"Colonel Rolando Abadilla and squad came to the Asian Social Institute and bodily carried me out of the building and out to the airport. Wow! What a look! Tanada told me that every country has very loose immigration laws so that they can get rid of 'undesirables.' I saw the face of Commissioner Edmundo Reyes when he saw our lawyers. "The best day of my whole life was the day we entered the immigration courtroom. In the meantime, I was moved from Crame to an immigration prison. “In the meantime, Nena Diokno, wife of the late senator Jose Diokno, sent me a note that if I decided to stay, she would find me a lawyer. The nuncio offered to help (but only toothpaste!)," he said. The US embassy offered to help, but only if I agreed to leave voluntarily. A few months later, I was brought to Camp Crame. "I was arrested the first day of martial law but it was house arrest. Five decades later, his recollection of what happened remains vivid. In my years of social action work, I learned about the raids on social action centers and forged friendships with persecuted church people.Ī North American priest, Father Edward Gerlock, was the first priest imprisoned during martial law. In the course of their response to the signs of the times, and in solidifying Vatican ll’s "preferential option for the poor,” members of the progressive segment of the Church were not spared the harsh repression. The media, workers, rural and urban poor, students and all sectors of society who opposed the tyrannical regime suffered under the iron fist of repression in various forms - imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, massacres.Īt least 10,000 victims filed a class suit before the US Federal Court in Hawaii and years later won the case against the Marcoses. In my years of social action work, I learned about the raids on social action centers and forged friendships with persecuted church people I witnessed demonstrators being tear-gassed, including the disappeared priest Father Rudy Romano who, in his white cassock, was on the front lines. In the hinterlands of Cebu, I immersed myself with farmers who were forced to sell their land at a very cheap price to give way to a golf course or sports complex. Theresa’s College in Cebu incorporated social orientation in student activities, that I was exposed to the life of the urban poor and workers during demolitions and strikes. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was suspended and Congress was dissolved.įor almost my whole student life, I witnessed martial law and its horrors. Student demonstrations in Manila were dispersed and activists earned the ire of the powers-that-be. Many others languished in jail and were tortured.
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