{"id":7518,"date":"2019-01-20T04:00:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=7518"},"modified":"2019-02-03T09:33:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T17:33:08","slug":"waking-to-a-national-emergency-and-a-declaration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/waking-to-a-national-emergency-and-a-declaration\/","title":{"rendered":"Waking to a “National Emergency” and a Declaration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Who was it?” I asked when he hung up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Bing.” His secretary, a Filipina who, I came to realize, knew people who knew people who knew what was about to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ferdinand and Imelda Ferdinand, photo by Al Ramones & Domie Quiazon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, it was almost time to feed the baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAt one point, he warned me, the maids, and the children not to leave the house.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by lunchtime, curiosity had overcome caution, and he suggested we pile in the car with two of our daughters and drive around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, more than 100 of Marcos’ political enemies had been detained, including Senator Ninoy Aquino and various members of the media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcos needed a pretext.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This “national emergency” had become the justification for declaring Martial Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later it was learned that the attack was stage managed.<\/a> The shooters were Enrile’s own men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would have guessed that the “national emergency” of a fake assassination attempt would have led to so many years of dictatorial rule?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that’s why any talk of declaring a “national emergency” makes me nervous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/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":[1437,148],"tags":[1847,128,1846,1849,1504,488,1848,1845,495],"class_list":["post-7518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-philippines","tag-1847","tag-asian-development-bank","tag-declaration-of-martial-law","tag-defense-secretary-juan-ponce-enrile","tag-expatriates-in-the-philippines","tag-imelda-marcos","tag-manufactaured-crisis","tag-national-emergency","tag-president-ferdinand-marcos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1Xg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11587,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/remembering-martial-law-in-manila\/","url_meta":{"origin":7518,"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. 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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. 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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":[]},{"id":7529,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/vanuatu\/vanuatu-vanuatu\/living-under-martial-law\/","url_meta":{"origin":7518,"position":3},"title":"Living under Martial Law","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"February 3, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Life goes on. 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