September 21, 1972 is the date chosen by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos to officially put the Philippines under martial law. His obsession with numerology, particularly the number seven, made him choose a day that was divisible by the number, the 21st, even though it would take a couple of days before he would actually declare it on national television, at 7:15pm of September 23.
Because the document that bears the president’s signature declaring martial law is September 21, 1972, that is why Filipinos who do not want to forget the atrocities and abuses that followed, remember it today.
Aside from the date that was adjusted to fit the whim of the leader who became a dictator on that day, the premise for martial law was also based on false pretenses and information. Marcos cited the threat of a communist plot to overthrow the government, and even the ambush on his then defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile, was faked just to justify the declaration of martial law.
Interestingly, Enrile would be instrumental in the downfall and subsequent exile of Marcos Sr. and family in February of 1986, and would remain in Philippine politics until now, who despite his advanced age is the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel of sitting president Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son who completed a comeback for the family most associated with Martial Law and the EDSA Revolution in the 2022 elections.
Today, we should pause to remember what life was like for Filipinos during the martial law era, where there were 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 77 ‘disappeared’, and 70,000 incarcerations; from September 21, 1972 until its official end on January 17, 1981. As a side effect, and because of absolute power afforded to self-styled dictators, the plunder of the nation’s coffers would continue until the overthrow of Marcos Sr. in 1986.
The 1987 Constitution was instituted to safeguard our institutions from a repeat of Marcos’ Martial Law regime, and so far, it has been relatively effective in that regard. As long as Filipino remember why martial law is such a dark part of our history, we should continue to defend our country from similar threats now, and hopefully in the future.
As our country moves forward, let us not forget to regularly turn to those parts of our past that may be ugly, but serves as a grim reminder of what we can lose if we allow one person to wield too much power over this country, its institutions and its people.*
