NATION MARKS 46TH ANNIVERSARY OF MARTIAL LAW

TODAY we commemorate an unforgettable chapter in Philippine history – the proclamation of Martial Law, officially dated Sept. 21, 1972.

President Ferdinand E. Marcos, through Proclamation 1081, placed the Philippines under Martial Law, which suspended civil rights and imposed military authority in the country on the pretext of the need to quell the rising wave of violence allegedly caused by communists.

Exercising absolute power over the military and the police, he tried to justify his so-called “constitutional authoritarianism” (idiom for dictatorship) by dangling such tags as “New Society” and “New Republic” to arise out of the proclamation.

If truth be told, however, Marcos himself was the “problem,” what with the deterioration of the political and economic conditions in the Philippines that compelled the discontented to take up arms to dislodge the regime. Opposition leaders were either jailed or silenced.

The conditions of those days seem to have resurfaced nowadays. The urban poor can no longer cope with rising prices of prime commodities, human rights violations and increasing lawlessness.

During the martial law years, the government imposed the celebration of “Thanksgiving Day” as a holiday every Sept. 21. Government employees all over Metro Manila were required to gather at Rizal Park to be “brainwashed.” In the early years of martial law, many people actually thought Marcos was a sincere reformist. Was the young Digong one of those who thought so? MOTORISTS negotiating the main road spanning Fort San Pedro, Iloilo City must be wondering why the national road along Camp Delgado often suffers from congestion because of double or even triple parking of vehicles.

This corner would like to briefly quote an exchange of letters between Police Senior Superintendent Martin Defensor and Regional Director Jim Sampulna of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). On Sept. 4, 2018 Defensor – at that time head of the Regional Headquarters Support Group (RHSG) of the Police Regional Office 6 – wrote a letter to Sampulna, which we are quoting in part:

“We request your office to help us in making the Police Regional Office 6 become a clean and presentable workplace. It is our hope that you would also lend us a hand in cleaning up the premises, particularly outside the PRO-6 wall, which is in front of your office, in as much as the said area is also being utilized as parking space of your personnel. Otherwise, if this place remains dirty, we will be obliged to build a barrier in this area so as to prohibit any vehicle to park thereat.”

On Sept. 13, DENR personnel saw a long line of straw lace connecting two trunks of trees on the road side fronting Camp Delgado, with a guard manning the area, obviously to prevent motorists from parking thereat. Incidentally, the DENR had been parking its vehicles in the barred roadside since 1987.

In response, Regional Director Sampulna wrote back, saying that while his office had been cleaning both sides of the street, “it could not be denied that organic debris coming from leaves of trees or garbage thrown by commuters are at times scattered.

“Moreover, since the road side is a public place, neither DENR nor PNP could enclose the space, as the lot owned by our agencies are only those within the confines of our properties identified by cadastral lot numbers defined by our existing fences. Thus we cannot prevent other private vehicles from parking in said area.”

Ironically, the last time we took pictures, we saw two lines of police vehicles parking side by side on the road in front of the DENR office, obstructing the flow of vehicular traffic. May we address this problem to the new RHSG chief? A FEW ISSUES ago, this corner commented about a wonder boy from Miag-ao, Iloilo, Leopoldo “Ajin” Moragas II, who is now on Grade 11 at Tyee High School in Seattle, Washington. He is the only son of Leopoldo “Doods” Moragas and the former Haydee Gequinto.

The 15-year-old boy is now also into Aerospace Engineering and has qualified for full scholarship at Rice University after finishing Grade 12. Congratulations! WE HAVE been receiving complaints about male students of Central Philippine University (CPU) drinking beer every late afternoon till night on the road leading to Gate 7. They allegedly whistle and shout unprintable words with sexual undertones at girl students passing by.

May we beg of CPU president Ted Robles to disallow stores thereat from serving beer and other alcoholic drinks?

PREZ DU30 obviously spoke non-sense when he blamed the collapse of a church – resulting in the death of more than a dozen people – to the priest of that church, saying, “

At a loss for convincing excuse, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque downplayed the illogical remark, Let’s not take his word always literally.”

“Ang tingin ko naman po, hindi naman po seryoso Roque only succeeded, alas, in highlighting the ignorance of his boss when he added that the collapsed structure does not belong to the Catholic Church but to the United Church of Christ of the Philippines. To that denomination, Roque belongs!

Therefore, instead of the priest, pastor Roque