The day martial law was proclaimed

I happened to be the editor in chief of the Philippine Collegian at a crucial period in the country’s history. President Ferdinand Marcos was poised to declare martial law.

In the university, we just had the student council elections. The Sandigang Makabansa, headed by Jimmy Galvez Tan and Carol Pagaduan as chairman and vice chair, respectively, won over Ed Robles and Jules Arambulo of the Katipunan ng Malayang Pagkakaisa.   

In the September 21, 1972 Collegian editorial entitled “Martial Law: A Matter of Time?” I wrote:

The inevitable is about to come. The pattern of events in the last few days — bombings, raids on suspected subversive organizations and witch-hunting — all points to one thing: a full-scale militarization of the country is in the offing.

It is a fallacy to assume that martial law can be whimsically imposed without any violent resistance from the masses of our people. The events that followed the suspension of the writ after the Plaza Miranda bombing last year show that the people cannot take any form of curtailment of their liberties lying down.

Angry and in a fighting mood, I concluded my piece thus:

A “tooth for a tooth” this time may be the most effective way to show the people’s unwillingness to yield to the Malacañang plot.

It was prophetic. In a couple of days, the country was placed under martial law. Actually, martial law was proclaimed on the evening of September 23, 1972 but was made retroactive to September 21, the supposed date of Proclamation 1081 placing the entire Philippines under martial rule. 

A day earlier, I got hold of a document entitled “ODS,” or “Operation Double Strike.” It was purportedly leaked by a military officer who claimed to have attended a meeting of the generals who were convened to prepare for the declaration of martial law. It was a scoop. No other student paper or national daily had got hold of it. What the major dailies were brandishing at the time was a copy detailing a similar scheme but dubbed “Operation Sagittarius” and which was released to the media by Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.

We were preparing a Collegian Extra, even if only in limited circulation, on the explosive document. The Liwayway management, printer of the Collegian, hesitated to run the press. The general manager and legal counsel called me to their offices and declared that they would assume no responsibility and made me sign a document to that effect. The four-page paper finally hit the university campus drop-off points at dusk. Since it was rushed, we printed only a couple thousand copies, instead of the usual weekly circulation of 16,000, to include issues for Los Baños, Manila, Baguio, San Fernando, Tacloban and Cebu.

My roommates in the Narra Residence Hall invited me to go to a sauna parlor for a relaxing massage that evening. In those days, for relaxation, the Nareha boys (that’s what the other dorm residents called us) would either go to a massage parlor and experience different degrees of sensation, or have a dance or two in a Calumpang, Marikina kabaret. Those who preferred to stay nearby would simply jump over the dorm fence and have a round of beer in the Balara drugstore-cum-restaurant while fantasizing over Imelda and Milet, the two lovely daughters of the owner, herself a very kind woman to the Narehans.

My roommates were only too aware that I was tired from presswork. I joined them anyway. We rode in the service car of Flor de Pano, a medical rep, and went to a massage parlor along Quezon Avenue near the present BIR regional office. On the way, we passed by the sampaguita ladies’ dorm where a large teach-in was going on. One could feel that there was ferment on the campus. The atmosphere was tense.  

We went back to Narra a little past midnight. We met a convoy of Metrocom soldiers along University Avenue. The ladies’ dorm area was littered with debris. We were told that the Metrocom soldiers had just left after raiding the DZUP radio station and dispersing the mass teach-in at the Sampaguita. When we arrived at Narra, we heard what sounded like a firefight in the area of the Iglesia ni Kristo cathedral along Commonwealth Avenue. We turned on the radio and TV in the lobby. There was only silence; no TV or radio signals. It dawned on me: martial law was here. Immediately, I went to wake up Edwin Pascua in his room. Epam, as we called him, was the Collegian business manager and I knew that he brought along a bundle of Collegian Extra copies on the issue of martial law, which was circulated on campus just a few hours earlier. 

I asked him about the copies of the Collegian Extra. I wanted to keep them because they would become a part of history, or at least memorabilia about martial law for future historical documents. I was dismayed when Epam told me that he had left them in the Collegian office at Vinzons Hall. When I dashed inside the building, which was just a stone’s throw away from Narra, I saw the whole place had been ransacked, presumably by the soldiers. I saw some students carting away whatever incriminating papers had been left in the Vinzons Hall. 

Early in the morning, the following day, two carloads of handheld radio-wielding civilians picked me up at the dorm. They had instructions to bring me to Camp Aguinaldo. I had heard the night before, through the grapevine, that the military had been rounding up hundreds of perceived enemies of the state. Naturally, they would consider the editor in chief of the UP Philippine Collegian, the official organ of a free and fiercely independent studentry, as a potential troublemaker in the martial law regime. 

I was brought to the office of Colonel Noe Andaya, chief of the AFP Civil Relations. Captain Honesto Isleta talked to me and, adopting a threatening stance, began shouting that the Collegian and all other campus papers, for that matter, were to cease publication. The military would not allow the publication of any student paper. The student councils were abolished. I was released after listening to their boring lectures that lasted half a day.

The Collegian resumed publication early the following year. How the paper fared during that early period of military rule is an interesting story that would require another Kuwentong Peyups on the subject, part two.

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