Philippine Dictatorship Victims to Be Compensated
Filipino poet Bonifacio Ilagan, one of hundreds of activists
imprisoned during the Martial Law period which was declared
by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, poses by the granite
wall which is engraved with the names of Martial Law victims,
including his sister Rizalina Ilagan, at the Heroes Shrine at
suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines
Monday Jan. 28, 2013. More than 9,000 victims will be
awarded compensation using $246 million that the Philippine
government recovered from Marcos' ill-gotten wealth. But all
claims will still have to evaluated by an independent
commission and the amount each will receive will depend of
the abuse suffered. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
By Teresa Cerojano Associated Press
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
(Published in print: Tuesday, January 29, 2013)
Manila, Philippines — Almost four decades after he was
arrested and tortured and his sister disappeared into a maze
of Philippine police cells and military houses, playwright
Bonifacio Ilagan is finally seeing his suffering officially
recognized.
A writer for an underground communist newspaper, Ilagan and
thousands like him were rounded up by dictator Ferdinand
Marcos’ security forces after he placed the Philippines under
martial law in 1972. Detentions, beatings, harassment and
killings of the regime’s opponents continued until Marcos was
toppled in 1986.
Even though democracy was restored, it would take another
27 years for the Philippine Congress to vote on a bill
awarding compensation and recognition to martial law
victims. The bill was ratified yesterday and will be sent to
Pres. Benigno Aquino III for signing into law, said Sen.
Francis Escudero, a key proponent.
“More than the monetary compensation, the bill represents the
only formal, written document that martial law violated the
human rights of Filipinos and that there were courageous
people who fought the dictatorship,” said a statement from
SELDA, an organization of former political prisoners that
campaigned for the passage of the bill.
Ilagan’s story is more of a rule than exception among leftist
activists of his generation.
“The torture started in the house. We were beaten up, punched
and kicked,” he said, recalling a police raid on his residence
in April 1974 and the beginning of his two-year detention
ordeal. He said he vomited blood after being kicked in the
thighs and had the soles of his foot burned by an iron.
Ilagan said that interrogators wanted him to decode
documents and identify people in pictures that were seized
from suspected communist activists.
“Compared to others, mine was not the worst torture,” he said.
“The others were electrocuted and injected with truth
serum. ... But the threats continued.”
Ilagan’s sister, Rizalina, disappeared in 1976 along with nine
other activists, many of them students involved in anti-
Marcos publications, he said. One of the women arrested by
the same government unit that he suspected was involved in
his sister’s abduction had escaped to recount her rape and
torture. Ilagan said he has no doubt that his sister went
through the same abuses.
His parents died still hoping his sister would turn up alive,
but the family has found no closure, Ilagan said.
Lawmakers in two chambers of the Congress agreed last week
on the text of the compensation bill.
Aquino is the son of an assassinated anti-Marcos activist and
a mother who led the 1986 “people power” revolt that ousted
Marcos and sent him into U.S. exile, where he died three
years later without ever facing prosecution for human rights
abuses.
Many of Marcos’ men reinvented themselves as powerful
politicians or businessmen, and not one was successfully
prosecuted for any of the crimes allegedly committed during
the martial law years.
Two martial law figures, former Defense Secretary Juan Ponce
Enrile and the deputy military chief of staff, Fidel Ramos, led
a mutiny against Marcos as part of the 1986 revolt. Ramos
later served as president from 1992 to 1998, and Enrile is
currently the president of the Senate.
Despite cases filed by former political prisoners, “there have
been no convictions of perpetrators,” Marie Hilao-Enriquez,
chairwoman of SELDA, said yesterday.
The Marcos family, meanwhile, returned from exile in 1990s
and again wields influence. Former first lady Imelda Marcos is
a lawmaker, son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcosis is a senator,
and daughter Imee is a provincial governor.
“Governments after Marcos did not move or did not do
anything to go after Marcos seriously, so we filed a case in
Hawaii,” Hilao-Enriquez said.
In 1992, victims won a class action suit against the Marcos
estate in Hawaii.
Under the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition
Act of 2013, the 9,539 victims will be awarded compensation
using $246 million that the Philippine government recovered
from Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth. But all claims will have to
evaluated by an independent commission and the amount
each will receive will depend of the abuse suffered.
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