When they deny the truth and distort history, even a solemn remembering becomes a brave act of resistance.
Friday of September 23, 2022, the Youth Alliance of Human Rights (YAHRA) commemorated the 50th anniversary of the imposition of Martial Law by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Together with El Consejo Atenista (ECA) and supported by both the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Region IX and the SACSI Office, the Ateneo community was invited to wear black and come in the spirit of mourning. At 3 PM, students and staff came to witness a remarkable commemoration of the 50th Martial Law in front of the Sauras Hall.
It was more of an interment than an anniversary, really. Students and staff were there to witness volunteers grieve about a wound that refuses to heal. Under this regime of historical denialism, the wound only turned fatal. It became deadly.
That realization is no new insight. The black-red tarpaulin hanging above the crowd’s heads had its message printed out – “We remember the 11 who stood for the Light.” – 11 Ateneans who fought and died for their freedom chained by oppression.
Do we really? Despite the names of these individuals engraved into our skin, would that amount to ‘resistance’? To resilience? How many candles does it take to give us this light they stood for?
The hard fact is, there were more onlookers than there were grievers. They were careful to be quiet, averting their gaze from martyr faces that stare back. They tip-toe around the sullen black crowd.
On that day, a fellow student – someone who was recently freed from an event, took one glance at the volunteers ripping their throats out in pain and groaned.
“Masyadong maingay,” he spoke, out-of-cheek. “Tapos na ang election.”
Is that it? 50 years of documenting and compiling evidence about the atrocities of Marcos’ Martial Law, and all amounted to a shrug, a loud cry of “Tapos na ang election.”
True ‘remembering’ is no mere act of grieving. It is not memorizing the lists of atrocities and repeating them to onlookers. It is that fire, that brimstone, that rage to act; to do something and combat the underlying issues emerging. TO RESIST.
On this 50th anniversary of Marcos’ gross attempt to hold onto power, we do not stop at remembering what our grandparents experienced. We witness, we write, and we speak, but it never ends there.
To resist the distortion of the past, we have to fight to remember. To resist the destruction of the present, we need to remember to fight. Not only for those who perished, but also for those who are still choosing to live in this country we once called home.
