How time flies. How fickle is our memory.
Save for a few who have resolved not to forget, most Filipinos have relegated Proclamation 1081 to oblivion. Exactly 36 years ago today, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire country under Martial Law.
In one fell swoop, he would forever change the course of history.
Few people who were there would deny that. The thousands who were killed, tortured, arrested and subjected to inhumanity by the Marcos regime will swear that their lives would never be the same again.
Time however has a way of allowing people to recover. For every life that clings to the bitterness that was bred by the hurt inflicted on them during those tumultuous years, there are several who have preferred to make it a closed book.
Those who remember continue to harbor the horrors of Martial Law . To thousands of youths whose idealism led them to actively oppose the dictator, not only their innocence but their very future were taken away from them.
For all its faults, Martial Law taught most people the value of freedom. While many took it for granted prior to 1972, those who were there when history was written in those dark years knew how it was to be without them.
In most cases, experience is the best teacher. In this case, it came with a heavy price. It was a very costly lesson.
The problem about learning from experience is that we never learn.
One of the tools that Marcos used to stifle dissent was to muzzle the media. In those days, only the media organizations that sang paeans to the dictator were allowed to operate.
The rational for this is obvious: for as long as people are kept in the dark about the real score, they will be obedient and cooperative. Or so they thought.
People eventually caught up with the trick. While the controlled media painted only rosy pictures of the regime, there were those who managed to leak unsavory details through every conceivable medium.
The lesson here is that no matter how hard the media tries to distort the news, people will eventually know the real score. No matter how you sweep the dirt under the rug, it will show up when you least expected it.
Today, the temptation to take the route that Marcos took in 1972 seems more and more appealing. Suddenly, 1081 looks like an attractive proposition again.
It is timely to issue a reminder – if not a warning: nobody can fool all of the people all of the time. If Martial Law worked then, it won't this time. - Editorial, Bohol Sunday Post Newspaper
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