August 2, 2006

Martial Law: Nene’s Story 

by:  Dean de la Paz

The tyranny was perhaps worse then although by some counts assassinations under political retribution escalate unabated. More critics are murdered in the name of political suppression under today’s new tyrant and, as it was before, dictatorship still follows the same diabolic mosaic. The desecration of institutions, the corruption of men, the disappearance of hope and the narrowing of options until all that remains is violence leading nowhere but a scorched earth. Through four incarcerations, 20 years of dictatorship and today’s thinly disguised despotism, one man, Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. constantly refuses to surrender. What sustains him, then in those darkest nights and today in our quickly enveloping despair? 

Perhaps one reason is because tyranny has not left us, his work remains unfinished. Either that or tyranny has spawned offspring whose genetic greed nurtured in the toxic Petri dishes of those darkest days has learned to adapt to perpetuate itself. It is not simply Shelley’s bride of Frankenstein anymore, but the infernal spawn is a daughter, fiercer, more resistant, aggressive albeit scorned no less. 

In Pimentel’s autobiography “Martial Law in the Philippines: My Story” he launches us into critical reverie by linking us with a past we must not forget simply because it remains with us. Stating why he had been disenchanted with Ferdinand Marcos he says that the displeasure was founded “on the widely held belief that Marcos won re-election through dubious methods that included massive over-spending, the use of goons and outright fraud.” The distant mirror is unfortunately not that distant it seems. There is familiarity even as the reflections are just as grotesque. 

In his reflections of midnight evil in his initial foray into national politics, Pimentel immediately sets us upon a journey to the past with foreboding similarities.   

His real fight started in 1970, two years before the proclamation of martial law, when a convention was formed to amend the 1935 Constitution. There was that same attempt to distort the fundamental laws if only to perpetuate the ambition and greed of one person. There were those mysterious envelopes of cash, temptations of thirty pieces brazenly handed out to purchase loyalties from so-believed respectable men who came surprisingly cheap. And then there were the handful of good men. 

In detailing the struggle of a valiant few to write a constitution that did not merely perpetuate a tyrant whose controversial term was soon coming to an end, Pimentel tells us the story of betrayals and survival. There is the story of the Eduardo Quintero expose where convention delegates were given envelopes by some “acting as agents of an unnamed principal”. Past is prelude. The new form of government was to be parliamentary. It would have perpetuated the dictatorship. The envelopes contained money and was distributed by delegates closely associated with the dictatorship. 

Joining a committee formed to investigate the payola, the expose immediately placed Pimentel on a collision course with the powers behind the bribe. A weak and ailing Quintero would eventually affirm in an affidavit that the source of the payola was the Palace, explicitly identifying moves to control the convention for a personal agenda.  

The scandal had come at a time when so-called anti-dynasty resolutions were brewing among the delegates. These contained verbiage banning the dictatorship from perpetuating itself within the new constitution. Consolidated with other versions, the ban included previous presidents as well as the convention’s head, former president Diosdado Macapagal. The proposal eventually lost by a vote of 155 to 131. 

When martial law was declared, Pimentel’s collision course with destiny accelerated. Together with Joker Arroyo, Sedfrey Ordonez and Francis Garchitorena, he openly defended before the Supreme Court clients summarily picked up and detained by the military. Little did they realize during their arguments before the High Court that the rule of law as they knew it then no longer existed. 

Pimentel would himself eventually be a victim of what others might term as a betrayal. His first arrest came on January 28, 1973 based upon Arrest, Search and Seizure Order (ASSO) no. 797 signed two days before. The ASSO classified him as a subversive and though a civilian, a subject of military tribunal proceedings. The power to issue arrest warrants in the form of the ASSO was vested by a decree on the Minister of National Defense - a controversial issue debated at the convention and one eventually approved under convention president Macapagal. 

More proposals were approved that benefited the dictatorship and the speculation that the convention leadership might have yielded in a desire for eventual power-sharing under a parliamentary government was on people’s minds. 

Pimentel would eventually be imprisoned for his beliefs four times and in those long periods he would experience mental and physical persecution, witnessing first-hand the kind of cruelty that politicians drunk on ambition, greed and power resort to simply to perpetuate themselves. Even as he resorted to prayer, his most painful and gut-wrenching memories would be those rare times when he would see his wife and children only to be suddenly and helplessly separated from them. 

While written in prose that is lucid and clear, the autobiography is not easy reading and a thousand-word review does not do it justice. The images are rich in detail but are far richer in substance. It is difficult to turn a page without first putting the book down and deeply reflecting not simply on the struggles a good man had to endure, but also on how he managed to cope, not simply surviving but winning over cruel adversities no person should be forced to undergo. We do not simply find answers but also that inspiration we gravely need so that we might also be sustained with hope. 

Throughout, one sees a simple albeit loving and God-fearing man guided by the principles of democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution, an adherence to the peaceful path always and a deep love for his country and his family. We also see a patriot readily sacrificing his comforts and his personal freedom for these principles.  

What sustained him? In those, the answers lie. Thus, the book makes for compelling reading for those who continue to fight tyranny and those who would have tyranny continue. For the former, the book shows that even in our darkest hours there is hope. For the latter, it shows why, despite the defilement of sacred institutions, there will be men like Nene who will make sure tyranny will never succeed. Nene’s story should be our story because we know now that we are not descended from fearful men.

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