Thoughts on Sept. 21 and Sept. 11

By CHITO DELA TORRE, delatorrechito@yahoo.com
September 22, 2011

September 21 and September 11 have two commonalities: one, an event remembered yearly, and two, they struck uncertainty.

September 21 was yesterday, but it wasn’t about any of the big events that took place yesterday.  It continues to be remembered by Filipinos as the day when martial law in the Philippines was declared in 1972 by then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos.  September 11 was more recent, and became more popularly referred to as the 9/11 attacks, on the United States of America.

In both, nobody was immediately certain why either of the events was happening and what would happen next.  Many hours afterwards, thoughts brewed up terrorism as behind each event, but even that thought was not intelligently acceptable.  Questions pummeled panic.

What I still couldn’t find answer to is how yesterday in 1972 constables and soldiers suddenly appeared in the streets shortly after martial law was proclaimed (in a document which was known as Proclamation1081)?  Did all the military commanders, up to the smallest unit, possess a communications unit such as our present cellular phone, which the chief of the armed forces had access to tell them all what to do with the civilian populations all over the Philippine archipelago?

Marcos’ command to the military was: “President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested upon me by Article VII, Section 10, Paragraph ('2) of the Constitution, do hereby place the entire Philippines as defined in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution under martial law and, in my capacity as their commander-in-chief, do hereby command the armed forces of the Philippines, to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well as any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by me personally or upon my direction.

“In addition, I do hereby order that all persons presently detained, as well as all others who may hereafter be similarly detained for the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, and all other crimes and offenses committed in furtherance or on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto, or in connection therewith, for crimes against national security and the law of nations, crimes against public order, crimes involving usurpation of authority, rank, title and improper use of names, uniforms and insignia, crimes committed by public officers, and for such other crimes as will be enumerated in Orders that I shall subsequently promulgate, as well as crimes as a consequence of any violation of any decree, order or regulation promulgated by me personally or promulgated upon my direction shall be kept under detention until otherwise ordered released by me or by my duly designated representative.”

Proclamation 1081 summed up the justifications for martial law, thus: “the rebellion and armed action undertaken by these lawless elements of the communist and other armed aggrupations organized to overthrow the Republic of the Philippines by armed violence and force have assumed the magnitude of an actual state of war against our people and the Republic of the Philippines”.

Martial rule dominated for 8 years, 3 months and 26 days (not 27 days, as others thought!).  The Catholic Church seat at Vatican city-state had a word to its final repose.  Pope John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła, a Slavic or Polish pope who lived from May 18, 1920 to April 2, 2005: he died at age 84) wished to visit the Philippines only if and when martial law no longer reigned.  Thus, on January 17, 1981, Marcos signed Proclamation 2045 effectively ending martial law.  [The pope had been on a Pastoral Visit in Pakistan, Philippines, Guam (USA), Japan and Anchorage (USA) during the period of from February 16 to 27 in 1981 in what was dubbed as his Apostolic Voyage 9.  He returned to the Philippines in 1995 to personally attend the 10th World Youth Day in Manila where, on Jan. 15, he officiated the holy mass at Rizal Park before 5 million crowd.]

For years, September 11 also became an event to many Filipinos. For the Marcos family, it was an exciting day.  On September 11, 1917, Ferdinand Marcos was born in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte as the first son and first child of lawyer-assemblyman Mariano Marcos and marm Josefa Quetulio Edralin.  [He was baptized as a follower of the Aglipayan church by no less than the founder this religious group (the first Filipino independent Catholic church), Gregorio Labayan Aglipay of Batac, Ilocos Norte.  He died on September 28, 1989 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.  (Sidebar: Aglipay, ordained priest by the Roman Catholic Church in 1898, was excommunicated by the Vatican and the Catholic Church in 1899 after he incited the clergy to rebel against the Church authorities.  On August 3, 1902, he founded the Iglesia Filipina Independiente in which he was named as its first supreme bishop. His Iglesia had its constitution approved on October 1, 1902, and on October 27, 1902, he celebrated his first mass.)]   September 11 also became the Alay Lakad day for the youths [to Warays, Baktas para ha Kabataan o Baktas Kabataan], as directed by Marcos.