{"id":5883,"date":"2017-04-02T04:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=5883"},"modified":"2017-04-01T17:37:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T00:37:35","slug":"an-assassination-martial-law-and-a-revolution-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/an-assassination-martial-law-and-a-revolution-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"An Assassination, Martial Law, and a Revolution, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

First year of Martial Law, R & C climbing on the gate in front of our house, Herminia supervising<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

The phone call came at five in the morning. It was my husband\u2019s secretary. \u201cTurn on the radio,\u201d she said. \u201cMarcos just declared martial law.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how it happens, without warning.<\/p>\n

For the next two hours, my husband sat on the floor in his shorts and undershirt, switching from station to station, calling his colleagues and friends, and trying to get more information from the Filipinos and local Chinese he knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay inside,\u201d he told us. Eugene knew all about danger. He had lived through war and occupation.<\/p>\n

And yet \u2026 At 11:30, with nothing new on the radio or phone, curiosity got the better of him. We packed up the kids and drove around. The usually crowded streets were eerily quiet. We drove through Makati, down Ayala Avenue, and onto EDSA.<\/p>\n

We could have eaten anywhere, but Eugene turned into the parking lot of a favorite Filipino restaurant, Barrio Fiesta. He couldn\u2019t have chosen a better place to find some action. We sat down and ordered our pancit,<\/em> kare kare, <\/em>and fruit salad. And sure enough, before our food arrived, soldiers from the Philippine Constabulary walked in the door, their hips heavy with weapons, their boots and uniforms shouting their power. They sat down not far from us, and waved for menus. And then we all ate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was September, 1972, less than a year after we\u2019d moved to the Philippines. When I think about the nine years of martial law, what I remember is the midnight curfew, the soldiers with assault rifles stationed outside banks and department stores, and the newspapers, so strenuously controlled that they were no longer worth reading.<\/p>\n

For some Filipinos, the imposition of martial law had more serious consequences than it did for us.<\/p>\n

Last week on my blog I wrote about \u201cOld Girl,\u201d a story in Mia Alvar\u2019s short story collection, In the Country. <\/em>It\u2019s an excellent story that gives us an inside look at Senator Benigno Aquino before his assassination from the viewpoint of his wife, Cory.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another of my favorites in the same book was a novella, the title story, \u201cIn the Country.\u201d On page one, we meet a young nurse, Milagros. She has organized a nurses\u2019 strike and Jaime, an idealistic journalist has come to cover it. From the beginning, politics and history cast a shadow over the couple\u2019s love story.<\/p>\n

They move in together and Milagros gets pregnant. Then Marcos declares martial law, and Jaime (Jim) is carried off to a military prison, where he will stay until the lifting of martial law nine years later.<\/p>\n

\u2026 four khaki-uniformed officers led Jim out of 26 Avalon Row to a Metrocom car. \u2026 \u201cWhat\u2019s the charge?\u201d Jim asked. He looked Milagros in the eye, as if the question was for her. \u201cGentlemen? The charge?\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cJust come with us, boss,\u201d said the officers, in the voice one uses with a senile or demented man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story ends fourteen years, two children, and a tragedy later during the People Power Revolution that ended the rule of President Ferdinand Marcos.<\/p>\n

In 1986, after twenty years in power, Marcos was old and in poor health. He was brought down by a combination of things\u2014widely held suspicions of election fraud, an aborted military coup, and a Catholic cardinal who sided with the rebels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With the plotters holed up in a military camp, Cardinal Sin got on the air on Radio Veritas<\/em> and exhorted the people to come out on the streets and support the rebels. Almost immediately, thousands of citizens flooded the highway.<\/p>\n

The People Power Revolution lasted four days, the crowd growing to more than a million strong. Soldiers switched sides, and in the end, Marcos was forced to fly off to Hawaii for medical care.<\/p>\n

So how did the Revolution affect the fictional nurse and journalist? I\u2019ll just say that Milagros didn\u2019t go to the streets. She had her reasons.<\/p>\n

You can read all about it in In the Country<\/a> <\/em>by Mia Alvar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00a0 The phone call came at five in the morning. It was my husband\u2019s secretary. \u201cTurn on the radio,\u201d she said. \u201cMarcos just declared martial law.\u201d That\u2019s how it happens, without warning. For the next two hours, my husband sat on the floor in his shorts and undershirt, switching from station to station, calling his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,743,1340,155,148],"tags":[1508,1507,1504,1492,1503,1502,1505,1506],"class_list":["post-5883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books","category-expatriate-life","category-family","category-philippines","tag-cardinal-sin-and-the-people-power-revolution","tag-edsa-revolution","tag-expatriates-in-the-philippines","tag-in-the-country-by-mia-alvar","tag-marcos-declared-martial-law","tag-martial-law-in-the-philippines","tag-people-power-revolution-in-the-philippines","tag-radio-veritas-and-the-people-power-revolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1wT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11587,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/remembering-martial-law-in-manila\/","url_meta":{"origin":5883,"position":0},"title":"Remembering Martial Law in Manila","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"June 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It was 5 am and we were sound asleep when the phone rang. My husband Eugene was the type who could jump right out of bed in the middle of the night, though. And he did. He leap up and took the call in the rec room. When he didn\u2019t\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "expatriate life"","block_context":{"text":"expatriate life","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/expatriate-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Marcos and Imelda, 1984","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/512px-Ferdinand__Imelda_Marcos_in_Leyte_1984-10-201-e1750361707186.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7518,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/waking-to-a-national-emergency-and-a-declaration\/","url_meta":{"origin":5883,"position":1},"title":"Waking to a “National Emergency” and a Declaration","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Eugene-me-and-the-girls-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Eugene-me-and-the-girls-001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Eugene-me-and-the-girls-001.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Eugene-me-and-the-girls-001.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5863,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/an-assassination-martial-law-and-a-revolution-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":5883,"position":2},"title":"An Assassination, Martial Law, and a Revolution, Part 1","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"March 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 In 1983, when Senator Benigno Aquino was assassinated, we were there\u2014not at the Manila International Airport where thousands of supporters waited to welcome their hero back from exile in the United States, but at our home in Manila, watching the sad spectacle over and over and over again on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book reviews"","block_context":{"text":"book reviews","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/ninoy.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2245,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/writing\/how-i-got-my-start-as-a-writer\/","url_meta":{"origin":5883,"position":3},"title":"How I Got My Start as a Writer, Part 2","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"August 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Slowly, accidentally. You hear about writers who swear they were born to write\u2014who filled notebooks with stories from the time they could hold a pencil and dreamed that one day they would publish a novel \u2026 or many novels. Well, that wasn\u2019t me. I came to fiction writing slowly and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philippines"","block_context":{"text":"Philippines","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/philippines\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"EDSA-Shaw Overpass, photo by Elmer B. 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We'd moved to the Philippines the previous September, and I'd spent the year getting acquainted with one new thing after another.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Vanuatu"","block_context":{"text":"Vanuatu","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/vanuatu\/vanuatu-vanuatu\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eugene-and-girls-feeding-fish-001-e1548203761268.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2956,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/if-you-were-in-a-horror-movie-how-long-would-you-survive\/","url_meta":{"origin":5883,"position":5},"title":"If You Were in a Horror Movie, How Long Would You Survive?","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 A few weeks ago, my oldest daughter sent me an email. The subject line read: \u201cHave you retained Daddy\u2019s training?\u201d She\u2019d taken an online fun quiz called \u201cHow Long Would You Last in a Horror Movie?\u201d and she was proud to report that she\u2019d made it all the way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"CatandtheCanaryPoster","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/CatandtheCanaryPoster.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5883"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5944,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions\/5944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}