Commemorating Martial Law: Media’s short memory of the period

THE CAMPAIGN to make Ferdinand Marcos Jr. president started early, using new platforms to paint a picture of his family’s regime and the period of Martial Law as a golden era in Philippine history. The tactic worked. His triumph in the polls has secured not just the highest office for the Marcos scion, but also the family’s greater capacity to control the historical narrative. 

President Marcos has not actively engaged in the spread of false propaganda about the period. But since his electoral win, September 21 as a date has been of little note in terms of commemorative rite and ritual – as the signing of Proclamation 1081 declared Martial Law. Since 2022, there has been no attempt on the part of any government agency, including the Commission on Human Rights, to recall the period as a passage which suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Nor was there any attempt to recount the detention and imprisonment of young and old activists, who died or were disappeared. 

Reports were limited to a listing of protest actions of groups which were set to recall Martial Law. But there was little information shared to help Filipinos come to terms with its meaning along with the return of the Marcos family to power.

CMFR’s review of the news during the Martial Law week in 2023 revealed the stark contrast from this year’s reportage on the anniversary. Reports last year sought out survivors of the period, recounting the sad and bitter experience of incarceration and loss of liberties. Coverage included interviews of students, who admitted that they knew little about what happened, and that they did not understand the issues about the Marcos family’s ill-gotten and unexplained wealth. Some reports provided background on the wealth of the family, discussing corruption that plunged the country into debt and poverty. 

All that background and context went missing in the coverage of the anniversary in 2024. 

Print’s thin coverage in 2024

A scan of the nine Manila-based broadsheets (Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin, Daily Tribune, Manila Standard, The Manila Times, BusinessMirror, BusinessWorld, Malaya) from September 16 to 23 this year showed up the lack of Martial Law related stories in the front pages. No photos were used, the captions of which could have encapsulated the significance of the date. 

On their print editions, Inquirer, Star and Tribune reported the September 21 protests in the capital and in other parts of the country. Both Inquirer and Star also featured activists and human rights advocates participating in the rallies, who all pointed out that human rights violations continue to the present—all of which were relegated to inside pages.

The online counterparts of Star, Times and Bulletin also limited their coverage to the protests, with particular focus on the clashes between police and protesters. 

Standard, BusinessMirror and BusinessWorld had no story at all that involved the date or experience of Martial Law, in print and online platforms. 

TV’s likewise focus on day’s events

The rote attention to the events of the day also characterized broadcast news. On September 17, 24 Oras reported the protest actions planned in Manila on the 21^st.

There were no special reports featured during the week, no interviews with individuals who could still recall the period as they had done in the past; or those who survived the punitive aspects of the regime and lived to tell the story.

CMFR notes that the Martial Law anniversary did not make it a top story in any of the three primetime newscasts TV Patrol, 24 Oras and Frontline Pilipinas. In reporting the day’s events, reports did draw out some leaders of the movement who echoed the same message carried by print reports: the continuing human rights violations committed by government agencies, highlighting the practice of red-tagging.

Some recollection of the past online 

It was online news outfits Rappler, Pinoy Weekly and AlterMidya which went beyond the rallies to feature more insightful articles. 

Rappler on September 21 published a story to remember Liliosa Hilao, a campus journalist who was the first recorded political prisoner to die in detention during Martial Law. Rappler said Hilao’s story “remains one of the most resounding calls to demand accountability for human rights violations and tyranny,” citing incidents of intimidation that campus journalists experience even today. 

Rappler also featured the story of Tess Tabada, professor at the Visayas State University in Leyte who in a roundtable discussion with students recalled the atrocities during Martial Law. Her students said this helped them understand the impact of the period on Filipinos that they never knew about. 

Citing data from academic and advocacy groups, Pinoy Weekly and AlterMidya reported current counts of enforced disappearances, political detainees, killings under the drug war and alleged violations of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Both accounts pointed to the need to remember Martial Law which legitimized these practices, as the military and police continue to normalize these mechanisms. 

Short memory

Media had exposed the failure of textbooks to educate students about Martial Law, leaving texts that quoted government propaganda. Ironically, media’s own short memory will add to the poor learning about what is relatively recent history. 

The election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. makes it even more urgent for the media, as well as other institutions, to uphold the correct interpretation of the period, beginning with significance of the dates which initiated the citizens’ loss of civil and political rights, the end of press freedom, making possible the unchecked use of state power against its citizens. 

Duterte’s autocracy and his open rejection of human rights went largely unquestioned during his term of office. It is not only the Marcoses who could be easily tempted to venture into a repeat of the past. 

All this should have made clear to editors and publishers that the annual exercise of recalling the meaning of September 21 has consequential purpose in instilling human rights as a core national value. 

Forgetfulness is a disservice not only to the public but to the practice of journalism itself. The first draft of history must do what it can to recount political passages that disrupted the course of Philippine political development. At this point, we have yet to come to terms with how much we had lost in the period when a dictator took power for himself with the military to implement his will. It is too early to let go of the lessons of Martial Law and to regard these as irrelevant to the present.