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Ma. Socorro’s quiet demeanor belied steely nerves that helped her through the rocky path to which she committed her life. Described by family and friends as good, diligent and patient, Socorro, Soc, as she was fondly called, was the youngest of thirteen children. She may have been pampered but she did her chores dutifully and helped keep the house spotlessly clean. She was born and spent her childhood years in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat, her mother Herminia’s hometown. Her father, Claro Par, was originally from Marinduque.

The Par family moved to Digos, Davao del Sur, when Socorro was in her early teens. She was in third year high school when she became aware of the problems besetting the country, particularly of the exploitation experienced by peasants. Already an active member of the Student Catholic Action, and in the wake of Vatican II, Socorro responded further to the call of the times by joining Khi Rho, a youth group closely allied with the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF). The FFF was a socio-political movement that strongly advocated agrarian reforms. Khi Rho members helped document land-grabbing and other cases suffered by FFF members.They also campaigned for FFF leaders who ran for elective office in 1971.

The First Quarter Storm was then raging in Manila and it was the same scenario in Davao. Students took to the streets to demand for social justice and changes in a profligate government. Now in college and studying towards a degree in Economics, Socorro was an active participant in discussion groups and mass actions. When martial law was declared, like most student activists then, Socorro fled to the countryside.

Socorro joined the underground resistance that was newly taking shape in Mindanao. She worked to help the people in the countryside struggle against the manipulation and corruption heaped by abusive officials. While there, she got married to a fellow Khi Rho member, Emerito Rodriguez, with whom she had a son. Rodriguez was killed in early 1975 in Davao del Norte, making Socorro a young widow.

Socorro was arrested in November 1976 in Nabunturan, Davao del Norte. She was then in a house with a group of resistance fighters when they were surrounded by military soldiers. In a bid to escape, she tried to submerge herself in a mudpool but was soon spotted. Accused of subversion, illegal possession of firearms and inciting to rebellion, she was detained at the Philippine Constabulary (PC) barracks in Tagum.

Released shortly after, Socorro enrolled at the Ateneo de Davao. A consistent honor student, she juggled studies and campus activism in this period which political analysts in Mindanao call Second Reform Movement. At the Ateneo, students successfully demanded for the return of the school paper, the Atenews, and of the student council.

Socorro’s efforts were crucial in propelling this resurging opposition to martial law. In the book Subversive Lives, a Family’s Memoir of the Marcos Years, Nathan Quimpo described how Socorro was part of a group that set up the Council for Student Evangelization (CSE) in 1978. The CSE trained promising student leaders from three different universities in Davao. In one seminar held in Matina, participants discussed and critically analysed the national political and economic situations as well as of particular sectors of society- labor, urban poor, and youth.

Socorro also became provincial coordinator of the Student Christian Movement (SCM), and later assisted in the formation of the Kabataan alang sa Demokrasaya ug Nasyonalismo (KADENA), organizations critical of the dictatorship. She helped plan inter-school and multi-sectoral activities that made the people aware of the evils of martial law. Despite being older than most of the people she associated with, Socorro was never brash, but was friendly with them and quietly guided the younger activists“like a mother hen.”

As protest against the dictatorship grew, the state responded with even more repression. Human rights abuses were rampant. Eschewing a comfortable life, Socorro devoted her time organizing people in the urban centers after her graduation in 1979. She firmly plodded on with her commitment to work for the people’s freedom and a just society despite the obstacles she encountered: receiving a bad injury when a grenade near her exploded and a second arrest and two-week detention in 1982. There were certain joys as well: she got married a second time to Lucio Borlaza and gave birth to a daughter. She took a 90-day maternity leave to breastfeed her baby girl.

On April 23, 1985, Socorro had just returned from visiting her daughter in Davao when the hut her group was staying in, in Jasaan, Misamis Oriental, was raided by a composite team of twenty members of the PC and Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU). Socorro and another companion were killed, another woman was arrested, but her husband and another one managed to escape. The dead were brought by a kanga (carabao cart) to the municipal hall, ridiculed as common criminals, and buried in shallow graves in the municipal cemetery.

Socorro’s parents were able to retrieve her remains three days later, finding in it a shattered elbow and a bullet hole in the forehead. In the grave they also found her things: her bag, malong, pictures and bracelets. They brought her back to Davao and gave her a decent burial on April 30.

All these years after her death, Socorro’s friends remember her well. As they look back, they remember the conviction and courage she showed as she tried to achieve her dream of a just society. “Her life and martyrdom continue to inspire and haunt me,” Jeannete Birondo-Goddard mused. A former classmate and thesis partner believes that if Socorro was around today, she would “surely make a big difference in our corrupted society.” He wants to remember her “as a person and not just a footnote in the struggle against injustice.”

The Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA) posthumously awarded Socorro Par the Gawad ni Lorena in November, 1991.

The parents of Ester originated from Maribojoc, Bohol province but migrated to Mindanao after World War II (late 40s) where her civil engineer father managed road projects (from Davao, Agusan, Zamboanga, Iligan and Cagayan de Oro) and her mother taught in the public schools there. The family settled in Iligan City in the early 1960s.

“Teray” as Ester was fondly called by family, colleagues and friends, was the third of 10 children brought up in a low middle income family with a strong Catholic orientation and a tradition of academic excellence to achieve a profession for good employment or career opportunity.

Due to the nature of her father’s work, her elementary years were spent in a variety of public schools in Mindanao—from Zamboanga del Norte, Lanao del Norte to Iligan City. Her high school education was at the RVM-run St. Michael’s College in Iligan City, where she was active in the Legion of Mary. In her teens, she gave catechism lessons to children during summer in Maribojoc, Bohol, her parents’ home town.

While in college, she was editor-in-chief of the Varsitarian, the Mindanao State University students’ paper. She graduated cum laude with Bachelor of Arts in English from the Mindanao State University in Marawi City. She also received a journalism award upon graduation.

She was a faculty member of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology in Iligan City from 1971 to 1981 and was a full scholar MSU Faculty Development Program Grantee.

Before she took a leave of absence due to security pressures brought about by Martial Law policies, she was secretary of the School of Engineering Technology (MSU-IIT), Assistant Director of the Colombo-based Plan, and staff of the College Training Department of the School of Engineering Technology of the university.

Testimonies from family members and colleagues attest that she was always ready to help people in need, whether in the family or outside. She believed in freedom of expression and the rights of people and communities to determine their own social, political and national direction.

POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

In college, she got into contact with the emerging movement for revolutionary change. As her involvement and support deepened, she became active in arousing and raising the political consciousness of her students, friends and colleagues.

She was a faculty member of MSU-IIT for 10 years (1971-1981) before she took an indefinite leave of absence due to security pressures brought about by Martial Law.

This eventually led her to go full time and serve the people in the villages of southern Mindanao through social awareness raising and local publication that helped community organizers.

Joy Asuncion, who knew Ester from 1979 to 1982, and shared a house with her together with their spouses (she with Edgar Jopson and Ester with Romulo Kintanar) in Davao City, said in a testimony, ”I learned that she had to give up her teaching and administrative work in (MSU)…Iligan Institute of Technology (IIT) in Iligan City, Mindanao, after the military found out her involvement with the underground movement and started to do surveillance work on her family, home and school.  Then she had to move from Iligan to Davao City.”

Ester was a staff of Mindanaw, an underground protest publication, in mid 1982, and became its editor in 1983.

Her personal traits and her dedication both to her profession and to her way of fighting against dictatorship brought inspiration to her family and the professional community in Iligan and other parts of Mindanao.

In a tribute “Alay kay Teray” on November 20, 1984 held in Iligan City by the MSU- IIT Alumni and colleagues, it was acknowledged that “Teray” was a committed teacher and writer who devoted her life for the betterment of her country. “She stood for what she believed in,” a colleague said, adding that she epitomized a “committed woman and mother.” The same source shared that in some discussions, Ester emphasized that being a mother is “no obstacle in serving the country.”

“Even if she had a family of her own, she sacrificed personal comfort for a cause that she believed in which she viewed to benefit not only her children but the entire Filipino people,” another colleague underscored during the public tribute attended by friends, colleagues, administrators and comrades.

Despite her schedule, she found time to show her love for her kids in concrete ways, a comrade noted. For example she recorded what she learned in the countryside like a folklore, and shared these with her children. “She was a comforter, a friend and a morale booster,” he said, adding that she was such “a great loss” to the movement at a time when it was gathering momentum against dictatorship.

“She was simple and easy to be friend with.  We shared housekeeping work at the same time we were helping our husbands with technical, research and other tasks,” Asuncion observed, adding that “Teray” was “a very loving and caring wife to her husband Rolly and two children, Eric and Jay. She will always be remembered as a loving and dutiful wife, mother, friend, and comrade.”

An administrator at MSU-IIT noted that as a teacher, she was patient, did her

work with humor, and most of all, was untiring in serving others, in helping edit, as adviser to the school paper, doing consultation work, even after class hours.

In thanking those gathered in the tribute of 1984, her mother Victoria Sarmiento Resabal, who was then principal of an elementary school in Iligan City, urged that in remembering her

daughter, those gathered “can focus on her life of giving as a guide for those who still care and love freedom. Let us remember Ester by sharing what we have to the poor.”

CIRCUMSTANCES OF DEATH

 Ester’s effort at further raising the social awareness of allies and of serving the poor and disadvantaged in the countryside was cut short on November 21, 1983.

Along with 12 religious and other rural workers, she was on her way to attend a seminar and to purchase a printing machine in Cebu City—part of her work in raising social and political awareness in the villages—when she took the M/V Dona Cassandra on November 21, 1983.

A typhoon that brought big waves caused the boat to keel and eventually to sink, drowning 200 passengers in the waters between Nasipit, Butuan and Cebu City, including Ester and her companions. Survivors attested that they saw members of the group helping passengers put on their life vests.

Along with other companions, Ester’s body was not recovered.

“Her body was never found despite efforts by the authorities and her own family and comrades to search the area called the Mindanao Deep,” Asuncion said in her testimony.

IMPACT ON FAMILY AND COMMUNITY

 Coming from a low middle class family, more members were made aware of the importance of working for the people in any endeavor, whether as a professional, as a family person, or in an organization or out of an institution.

In a write up, Procopio Jr., her elder brother, said Ester inspired him to go into journalism focusing his writings on those who are seldom heard in our society, the poor, indigenous peoples, farmers, workers, students, teachers, fisher-folks, the urban poor, women and victims of human rights violations.

In a posthumous program, colleagues, friends, students, and relatives recalled Ester’s very jovial and giving ways, and her dedication to her work as a teacher both to students, and as an activist and mother.

Her colleagues, friends and fellow workers attested that despite her youth, she expressed courage and contributed much to the cause of freedom and national democratic movement at a time when doing so entailed a lot of dangers, and in Ester’s case, meant giving up a comfortable profession in an academic institution.

“Ciento” was how most of the classmates and friends of Cecilio Reyes called him. Siento, Spanish for one hundred, because he usually got top marks even if he only popped in class to take the exams. When Cecilio entered the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) in 1966, he was in the top twenty percent of the incoming batch of 150 scholars from all over the country. In college at UP, he studied under a scholarship grant from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which gave the scholarship to the top twenty-five examinees. After continuing his education at the University of Mindanao, he aced the test for 3^rd year Chemical Engineering students even though he was only in his second year of civil engineering studies. His teachers there also let him teach the class every now and then.

Cecilio Reyes was the second of the five children of Apolonio and Purita Reyes. Apolonio, a lawyer, was originally from Bulacan and worked as a labor arbiter in Manila while Purita was a public school teacher in Davao City, her hometown. At the age of twelve, Cecilio had to leave home to study at the prestigious PSHS which then had only one campus in faraway Quezon City. A whiz at most anything he did -- he also sang and played the guitar well - Cecilio, or Cil to friends, was kind and exuded a serious and scholarly mien, aided by the horn-rimmed glasses he wore. Although asthmatic, he was also “surprisingly athletic” recalls his high school friend, Reinaldo Guillermo. “I remember him as a good lefty player of all handball games, as well as an agile forward player in football and basketball.”

In the national scene, mounting dissent against Marcos’ policies was expressed in several rallies and demonstrations in the streets. Cecilio was in his 4^th year at PSHS (the school had a 5-year high school curriculum then) when he joined the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK). He found his niche with the Gintong Silahis, SDK’s cultural arm, and took part in many of GS’ stirring plays on the social realities, performing in protest actions, strike areas and other public places to inform the people about critical national issues. Along with the other SDK members, he went to the slum communities near the school to learn about their lives. He participated in the protest actions during the First Quarter Storm of 1970. He helped man the Diliman Commune barricades in early 1971 in support of student demands for reforms. Graduating on April 30 that same year, he was among the students who denounced a perceived government scheme imposed on them – an educational orientation that was grooming the scholars to be scientists and technocrats who will serve foreign and local big capitalists. In a move never before seen at the PSHS, the students sang nationalist songs, wore red armbands and tore up their token diplomas. Cecilio and his co-graduating science scholars raised their clenched fists, and vowed to dedicate their gift of intellect and special education to the interest of the vast majority of the Filipino masses.

The day after his graduation, Cecilio attended the violence-marred Labor Day rally in front of the old Congress building in Manila. Several were injured when government troops opened fire on the rallyists. One died on the spot– labor leader Liza Balando (Bantayog martyr).This was another harrowing experience that must have firmed up his resolve to oppose the emerging dictatorship, his friend recollected.

When martial law was declared, Cecilio, in first year college at UP and one of the prominent members of SDK, was among the many student activists arrested in the crackdown that ensued. He was detained at Camp Aguinaldo but was released after a week upon his father’s representations.

Undaunted, Cecilio quit school and joined the underground movement. Using his musical and theatrical skills, he organized a community-based cultural group that kept the spirit of dissent going in Ugong, Pasig, Rizal. But sometime in 1973, a domestic matter came up and he was forced to go back home to the province.

Restlessness and frustration over the new regime soon overcame Cecilio in Davao. His relatives tried to cheer him up by bringing him to different places. After a while, he decided to go back to school and enrolled at an engineering course at the University of Mindanao. He even got a job as a computer programmer at the Davao Light and Power Company, working in the mornings and attending his classes in the afternoons. Oftentimes he would bring home a small group of people with whom he would be engaged in earnest talk. Discussion group, he would tell his family, who, because of their joy at having him back in their midst, would not mind Cecilio’s friends hanging out at the house.

Cecilio kept a low-profile during those years but he was also widely-known to be an activist. In 1975, he came to be under surveillance. Coming home from work at noon, Cecilio spotted an unfamiliar car parked across their house. A man came and asked for him. While his sister was talking to the man, Cecilio snuck out the backdoor. That was the last time he was seen at home.

The Reyes household was soon subjected to a raid and various threats and harassments allegedly by hired goons looking for Cecilio. He managed to send them letters, from which they learned of his decision to deepen his involvement in the fight against the dictatorship. He had gone away to join the resistance movement in the countryside. But the letters soon stopped coming, and nobody came to inform them of what happened.

By summer of the following year, Cecilio Reyes was reportedly killed in a raid by military men somewhere in Davao del Norte, near the Agusan border. Very little information can be gathered now, but in a picture smuggled out by another activist shown to close college friends in Manila, Cecilio’s remains can be clearly seen, unceremoniously dumped in a municipal hall somewhere in Agusan del Sur. His remains cannot now be found.

The Reyes family’s anguish over Cecilio’s demise left a big void that has not been assuaged with time. While they and his friends rue the loss of this brilliant young man, somebody who could have climbed the ladders of any big corporation, they are consoled and uplifted by his selflessness. Life was hard in the places where he went but he carried on without complaint or regret. He forsook his own comfort, future, life itself, to serve the people. In the words of his girlfriend, Hermilina Palarca, “ipinakita ni Cecilio ang ugali ng isang bayani. Hindi inalintana ang hirap ng buhay sa lugar na kinilusan niya. Handang isakripisyo ang buhay.”

He is a model priest and a brother to me… his service to his people was crystal clear.

That is how Fr. Roberto Salac is remembered by his brother, Fr. Rodrigo Salac.

Fr. Roberto or Bert to friends was the third of five children in a family of farmers. His father died early, leaving his mother to take care of their children alone. They planted corn and other crops in their small parcel of land.

Roberto’s mother, who affectionately called him Udo, remembers him as the son who lovingly tells her “thank you very much” whenever she prepared food for him. Diligent and hardworking, Roberto was an honor student at the Queen of Apostles Seminary High School in Tagum City. He went to college at the Regional Major Seminary (REMASE) in Davao City and proceeded with his Theology studies there as well. He stayed in REMASE until his ordination in 1978.

While a student at REMASE, Roberto regularly went to the communities to do pastoral work, immersing with the poor. In these communities, he and his fellow students would witness many instances of injustice. Thousands of farmers were driven out of their land for the expansion of the banana plantations owned by multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Dole, Del Monte, the Marcos cronies and other rich families in the Davao region. This opened his eyes to the social inequality present in Philippine society. Land grabbing of thousands of hectares by the foreign agri-business corporations and the despotic landlords got rampant in the region especially during Martial law where brutality and militarization became their tools of oppression.

After Roberto’s ordination in 1978, he was assigned in the parish of Monkayo, Compostela Valley, a part of the Prelature of Tagum (The other provinces covered by the Prelature were Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental). Vatican II had emphasized that the church should be the church of the poor, deprived and oppressed. Thus, programs such as Basic Christian Communities (BCC), locally called GKK or Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban, and Social Action Center were introduced and developed during the time of Bishop Joseph Reagan to provide spiritual and socio-economic support among farmers. With the Liberation Theology as the prime mover of the times, priests (including Fr. Bert), nuns and many church workers were at the forefront undertaking conscientization programs among farmers and Christian communities. The church became supportive of farmers’ organizations such as the Federation of Free Farmers and KHI-RHO.

As a priest, Roberto did not confine himself within the comforts and safety of a convent. He was very much with his flock, living with the poor in the boondocks and in the plantations where oppression and abuse by the military proliferated. He would often be asked to help find missing persons, those who were illegally arrested or abducted by the military. Without hesitation, and at anytime of the day or night, he would go around the camps and detention centers to make sure that the rights of these political prisoners were protected. He regularly visited the prisons to make sure that those captured will be safe.

Friends often describe Fr. Roberto as very easy to get along with, someone with a very assuring and calming presence. He believed that knowing the problem is already half the solution. Thus, in his homilies, he would calmly talk about current issues and problems affecting the people, and remind churchgoers of their responsibilities as Christians. He also stressed the importance of inculcating love for country and humanity in raising families.

In 1979, Fr. Roberto chaired the board of the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) in Davao del Norte. The EMJP was a network of human rights advocates established to address the escalating incidents of human rights abuses of the Marcos regime among farmers, indigenous peoples and church workers. (Bantayog martyr Sr. Consuelo Chuidian, R.G.S. was one of his colleagues in the EMJP).

The EMJP’s stance for the marginalized was challenged when on the same year a big evacuation erupted in Laac, Compostela Valley due to heavy militarization in the area. Thousands of indigenous peoples and farmers fled their homes. Laac was a forestal area, very conducive for planting cacao and coffee. It was home to thousands of indigenous people. The military argued that they were there to crush the NPA. On the other hand, the agribusiness plantation owners were very much interested to operate in the area and collaborated with the Marcos regime to legalize land grabbing through militarization. EMJP conducted fact-finding missions in Laac and strongly condemned the militarization. They organized efforts to provide food, temporary shelter and medical attention for the evacuees.

Fr. Bert and his fellow church workers had earned the ire of the military for their involvement and activities in EMJP and other protest actions against the Marcos regime. Protecting Bert, the Bishop transferred him from one Parish to another in the Prelature. From Monkayo he was transferred to Tagum City, and then transferred again to Mabini, then finally to Cateel, Davao Oriental (a town which was accessible only after a two-day travel from Davao City at that time).

When the salvaging, illegal arrest and torture of civilians worsened in the early 80’s, the bishop offered to send Fr. Bert to Rome to study Canon Law to take him away from danger of getting killed and arrested by the military. But instead, he chose not to leave the Philippines and went underground in 1984 to continue his organizing work among the people. Even in the underground, Fr. Roberto Salac continued with his priestly role, officiating to the spiritual needs of his people. But he was also able to perfectly combine this defending and caring for the marginalized masses especially the peasants and the indigenous people.

He was at the frontline organizing a wide alliance of resistance movement for the National Democratic struggle in Mindanao. Fr. Bert, together with his fellow activists launched People’s Strikes or locally called Welgang Bayan (the nationwide and the Mindanao-wide Welgang Bayan) to call for rollback of oil prices, justice for the killing of Alex Orcullo (a Bantayog Martyr) and all the victims of the recent political killings, end of militarization, and the repeal of Marcos’s power to rule by decree. He led the initiative of issuing a press statement in Mindanao urging the people to support the People’s Strikes.

When Ferdinand Marcos got ousted in 1986 through people power, the door for peace process between the Government of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines was opened under the Aquino Administration. Fr. Roberto Salac was one of those in the forefront of the peace process in Mindanao.

After February 1986, the military elements deployed by Marcos (who were responsible for the grave human rights abuses in the area) remained and continued sowing terror and harassment among communities even as the people were seeking ways to a peaceful solution to the conflict and prevent more human rights violations.

On the fateful day of March 19, 1987, during a consultation meeting in a community in Mawab, Compostela Valley, Fr. Roberto Salac together with fellow leaders in the peace process were attacked by the military. He got shot on his knee cap. Medics who were in attendance tried to save him. He did not reach the hospital and died due to loss of blood.

Thousands attended his funeral mass celebrated by 32 priests.

The people he served wept in silence over the loss of a priest, a friend, a defender of their rights they loved so much.

“His action of faith in God and commitment to people’s welfare is obviously excelling in dedication. Very obvious ang zeal of commitment and dedication. Although during meetings he speaks very very little, a man of few words but so much of action.”– Msgr. Ullyses Perandos

Ito ang sumpa ko

Lalaban ako sa lahat ng uring paghaharing hindi demokratiko. Hahadlangan ko ang pagbabalik ng mga kagawiang tulad ng sa diktadurang Marcos. Hindi na dapat bumalik ang matinding pagkatakot ng mga Pilipino sa kanilang sariling gubyerno.

Igigiit ko na kasinungalingan ang pagsasabing sa panahon ng batas-militar ay namuhay tayo sa kapayapaan at ginhawa. Igigiit ko ang itinuturo ng ating sariling kasaysayan na ang demokrasya ay di hamak na mas mabuti kaysa diktadurang rehimen ni Marcos.

Hindi ko iboboto ang sinumang pulitikong nagbubulag-bulagan sa mga krimen ng rehimeng Marcos, na hanggang ngayon ay hindi pa naitutuwid. Hindi ko iboboto ang sinumang manloloko na nagyayabang na ang diktadura ni Marcos ay naging mabuti para sa bansa at sa mamamayan. Hindi ko iboboto ang sinumang kandidato na nangangakong ituloy ang mga patakaran at programa ng rehimang Marcos.

Isinusumpa ko, isinusumpa nating lahat: Never again. Di na muli! Hinding-hindi na natin pababalikin ang kakila-kilabot na panahong iyon!

Deklarasyon ng Never Again! Never Forget! Movement
Ika-10 Disyembre, Taong 2015 sa Bantayog ng mga Bayani

(Written by Mimi Miaco at spot.ph)

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat-Cooky Chua, vocalist of Tres Marias, Color It Red, and member of The League of Authors of Public Interest Songs, believes in this statement by author Edmund Burke. "Dapat masusi ang pag-aaral sa Batas Militar at gumawa tayo ng paraan para hindi na ito maulit pa," she said.

On January 30, Filipino composers and musicians will come together for a concert entitled #NeverForget, an effort by The League of Authors of Public Interest Songs (LAPIS) to remember the real deal back when the Philippines was under Martial Law and the leadership of former president Ferdinand Marcos. The event starts at 5 p.m., at Bantayog ng mga Bayani Center. Ticket price is P50.

“Marami akong kakilalang dumaan sa mga katakut-takot na karanasan noong panahong iyon. At marami din akong kaibigan na nilabanan ito sa iba’t ibang paraan na kaya nila. Mahalagang maipaalam ito sa kabataan alang-alang sa kinabukasan ng ating bayan,” said Chua. She will perform with fellow LAPIS members Gary Granada, Bayang Barrios, Chickoy Pura, Plagpul, and Lolita Carbon.

According to LAPIS Executive Director, composer, and musician Karl Ramirez, #NeverForget is scheduled on January 30 because it’s a historic day—it’s part of the First Quarter Storm of the '70s, a day the youth should be aware of. “Dapat maintindihan nila bakit may pag-aaklas sa kabila ng matinding panunupil ng iilang maykapangyarihan noong panahong iyon,” Ramirez said.

LAPIS is an organization of composers and musicians that seeks to raise the Filipinos’ public interest. In 2015, they launched a series of performances for the benefit of the Lumad victims. They are set to release their first public interest music album in March. #NeverForget is a joint project with Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation.

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[embed]https://www.facebook.com/bantayogngmgabayani/posts/1072518106101992[/embed]

(From Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation's announcement)

Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, in partnership with the League of Authors of Public Interest Songs, or LAPIS, is holding an evening concert on January 30 at the Bantayog grounds titled NEVER FORGET. Browse the Facebook event page here for more details.

This is part of Bantayog's advocacy of raising awareness and educating the youth through music about the Martial Law period. January 30 falls within the 1970 First Quarter Storm period, which is regarded as a watershed in the protest movement against Marcos' increasingly repressive government. From the First Quarter Storm were baptized many who would later be leaders of the movement against the Marcos dictatorship, a good number giving their very lives for it.

The concert will feature well-known composer Gary Granada, Chickoy Pura of The Jerks, and the Tres Marias, composed of the three musical icons Lolita Carbon of Asin, Bayang Barrios and Cookie Chua.

A new generation of public interest composers from LAPIS will also showcase songs that continue the tradition of writing and performing music about situations and aspirations of the Filipino people. Karl Ramirez, Plagpul, Xandra Bisenio, and Kit Manlangit, all LAPIS composer-musicians will be opening the concert.

Save the date and enjoy the evening with your family! Tickets at Php50 and available at Bantayog.



[embed]https://www.facebook.com/lapisphilippines/videos/955294247884873/[/embed]

Catch the play Inang Lupa, Inang Bayan featuring Marili Fernandez-Ilagan and Teresa Opaon-Ali's Sanlibongan and Bonifacio Ilagan's Hindi Na Muli at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani from March 14-17, 2016 7PM. For more information, please contact Bantayog.

Inang Lupa, Inang Bayan is brought to you by the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, Tag-ani Performing Arts Society, and the UP Sigma Alpha Nu Sorrority, Diliman.

Edmundo Legislador, Toto Eddie to his family and friends, was born into two prominent families of Oton, Iloilo.

His father, who once served as town councilor, owned a rice mill. The young boy was taught how to handle money; he should learn the business and be smart, his father said, because he would own the mill someday. But Toto Eddie used to wonder why his family always got the bigger share in the income, when they were very much less in number than the others. From his mother he learned how to care for the workers, helping her buy, wrap and distribute gifts for them for Christmas.

Toto Eddie got along well with people. He had a good voice and played the guitar well. Sometimes he and his friends spent their evenings drinking beer and singing to the wee hours of the morning.

In college, Legislador joined the local chapter of the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan, which started him into activism. He was in his 2nd year in college when the First Quarter Storm swept the country. He participated in rallies denouncing police brutality in breaking up the mass actions in Manila. Later he joined the Kalinangan Cultural Guild which offered cultural presentations during protest actions. Quickly, as the student movement launched more and bigger actions, Legislador decided to become a fulltime cultural activist even as he found the time to get married. Performances and training seminars brought him to as far as Luzon.

When martial law was declared in September 1972, Legislador had been living among the migrant farm workers, or sacada, in the sugarcane plantations of Negros. He was unable to return to Iloilo until the following June, but soon after left home again to travel to Antique, to the impoverished areas where many sacadas came from. With some other young people, he visited the towns of San Jose, Patnongon, San Remigio and then Sibalom.

On July 27, 1973 the Marcos regime conducted a sham referendum, during which the people were asked if they approved of martial law and the establishment of a parliament to replace the Congress which had been abolished. Of course no one dared to say no.

On that same day, Legislador and his group were resting after lunch when all of a sudden shots were fired in their direction. Toto Eddie was hit in the head by a bullet. He was 23 years old.

Edmundo Legislador’s funeral procession was said to have been the longest ever in the history of Oton, an act of resistance to the dictatorship. It was attended by people from different walks of life, with some coming from as far as Negros and Antique.

In January 1980, the dictatorship held elections for governors, vice governors, mayors and vice mayors. Having just decimated the Liberal Party-Laban coalition in the fraud-ridden election for members of the Interim Batasang Pambansa in 1978, the Marcos dictatorship was then at the height of its powers.

The opposition coalition had decided to boycott the 1980 elections, but Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. (already in exile at the time) believed that despite the certainty of being cheated, it would be an opportunity to further expose the regime’s oppressiveness, corruption and tyranny. He asked his friend Jose Lingad to run for governor of Pampanga against Estelito Mendoza, a close associate of Marcos.

Lingad had already been governor of the province, and a cabinet member during the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal. He was a congressman representing Pampanga’s first district when Marcos abolished Congress upon declaring martial law. He was arrested and detained for four months following the imposition of martial law, and since then had turned to farming for a living while continuing to participate in opposition activities to depose the dictator.

As expected, Lingad and his running mate for vice governor – the progressive lawyer Jose Suarez – were defeated by the dictatorship’s party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan. The so-called election was marked by intimidation, vote buying and plain cheating. Defiantly, Lingad filed a formal protest with the Commission on Elections.

While the election protest was pending, Lingad was shot dead by a lone gunman while sitting alone in the driver’s seat of his car in the morning of December 16, 1980, along the national highway in San Fernando, the provincial capital. Witnesses identified the killer through photographs: he was a former constabulary sergeant. But before he could be tried, he himself was killed in a mysterious car accident. Thus, Lingad’s murder has remained unsolved and the mastermind is still unidentified.

National leaders of the political opposition all attended his wake. (Even Marcos paid tribute to him as “a friend and fellow veteran.”) At the funeral, Joaquin “Chino” Roces said: “Grieve not. We gather here today not to bury a man but to celebrate an event – the planting of a seed – the seed of freedom and liberation.”

Mariano Lopez was quiet and soft spoken, very bright. He was a government scholar from high school to college. He was among the first students who qualified for the Philippine Science High School in 1964, graduating fifth of the batch five years later.

Introduced to political activism as an engineering sophomore in UP Diliman, Lopez listened and read. The UP Nationalist Corps was the first organization he joined. Then he became a member of the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan and Gintong Silahis, its cultural arm.

With thousands of other UP students, Lopez attended the rally in front of Congress on January 26, 1970, which was brutally dispersed by the police. The experience affected him deeply. He got involved more intensely in political discussions and organizing.

He argued with his parents, telling them that it was love that made him want his country to be free, that he was casting personal ambition aside for the sake of the people. Eventually in 1972 he dropped out of school to devote himself to organizing work in the poor communities of Manila. He also stayed for months in his home province in Bataan, discussing politics with farmers.

When martial law was imposed, Lopez was arrested and detained until February 1974. After his release, he worked as proofreader with the Daily Express. In the few short months he worked in the newspaper, he managed to organize a union, leading it in demanding higher wages from management.

Not long after, Lopez joined the armed resistance in Isabela. He was reported slain by government troopers in 1976. His body was never recovered.