This day should be remembered as National Heroes Day, when the entire Filipino people should pay homage to those who sacrificed their lives to win emancipation from colonial masters and battle the scourge of imperialism till this very day as well as the martyrs who fought against the Marcos Sr. dictatorship and the bloody authoritarianism of Rodrigo Duterte Sr.
This day should likewise be regarded as the day when the Filipino people start weaning themselves away from the scam foisted by Team Unity of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, who continues to delude herself, and fool glassy-eyed Duterte cultists that she is entitled to share power with Marcos Jr. The people should not fall for the fractured logic of Duterte Sr. and Jr. Nothing in the Constitution allows Sara to exercise anything except her amateurish drama and lost cause. Pushing their luck too far is a vice that afflicts the Dutertes, who failed to snatch a sliver of intelligence that God, in His infinite mercy, bestowed upon the Filipino people.
Yet, the trolls and crones are at it again, their jukebox defense of Sara as “folk hero” or “heroine” falling flat as a tire needing some vulcanizing courtesy of Malou Tiquia and other former Marcos shills who have found a profitable gig with the Dutertes, well known to be backed by Southern Chinese crime rings as well as the Chinese Embassy. “Sa kanila Duterte, walang masamang tinapay. Parang imbudo rin iyan, hindi napupuno,” quipped a Davao City critic. Duterte Sr., in fact, should be incarcerated in The Hague prison to answer for crimes against humanity. Justice should be rendered to the survivors of the 30,000 victims of the “war on drugs” as well as the “war against the people” that Duterte Sr. launched in 2018.
Both Executive Order No. 70 and Memorandum Circular No. 18 that Duterte Sr. issued in 2018 led to bloody military-police operations that killed hundreds of unarmed people in Bicol, Negros Island, Leyte-Samar and a number of other provinces where Duterte Sr. wanted to show that he was winning the war against the New People’s Army (NPA.) He wasn’t and the logs at Camps Aguinaldo and Crame show that the armed struggle continues even as the military and policy talk about glowing reports about their “successes.”
Nov. 30 should allow us to pause and remember those who fell in the darkness of martial law’s noon. The budding journalist Jack Pena, killed summarily in Isabela for his Ilonggo accent that was supposed to be proof of his being a guerrilla, the very young Nik Lansang, gunned down in Quezon, Tony Hil, Tony Tagamolila and Babes Calixto, who were thrown into the grave and buried alive, Lt. Crispin Tagamolila, Tony’s brother, whose body was burned by soldiers, the women’s icon Lorena Barros, an anthropologist mowed down in Quezon.
Then there’s Butch Landrito, whose body was mutilated in Zambales, Mer Arce, killed in Cebu, Tanggol Roque, who was martyred in Davao City, Edgar Jopson, shot mercilessly, and guerrilla fighters Fortunato Camus, a former law student, Nona del Rosario and husband, and many more. Of recent vintage are the murders perpetrated under the Duterte Sr. regime, like the killing of NPA leader Jorge Madlos, who was cut down along with a companion as he was to visit a doctor, the abduction of Ariel Badiang, who had been involved in the peace talks in 1986. Leo Velasco, a former medical student, was snatched in 2007 and never seen again.
Truly, resplendent and fragrant flowers bloom in their graves like flowers in Italian mountains bloomed where Partisans were buried and the tombs of French fighters never lost visitors. They all continue to live in the hearts of many, like the renowned French mime Marcel Marceau, who fought relentlessly as a Partisan against the Vichy French regime and the Nazi occupiers. The Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City has become the hub for celebrating the martyrdom and selflessness of those who fought and died against the Marcos dictatorship and the bloody Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime, which became notorious for abductions and murders.
We also remember with fondness and righteous rage such outstanding labor leaders as Lando Olalia, snatched along with his driver Leonor Alay-ay, killed reportedly by a rightist death squad who stuffed underwear into his cranial cavity, and Jude Fernandez. Dr. Johnny Escandor suffered the same fate as Olalia, with another death squad responsible for his execution and the mutilation of his remains. The rules of war and the international covenants on the treatment of civilians and combatants do not apply to the mad dogs of martial law and the continuing authoritarianism that masquerades as democracy.
