21/09/2025
More than 3,200 killed, 35,000 tortured, 70,000 imprisoned, and 737 disappeared—these are the human costs of Martial Law declared by Ferdinand Marcos on September 21, 1972.
What Marcos justified as a shield against communists and rebels was, in truth, a weapon for consolidating power.
The Philippines was thrust into a 14-year dictatorship where Congress was dissolved, media outlets silenced, opposition leaders arrested, and citizens lived under the shadow of fear.
Amnesty International describes the era as a systematic assault on human rights—electric shocks, waterboarding, psychological torment, and extrajudicial executions became instruments of control.
However, the violence was only one aspect of the dictatorship. Parallel to the brutality ran rampant corruption. The Marcos family and their cronies siphoned billions through rigged contracts, monopolies, and plunder disguised as development.
The infamous Coconut Levy Fund, stolen from poor farmers, was funneled into private corporations. While ordinary Filipinos endured poverty, the ruling elite enriched themselves, leaving the nation burdened with debt that future generations would carry.
Yet, five decades later, the ghosts of Martial Law are not confined to the past. They haunt the Philippines today in forms that are all too familiar: unchecked corruption, weaponized disinformation, and the slow erosion of accountability.
Billions in government funds continue to vanish into opaque contracts and “confidential” allocations. Political dynasties, some of them direct beneficiaries of the Marcos dictatorship, still sit in the highest offices of the land. Historical revisionism flourishes on social media, where Martial Law is whitewashed as a “golden age,” and the cries of the tortured and disappeared are drowned out by algorithm-fed lies.
The failure to secure full justice after 1986 created fertile ground for this return. Amnesty International stresses that justice remains elusive, with only a fraction of Martial Law victims having been compensated, while those most responsible for state-sanctioned crimes evade real accountability.
Without truth-telling mechanisms and comprehensive reparations, the abuses of yesterday blend dangerously into the governance of today.
The lesson of Martial Law is not just one of the past; it is a warning to the present. When corruption is tolerated, when institutions bow to personalities instead of principles, when leaders prioritize power over people, authoritarianism is never far behind. The silence of those who look away allows impunity to thrive, just as it did under Marcos.
Today’s Philippines faces the same crossroads it did 53 years ago: will it allow corruption and abuse to define governance, or will it demand accountability, transparency, and respect for human rights?
To forget Martial Law is to invite its return, not in the same form, perhaps, but in the same spirit of impunity and greed.
The survivors of that brutal era still cry for truth. Their voices remind us that democracy is not self-sustaining; it must be defended, every generation, against those who would steal it for their own gain.
Layout & Design by Echo Ramonal
