21/09/2026
๐ข๐ฃ๐๐ก๐๐ข๐ก | ๐ง๐ต๐ฎ๐โ๐ ๐ข๐ป๐ฒ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ ๐ง๐ผ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐
โOkay ra man ang Martial Law sa amo. Wala ra may nahitaboโ
Itโs a sentence often spoken with the certainty of someone remembering a quiet home: streets that felt orderly, parents who came home safely โ a family that managed to live through those years without being arrested, beaten, kidnapped, or silenced.
And perhaps, for some families, that really was their experience. Yet that is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. Considering that the absence of suffering in one household does not prove the absence of suffering elsewhere.
For others, Martial Law was remembered through arrests, torture, disappearances, and the silencing of journalists and critics. Amnesty International documented widespread human rights violations during Martial Law, including arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and killings.
These atrocities do not disappear simply because someone else did not witness them. This is why understanding historical nuance is important: we are not all witnesses to the same things.
Remembering requires more than asking โWhat happened to me?โ It asks us to listen to what happened to others, too. Because the purpose of remembering is to place these perspectives beside each other and see the fuller picture they create.
And when we finally see that picture, we must ask ourselves what it demands of us today. What rights did people have to fight to reclaim? What freedoms became fragile when power went unchecked? And what must we do to ensure that the voices once silenced are not silenced again?
If history teaches us anything, it is that the things we barely notice when we have them can become the things we desperately wish we had protected when they are gone.
So when someone says that โNothing happened to us,โ perhaps the answer is not to tell them that their memory is false, but rather, simply remind them that it's only one way to remember it.
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ โ ๐๐ก๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฒ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐
๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ง๐๐ฅ
โ๏ธ: Den Vincent Puso
๐ป: Jamie Berdin
๐ผ๏ธ: Alleah Gweneth Josol
