MARTIAL LAW
Philippines
Martial Law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by
military authorities over designated regions on
an emergency basis.
Martial law is usually:
 imposed on a temporary basis
 the disobedience of the law
 a requirement put on civilian
government
The Martial Law Era
The declaration of martial law on September
21, 1972 stifled the creativity of most writers.
Who is Ferdinand Marcos?
 He is Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin
Marcos Sr.
 Born on September 11, 1917 at Sarrat,
Ilocos Norte
 December 1938
He was prosecuted for the murder of
Julio Nalundasan
 Graduated as cum laude from UP
College of Law
 Topnotched the 1939 Bar Examination
for Lawyers, with a rating of 92.35%
(highest percentage of Bar until this
day)
 Senate President ( 1963 – 1965)
 Married to Imelda Romualdez-Marcos
 His children are:
Maria Imelda “Imee” Marcos
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.
Irene Marcos
 4th president who declared Martial Law
 Died on September 28, 1989 in
Honolulu, Hawaii due to lupus
Highlights from the Marcos Administration
First term
 became the 10th President of the
 large industrialization and
infrastructure
 increased the funding of the Armed
Forces
 established schools and learning
institution
Second term
 economic turmoil was brought about
 protest in Mendiola (October 30, 1970)
 Plaza Miranda bombing (August 21,
1972)
 Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile was
ambushed
Economy
During the early years of Martial Law, the
Philippine economy grew a significant amount,
spurred by heavy borrowing from transnational
banking companies and government-to-
government loans.
However, the heavy burden of foreign debt
servicing took its toll in the economy, and
mismanagement of important industries due to
crony capitalism led the economy to a
downturn.
[Time Period]
(Bahala ka diyan)
[Significant Events]
Literature during Martial Law in the Philippines
Martial Law caused trauma to everyone,
especially those who were severely affected by
it. This pushed Filipino writers to write
outstanding stories that depict the cruelty of
the Marcos Administration. Each stories
represent the hardships that Filipino’s had to
face during Marcos’ reign. Behind every notable
literary works, were deep meanings.
Stories
Short story of Cirilo Bautista (The Ritual)
This story is all about a man who had demonic
powers was someone everyone in the tribe
feared.
Story of Amadis Guerrero (Children of the City)
Victor was convinced at the end to join the
other newspaper boys to do vices. He
eventually gave in to them because he grew
tired of always being beaten up.
Poems
Sister home for the weekend by Patria Rivera
When she came home she did not say a word
for a very long time.
The hours went by the tick of the lizards.
The holes in her eyes wouldn't leave us.
Barricades, poor wages, backbreaking work,
the women in the garment factory hurling their
lunch pails
at phalanxes of soldiers on the picket line,
the men beaten up, fired at like woodpigeons in
a carnival.
Now when she jerks her hand to reach out to
us,
her scarred knuckles coil, gray as her argument,
marked
where cigarette butts
had tattooed targets on a mesh of veins.
Under her skirt, they stuck a live cord,
ran current enough to light the bulb in her cell,
the blurred plot of her coded life,
her questioners getting edgier with each turn.
A December in Prison by Isagani R. Serrano
(December 1982)
We waited all day long
On the twenty-fourth
Unable to figure how our patience
Had carried us through to this day
From the painful countdown
That began on the second
When our bellies went empty.
In our lonely cells
We fancied our little blessings
Imagining how it's like
Beyond the guarded gates
To be in the midst of near and dear ones
Singing the same songs of hope
And marching against the winds of doom.
Through the layers of wire mesh
That divide us
Our children would ask questions
None of us wanted to hear
They would press for answers
That were best understood in silence
Or in white lies that must be said.
We won't be home this Christmas
The message is written clear
On the wall
The high and mighty wall
That would heed no protest carols
No tears from eyes that hunger
For salvation.
But someday
We shall be with you on a Christmas
To share the many untold stories
Long buried within walls and cages
That by then we shall have
Smashed to pieces.
Searching by Doris N. Baffrey (January 25,
1983)
you look into our windows for light
hoping for the right answers
to question those answers
serve only
to give birth
to more questions
confusion brings you back “Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the
to our dingy halls
Marcos Years” by Susan F. Quimpo,
to layers of musty screens
which Nathan Gilbert Quimpo and others:
though meant to divide us
This oral history retells how nine Quimpo
instead bring us closer
siblings did their part to further the resistance
bond us against martial law, leading to loss and betrayal
as brothers and sisters as the fight went on. By telling their family’s
of a distraught nation tale, the Quimpos also tell the story of the
we were born to serve Communist Party of the Philippines and the
inner conflicts that divided its own members
you ask us
Storm Generation” by Benjamin Pimentel,
don't you ever cry
the answer my brother Jr.:
is no
The Ateneo student council leader devoted
himself to the nascent student activist movement
for what right do we have
just in time to face off (at one point literally)
to shed tears
with Ferdinand Marcos. But Jopson was serious
over a few iron bars about his struggle, relocating with his cadre
while others have spilled their blood constantly to escape military pursuit. His later
for a sacred cause death at the hands of the military makes this
no brother story of heroism bright and sharp at the same
there is no reason to cry time, delivered with efficient and measured
for as long as prose by columnist Pimentel.
you search for the truth
“Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage: The
your thirst for knowledge
remains unquenched First Quarter Storm & Related Events” by
as long as you keep coming back
Jose F. Lacaba:
to take with you
the little that we have to offer This gripping, first-person account of the
then you are reason enough political awakening of the Filipino youth is
for making prison considered by most to be the definitive chronicle
worth its while of latent student and labor activism in the
Philippine setting. It is also the best place to
Books begin reading up about martial law as the wave
of protests, so poetically and powerfully
Tibak Rising: Activism in the Days of
reported by Lacaba, eventually runs into the
Martial Law” edited by Ferdinand C. stormy shoals of what would later become the
Marcos dictatorship.
Llanes :
“Killing Time in a Warm Place” by Jose Y.
The very origin of the word “tibak” (from the
word “aktibista”) says it all. The book is about a Dalisay, Jr.:
way of life that found its greatest purpose as
well as its more challenging incarnation during This textured, award-winning roman a clef is a
the dark period from 1972 to 1986. lovely fictionalization of Dalisay’s own
experiences as a student activist and writer
during the martial law years. At the beginning,
Noel Ilustre Bulaong could be any of us, until his
quiet life in bucolic Kangleong,is both
transformed and shattered by the all-
encompassing presence of Ferdinand Marcos.
DEKADA ’70 by Lualhati Bautista
It is a story of a family caught in the midst of a
tumultuous time in the Philippine history –the
martial law years
Themes:
dragnet cast by the Marcos intelligence and
police apparatus, followed by militant activists,
including academics who were also noted for
their critical literary writings.
 Circumvention Literature
Circumvention Literature- It was in the
precious little space afforded, wittingly or
unwittingly, by certain publications and
institutions sanctioned by the martial law
administration, that the socalled 'literature
of circumvention' began to appear.

Themes/Forms of Literature During Martial

Law

 Protest Literature

Protest literature—at other times, in other

contexts, referred to as revolutionary literature,
literature of engagement, combat literature,
committed literature, literature of resistance,
proletarian literature, people's literature,
socially conscious literature, and perhaps a
Philippine contribution to the taxonomy, the
literature of circumvention (simply defined as
"a body of works that expressed social and
political protest in veiled terms")—has had a
long history in the

Philippines.

 Proletarian Literature

Proletarian Literature- the call to create

proletarian literature was too strong to ignore.
It was deemed unimaginable, for the
committed writer doing political work, to still
think of poetry as "beauty recollected in
tranquility".

 Prison Literature

Prison Literature- Not a few writers ended up

behind bars from day one of martial law.
Journalists and prominent political opposition
figures were the first to be ensnared in the