MikeLigalig.com

(philstar.com) | Updated January 29, 2013 - 10:07am



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.AP/Bullit Marquez


MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Almost four decades after he was arrested and tortured and his sister disappeared into a maze of 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 Monday 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.



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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 Monday.

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.

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and now for the nitty-gritty... who are/were the victims?  lisod man gani pag-determine kinsay veterans who served in the u.s. army during world war 2 (they need papers to determine that), unsa na kaha ni?  would papers be needed? 

what about those who were summarily executed?  wa tawon silay papers to ascertain if they had really died.  and would jose maria sison be considered a victim?  he became a pariah because of his ideology.  and martial law did him in, too.

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