52 years ago, in 1972, the Philippines was placed under Martial Law by then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., purportedly to save the country from communism but everyone knew it was primarily to perpetuate himself in power. It was euphemistically called Bagong Lipunan or New Society.
That period of Military One-Man Rule in the Philippines lasted for almost 20 years and claimed around 10,000 victims of various state sanctioned abuses, including torture, summary killings and 1,034 reported cases of enforced disappearances, for which no perpetrators were ever indicted or took responsibility as far as we know.
A whole generation of bright young Filipino leaders was decimated and left a vacuum whose effects are unfortunately making its insidious impact on our political life even now.
One of the victims was my brother, a monk in the Order of St. Benedict. His name is Dom Carlos Tayag, and friends used to call him Caloy or Choy. Feeling constrained inside a monastery and inspired by the Theology of Liberation espoused by Dom Helder Camara of Brazil, my brother Caloy decided to serve the underprivileged outside the Abbey hoping to change the social system that perpetuated poverty and injustice. So, he went on an indefinite sabbatical leave to serve as a social worker among Christian youth. You could say he was a moderate reformist idealist activist.
But Marcos’ Martial Law did not discriminate. If you were against the government, you were automatically a communist and must be arrested or eliminated without the benefit of a trial. Many moderates were forced to wield the gun. My brother Caloy as a monk chose the way of non-violence but prudently went underground.
On the run, he never chose to stay in one place long, usually inside friendly convents or seminaries. Our family saw him from time to time but very briefly.
On the 17th day of August 1976, just before what would have been his 34th birthday, we got word that he was “snatched” by military agents in civilian clothes. That was the last glimpse anyone had of him.
My mother knocked on the gates of all military camps and got nowhere. She was rebuffed again and again.
Sometime in 1984, my nephew met someone who knew Caloy. This is what he wrote in his blog about that chance meeting, and I quote:
“One of Tito Caloy’s older comrades once stayed at our Lola’s home …and told me how Tito Caloy could have died. He said that he was also detained together with Tito Caloy and Fr. Puri in Nueva Ecija, but all were kept in different rooms in isolation. He said he heard Tito Caloy controlling his screams as he was being beaten all over his body. The instrument that the military torturers used sounded like a thick four- cornered wooden stick. He said that the beatings and screams lasted around 20 minutes. Then all became silent.”
I cannot think of my brother Caloy without thinking of my mother, Irinea Tayag. My mother could not at first understand and grasp Caloy’s act of deferring his ordination as a priest. She had wanted him to be a priest.
But with my brother Caloy’s sudden disappearance, a great transformation happened. As she and other mothers of victims of involuntary disappearance bonded together, they gradually were “radicalized”. My mother eventually caught on to what my brother Caloy believed in, that the church had to be in the midst of poverty, oppression and injustice. Being with the suffering people became her form of prayer. We learned later on that she joined marches and rallies during the twilight years of the Marcos dictatorship, commuting from Pampanga to Manila. She was in a sense picking up the banner, determined to continue what Cong Caloy had started.
Together with other mothers of missing activists, she helped organized the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) that would help make the Spanish word “desaparecido” part of the Filipino language.
This was how Martial Law transformed my mother. Indeed, as someone once observed, life is a process of continual transformation and expansion of boundaries.
After more than 50 years, the decimation of the thousands of bright young Filipinos is to me a national tragedy; we lost so many potential transformational leaders in one fell swoop. Edgar Jopson (Sampaloc, Manila). Hermon Lagman (Tabaco, Albay), Eman Lacaba (Cagayan de Oro City). Lorena Barros (Baguio City). Just to name a few of the best and the brightest. Their names are all there etched in the Bantayog ng Mga Bayani in Quezon City.
What if by a miracle or a quirk in our cosmic space-time continuum all of them were to suddenly appear in our present day. How would they react?
They would be shocked to learn that the current president is again Ferdinand Marcos with Jr attached to it. They certainly would be dismayed to see Imelda still in Malacañang, Juan Ponce Enrile still alive and in government, Marcoses in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Instead of Bagong Lipunan we now have Bagong Pilipino.
As the French would say “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Indeed, there seems is no escape from the past or we say “same old, same old.” That’s because we have not been told the truth of what really happened. No acknowledgement. No accountability. No remorse.
Justice has remained elusive for the families of the disappeared despite the enactment of the Anti-Enforced Disappearance Act of 2012.
The ironic twist is that the present version of President Marcos is now talking of human rights.
His administration has even now appropriated the issue of human rights with the formation of a super human rights body.
He’s not walking the talk. Records show that enforced disappearance cases are still happening in this administration 37 reported cases of March 2024. Drug related killings never stopped. The red tagging of political dissenters continues. The door of the administration remains shut to the International Criminal Court. But this human rights super body is all smoke and mirrors. We are being deceived and we must not fall for it.
In conclusion, let me share with you a rather simple question which keeps buzzing in my mind like a pesky mosquito:
“Is the society in which we live the only one available to us? And why should it be the only choice?”
I have faith that the next generation will build a new world where enforced disappearance and torture of individuals by agents of the state will finally become a thing of the past.
The header collage features photos of, from left to right, Edgar Jopson (Sampaloc, Manila). Hermon Lagman (Tabaco, Albay), Eman Lacaba (Cagayan de Oro City). Lorena Barros (Baguio City). Credit: Bantayog ng mga Bayani.
About the author
NICK TAYAG is a multi-media writer and communications specialist. His special focus is scriptwriting for audio visual presentations and documentary videos, creative conceptualization and writing think pieces. Now in his early 70s, he is the Creative Consultant of a digital production and event management outfit. He also writes a regular column for the Business Mirror called “My Sixty Zen’s Worth” which comes out every Saturday. His most recent script for a bio documentary on Filipino master filmmaker Gerardo “Manong” de Leon entitled “Salamat sa Alaala,” was nominated for best documentary in the 2016 URIAN awards. As an advertising copywriter in the 1990s, he won recognition from the Creative Guild of the Philippines and the Public Relations Society of the Philippines for ads he wrote for corporate clients. He also won a UNICEF-PPI Award for Outstanding Story On Children. He is presently working on a book on creative conceptualization as well as inspirational booklets.