21/09/2025
๐๐ก ๐ฃ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฆ | Today, 21 September 2025, communities across Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, and Catanduanes, together with countless others across the nation, flooded the streets calling out corruption, exposing all the anomalies, and demanded justice. Separate in place but united in outrage.
This day marked the 53 years since the Proclamation No. 1081 was signed. With it came Martial Law, flooding the Philippines with fear and forcing people into silence. The truth was buried, and the cries of the tortured were muffled under water. But Martial Law was not only about controlling people, it was also about controlling funds. The Marcos family enriched themselves by siphoning the nation's funds, all while ordinary Filipinos suffered.
Half a century later, the same patterns mirror under Marcos Jr. The nation sinks deeper into trillions of debt. Flood control projects are paid for at staggering costs, yet what weโre left with is substandard work, unfinished projects, or nothing at all. Billions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds vanish without accountability, while classrooms overflow, hospitals run short of doctors and nurses, and farmers are left to toil in neglect.
In Albay, people began their day at the Redemptorist Church for mass before walking together to Pinaglabanan Grounds, carrying within them the same fire Mayon keeps inside. In Camarines Norte people gathered at the Bantayog ni Rizal in Daet, where the waves rose and broke with the peopleโs cries. In Camarines Sur, Plaza Rizal in Naga City was filled with the same spirit that drives Peรฑafrancia crowds through rain, shine, and exhaustion.
The protest began with messages of solidarity. Farmers, journalists, students, teachers, women, and young people all spoke up. Each voice carrying its own story and its own struggle. Yet, despite their differences, every finger seemed to point to the same source of their struggles.
By the end, the streets had turned into a living canvas. Drag performances, paintings, literature, and music took center stage. An attendee in Naga City said โAs artists, itโs imperative to create art that echoes the reality of what is happening in the world.โ They added, โArt is always in context. Art is always political. And art is always powerful.โ
If cries were once forced under water, they now crash like waves against the shore. They echo in every drumbeat, shouted in the streets, sung, or painted. The voices Martial Law tried to bury are alive in the people who refuse to stay silent today. If silence allowed the horrors of the past take root, then noise, loud, relentless, and unignorable, will be the weapon that keeps history from repeating itself. | via Hector Bulalacao/ThePILLARS.
