Lest We Forget: The Martyrs of Martial Law in the Philippines

Remember Martial LAw and its Martyrs

By Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70)



Keywords: Human Rights, War & Peace,


Remember Martial LAw, 1972

KD70 Statement
August 21, 2009
Contact: Prof Guillermo Ponce De Leon
Phone; (818) 749 -0272
San Francisco, CA

Lest We Forget: The Martyrs of Martial Law in the Philippines and Senator Benigno Aquino Jr

San Francisco-- –The Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70) commemorates the 26th death anniversary and the assassination of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr on August 21, 1983.

Aquino’s martyrdom gains special significance today, August 21 because of two reasons: First, the assassination was not solved though everybody knows who is the mastermind and second because of the rampant abuse of power and corruption under the present US-Arroyo administration. 


Senator Aquino even during the days before martial law opposed the abuse of power under the US-Marcos dictatorship regime that does not respect democratic rights and treats itself as above the law. His martyrdom gains special significance today as we fight the US- Arroyo regime with a track record of abusing power and dispensing public funds without any concern for accountability. 


KD70believes the reports that a faction within the Arroyo administration insists on pushing ahead with their plan to cling to power beyond 2010, believing that the outpouring of sympathy for former president Cory Aquino would not translate into concrete opposition.

That is why we in the Filipino-American community should be vigilant and ready to fight all these dirty schemes.

The Aquino Story

Ninoy Aquino was a cultivated asset of the CIA. As a young reporter he effected the surrender of HMB chief Luis Taruc to Magsaysay during the Huk Rebellion in the 1950’s. His meteoric rise to national politics is phenomenal from being a mayor, to governor and an opposition senator. But his rise to prominence was cut short with the rise of the US-Marcos dictatorship and the imposition of martial law in 1972.

But even his being an asset to the American interest fell into disfavor when the Reagan clique patronized his enemy and cancelled his stay as an exile in the US that is why he was forced to return to the Philippines. The US only use his dissertation as a fellow in Harvard to effect change in the Philippines.

His theory that “Marcos is a problem, that is why he is also the solution” was translated into an NSSD report in 1984 and became the guiding light for US policy makers to form the Reform the Armed Forces Movement in 1985 and other political parties and eventually dump Marcos as their puppet in the Philippines against the tide of the resurging people’s movement in the Philippines.

Much like Rizal, Aquino was a reluctant hero but still a hero who sticks on his word to return to the Philippines. But his torch was carried by his wife, Cory Aquino who later became an opposition figure and later the successor president of dictator Marcos.

Tasks for the Present

The Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70) calls on the Filipino people and the Filipino American community to remember Senator Aquino and all the victims of the dreaded martial law regime.

When we remember him and her late widow, former President Cory Aquino, lest we forget those who died, suffer and fought the martial law regime and not the personalities that gained prominence because of it.

We should not forget that it was the sacrifices of the whole nation that brought down the dictatorship and not only the lady in yellow that made it possible. Let us clearly see the forest, not only the few giant trees that grew out of it.

Then and only then, when freedom will be worth dying for and the sacrifices of the many will not be in vain.

Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70)

Prof. Guillermo Ponce De Leon
San Francisco, California