did stay during the years of Martial Law. Imelda’s shoes are only one part of that story. One example: She used to wake her friends up to fly with her to Hong Kong on a government plane so she’d have company for her shopping trips.
A powerful blog. Thanks you for sharing. I hope you will expand the blog to share what happened after the initial declaration of martial law.
I wasn’t planning to write another post on this topic, but you got me thinking. I’ll see if I can put one together.
Wow, Nicki! You had me on the edge of my seat. Well done. And what a sad time. Also, what a true state of a “national emergency” that was.
Most people experience national emergencies from the margins, as we did. The more dramatic story would be from the point of view of one of those people who had criticized Marcos and was dragged off to jail. Still, most of us experience life from the sidelines.
What an EXCELLENT post – it sent chills though my body. You write it subtly for the contemporary metaphor, yet it is still a resounding piece of warning. And your writing pulled me in immediately. Thank you for sharing this true story.
Thank you, Pam. I’m not a serious student of history, but when I do delve back into the past, I always find it illuminating. It’s still hard for most of us to imagine how lessons from the past could apply to our present situation. We tend to imagine our future as being very much like the present with a few minor adjustments.
The older I get, the more I like learning/reading about history. It all seems so relevant now! ;-0
I’ve always enjoyed fiction set in the past. But being hit with my first history course in college, Survey of Western Civilization, threw me for a loop. It was beyond my power to memorize all the names and dates.
Oh, noooo. Memorization is not the way to learn history (in my opinion). When I was tutoring special ed high school students for 10 years, I attended the history classes with them and learned SO MUCH that I was never taught when I was in high school! ;-0
It was that one college course with too many facts that threw me for a loop. My high school courses okay.