Ang Mamatay Nang Dahil Sa 'Yo

Table of Contents
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
INTRODUCTION
ZACARIAS G. AGATEP
ZORRO C. AGUILAR
GODOFREDO B. ALINGAL
LEO C. ALTO
EMMANUEL I. ALVAREZ
JACOBO S. AMATONG
REYNANTE C. ANDAL
TRIFONIO N. ANDRES
BENIGNO S. AQUINO JR.
JEREMIAS A. AQUINO
SANTIAGO B. ARCE
FERDINAND M. ARCEO
FILOMENA G. ASUNCION
ELSA BALANDO
MA. LORENA M. BARROS
WILLIAM VINCENT A. BEGG
PEPITO V. BERNARDO
RENATO L. BUCAG
TRANQUILINO D. CABARUBIAS
CLARO G. CABRERA
CRISOSTOMO CAILING
JOSE R. CALDERON JR.
ROLANDO M. CASTRO
CRISTINA F. CATALLA
MARY CONSUELO (REMEDIOS) CHUIDIAN
RONILLO NOEL M. CLARETE
CESAR C. CLIMACO
ROBERTO R. CONCEPCION
MARY CONCEPCION (LOURDES) CONTI
ELISEO G. DAPOG
JEREMIAS S. DE JESUS
PEPITO L. DEHERAN
CARLOS B. DEL ROSARIO
EDWARD L. DELA FUENTE
REMBERTO DANIEL A. DELA PAZ
DEMOSTHENES DINGCONG
JOSE W. DIOKNO
MACLIING DULAG
ALBERT R. ENRIQUEZ
JUAN B. ESCANDOR
RONILO T. EVANGELIO
GERARDO T. FAUSTINO
TULLIO FAVALI
RESTETA A. FERNANDEZ
LUIS GABRIEL
ENRIQUE VOLTAIRE GARCIA II
MARY VIRGINIA GONZAGA
LILIOSA R. HILAO
ANTONIO M. HILARIO
RIZALINA P. ILAGAN
JUVELYN JARAVELLO
RAMON V. JASUL
EVELIO B. JAVIER
ESTER DOLORES M. JIMENEZ
MARY BERNARD (VIRGINIA) JIMENEZ
EDGAR GIL M. JOPSON
ESTELITA G. JUCO
EMMANUEL AGAPITO F. LACABA
MA. LETICIA J. PASCUAL-LADLAD
HERMON C. LAGMAN
LORENZO BONIFACIO C. LANSANG
FRANCISCO C. LAURELLA
EMMANUEL L. LAZO
EDMUNDO R. LEGISLADOR
JOSE B. LINGAD
MARIANO M. LOPEZ
MARY CATHERINE (LUCINDA) LORETO
RIZALDY JESUS M. MAGLANTAY
AURELIO D. MAGPANTAY
RODELO Z. MANAOG
RAUL S. MANGLAPUS
RODRIGO MORDENO
IMMANUEL M. OBISPO
MATEO C. OLIVAR
MANUEL F. ONTONG
ALEXANDER L. ORCULLO
GASTON Z. ORTIGAS
PACIFICO A. ORTIZ
MAGNIFICO L. OSORIO
ROMULO D. PALABAY
BENEDICTO M. PASETES
FERNANDO T. PASTOR SR.
PURIFICACION A. PEDRO
DANTE D. PEREZ
FLORENCIO S. PESQUESA
RODRIGO PONCE
ISHMAEL F. QUIMPO JR.
EDUARDO T. QUINTERO
CLEMENTE P. RAGRAGIO
ARNULFO A. RESUS
JOSE B.L. REYES
REYNALDO L. ROBLES
JOAQUIN P. ROCES
FRANCISCO A. RODRIGO
ROSALEO B. ROMANO
SOFRONIO P. ROXAS
SOLEDAD N. SALVADOR
ABRAHAM P. SARMIENTO JR.
MICHAEL J. SUMILANG
ANTONIO S. TAGAMOLILA
LORENZO M. TAADA
ROMRAFLO R. TAOJO
CARLOS N. TAYAG
CLAUDIO TEEHANKEE
NOEL C. TIERRA
AMANTEFLOR A. TORRES
ISMAEL G. UMALI
DANILO C. VALCOS JR.
NILO C. VALERIO
JOSE MARI U. VELEZ
EMMANUEL R. YAP
QUINTIN G. YUYITUNG
CALIXTO O. ZALDIVAR
ABOUT THE BANTAYOG NG MGA BAYANI
ANG MAMATAY NANG DAHIL SA YO
HEROES AND MARTYRS OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE
IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST DICTATORSHIP
19721986 (VOLUME 1)
Published by:
NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF THE PHILIPPINES

T. M. Kalaw St., Ermita, Manila, Philippines
Tel. 254-7482 www.nhcp.gov.ph
Copyright @ 2015
Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc.
National Historical Commission of the Philippines
No part of this book maybe reprinted or reproduced in any means whatsoever without the permission of the copyright
owners.
WRITER AND CHIEF EDITOR

Carolina S. Malay
WRITER AND MANAGING EDITOR

Ma. Cristina V. Rodriguez
RESEARCHERS
Catalina Abrazado Susan D. Macabuag
Imelda Adante Rojo Guerrero Mallari
Charo Cabardo Carrie Panaligan Manglinong
Cristy Jean T. Cortez Julie Parian
Phebe Crismo Ma. Cristina V. Rodriguez
Lilibeth Frondozo Anne Andrada H. Sacramento
Bing Galang Rae Sayson
Cynthia Galvez Victoria Segui
Manolita Gonzalez Clark Soriano
Agadel Guerrero Racquel Edralin-Tiglao
Meth Jimenez Candy Yuzon Yee
Erlinda Lacaba
ILLUSTRATIONS
Neil Doloricon
COVER AND BOOK DESIGN

Effy Calingao
ISBN 978-971-538-270-0
CONTENTS
PREFACE ELISEO G. DAPOG
ACKNOWLEDGMENT JEREMIAS S. DE JESUS
INTRODUCTION PEPITO L. DEHERAN
ZACARIAS G. AGATEP
ZORRO C. AGUILAR
LEO C. ALTO
JOSE W. DIOKNO
EMMANUEL I. ALVAREZ
MACLIING DULAG
JACOBO S. AMATONG
ALBERT R. ENRIQUEZ
REYNANTE C. ANDAL
JUAN B. ESCANDOR
TRIFONIO N. ANDRES
RONILO T. EVANGELIO
GERARDO T. FAUSTINO
JEREMIAS A. AQUINO
TULLIO FAVALI
SANTIAGO B. ARCE
FERDINAND M. ARCEO
LUIS GABRIEL
ELSA BALANDO
LILIOSA R. HILAO
ANTONIO M. HILARIO
PEPITO V. BERNARDO
RIZALINA P. ILAGAN
RENATO L. BUCAG
JUVELYN JARAVELLO
RAMON V. JASUL
CLARO G. CABRERA
EVELIO B. JAVIER
CRISOSTOMO CAILING
MARY BERNARD (VIRGINIA)
ROLANDO M. CASTRO JIMENEZ
CRISTINA F. CATALLA EDGAR GIL M. JOPSON
MARY CONSUELO (REMEDIOS) ESTELITA G. JUCO
CHUIDIAN
CESAR C. CLIMACO
HERMON C. LAGMAN
MARY CONCEPCION (LOURDES)
CONTI
EMMANUEL L. LAZO
EDMUNDO R. LEGISLADOR ARNULFO A. RESUS
JOSE B. LINGAD JOSE B.L. REYES
MARIANO M. LOPEZ REYNALDO L. ROBLES
MARY CATHERINE (LUCINDA) JOAQUIN P. ROCES
LORETO FRANCISCO A. RODRIGO
RIZALDY JESUS M. MAGLANTAY ROSALEO B. ROMANO
AURELIO D. MAGPANTAY SOFRONIO P. ROXAS
RODELO Z. MANAOG SOLEDAD N. SALVADOR
RAUL S. MANGLAPUS ABRAHAM P. SARMIENTO JR.
RODRIGO MORDENO MICHAEL J. SUMILANG
IMMANUEL M. OBISPO ANTONIO S. TAGAMOLILA
MATEO C. OLIVAR LORENZO M. TAADA
MANUEL F. ONTONG ROMRAFLO R. TAOJO
ALEXANDER L. ORCULLO CARLOS N. TAYAG
GASTON Z. ORTIGAS CLAUDIO TEEHANKEE
PACIFICO A. ORTIZ NOEL C. TIERRA
MAGNIFICO L. OSORIO AMANTEFLOR A. TORRES
ROMULO D. PALABAY ISMAEL G. UMALI
BENEDICTO M. PASETES DANILO C. VALCOS JR.
FERNANDO T. PASTOR SR. NILO C. VALERIO
PURIFICACION A. PEDRO JOSE MARI U. VELEZ
DANTE D. PEREZ EMMANUEL R. YAP
FLORENCIO S. PESQUESA QUINTIN G. YUYITUNG
RODRIGO PONCE CALIXTO O. ZALDIVAR
ISHMAEL F. QUIMPO JR. ABOUT THE BANTAYOG NG MGA
EDUARDO T. QUINTERO BAYANI
PREFACE
Nothing brings the past to life greater than stories about those who lived in it. This book tells
such stories. The past spoken of, however, is no ordinary past, but the most trying of times in our
national postwar history. This book speaks about martial law, not from the standpoint of the
dictatorship and neither from that of historians who study it, but from the perspective of Filipinos
who challenged the denial of their rights and paid the price for their love of freedom and of our
people.
These women and men, from all walks of life, of different ages, and from different parts of the
country shared a singular purpose: to assert their liberties in the face of a regime that unlawfully
arrested and tortured Filipinos it perceived as enemies, causing some of them to disappear from
the face of the earth, never to be found.
The stories of these valiant Filipinos provide only a glimpse of our recent past, but an important
and necessary one. We need to understand martial law from the standpoint of the actors
themselves. In the supreme exercise of human agency, they defied the powerful for a cause
larger than themselves.
Read their stories and understand what it means to make history.
Maria Serena I. Diokno

Chair
National Historical Commission of the Philippines
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Bantayog ng mga Bayani wishes to acknowledge all those who contributed to the making of this
book, helping ensure that the nation, and each one among us, will not forget.
The materials for this book were drawn mainly from the archives of Bantayog ng mga Bayani,
consisting of interviews with relatives, friends and colleagues of the heroes and martyrs,
contributed materials and testimonials, as well as relevant printed accounts and other secondary
data sources. Websites, in particular those maintained by the Jose W. Diokno Foundation and the
Lorenzo M. Taada Foundation, proved to be useful additional sources of information. We also
thank Mr. Angelo Bernardo Jr. for giving us permission to use the picture of Justice JBL Reyes.
INTRODUCTION
This is a book about the heroes and martyrs of the Filipino peoples resistance against the martial
law dictatorship that ruled over the country during the terrible years between 1972 and 1986.
These were exemplary women and men who lived and died for the sake of freedom and justice in
the Philippines.
In recounting their lives, this book hopes to keep their memory alive, and to remind the present
and future generations that the Filipino is worth fighting for.
Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation was established in 1986, soon after the regime of President
Marcos ended with his flight from Malacaang Palace. Since then, the Foundation has been
honoring those who dedicated themselves to the anti-dictatorship struggle with extraordinary
commitment and sacrifice.
Nearly 300 names are now etched on the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog Memorial
Center in Quezon City. They were chosen at the end of a process of nomination, validation and
deliberation, which included personal interviews and site visits.
The 113 short biographies included in this first volume are those of the heroes and martyrs
whose names were inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance from 1992 (when the annual
recognition ceremony was first held) to 2000. A second volume, comprising succeeding sets, will
follow.
Work on the publication of these materials began in 2006, and a completed version what might
be considered the first edition was launched the following year. Insufficient resources allowed
the Foundation to publish only very limited copies of that edition.
We thank the National Historical Commission of the Philippines under the leadership of Dr.
Maria Serena I. Diokno for rescuing this project and making available the resources that have
allowed the publication and dissemination of this book.
We also want to recognize the efforts of the late Nievelena V. Rosete, former trustee and
executive director of the Foundation, who passed away before she could see this volume
published.
Most importantly, we acknowledge the families of our heroes and martyrs. This volume would
not have been possible without their assistance and support.
Ang mamatay nang dahil sa yo this is the message that our fellow human beings in this
book are telling us today: we, the living, are the recipients of this gift of life and love. It is for us,
and we must try to be worthy.
Ambassador Alfonso T. Yuchengco

Chairperson
Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation
Ang isang bayan ay sinusukat ayon sa uri ng mga taong kanyang
dinadakila.
A nation is measured by the quality of men and women it honors. Because of these heroes and
martyrs, we can stand up with pride and work together, with heads unbowed, knowing that we
are honoring ourselves and our nation, more than we are honoring them.
There is nothing we can add to their heroism and martyrdom. But there is much we can add to
restore the good name and reputation of the nation for which they gave their all.
By our act of unveiling and dedication, we are proclaiming our resolve to keep faith with our
heroes and martyrs, and our deepest conviction that this land of the morning, the repository of
our hopes and dreams, is worth living for and dying for.
EXCERPTED FROM THE SPEECH OF JOVITO R. SALONGA, CHAIRPERSON EMERITUS, BANTAYOG NG MGA
BAYANI FOUNDATION, AND FORMER SENATE PRESIDENT, AT THE LAUNCHING OF THE BANTAYOG WALL OF
REMEMBRANCE, NOVEMBER 30, 1992
ZACARIAS G. AGATEP
BORN
September 6, 1935 in Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur
DIED
October 11,1982 in Salcedo, Ilocos Sur
PARENTS
Francisco Agatep and Felipa Guimmayen
EDUCATION
Secondary: Benito Soliven Academy
Vigan Archdiocesan Minor Seminary;
College:
Immaculate Conception Major Seminary, Vigan, Ilocos Sur
If it is a crime to love the poor and support them in their struggle against injustice, then I am
ready to face the firing squad, Fr. Zacarias Agatep wrote in 1980 just after his release from four
months of imprisonment by the martial law government. Two years later he did give up his life
in the pursuit of this belief.
Fellow seminarians remember Agatep as a serious-minded person, whom they called Apo Kari.
(Apo is the Ilokano term of respect for elders, leaders, or persons in positions of authority.)
Agatep spent his summers as a seminarian helping poor families in their farms. After his
ordination in 1964, he took up parish duties for a short while in San Esteban town. Then he
served as fulltime chaplain of the Northern Luzon chapter of the Federation of Free Farmers
(FFF). Working with farmers in the towns of Sta. Cruz, Sta. Lucia, Salcedo and Galimuyod, he
helped organize cooperatives, raised awareness about land reform, and campaigned for the
reduction of land rent.
But when, in 1973, the FFF leadership supported the Marcos regimes campaign for the
ratification of a martial law constitution, the priest campaigned among FFF members to boycott
the referendum called for this purpose. He left the organization and returned to parish work in
Caoayan, taking up the cause of poor tobacco farmers, and speaking up against foreign and local
elite control of the tobacco industry.
Later he joined the Christians for National Liberation and began to secretly support the fight
against the dictatorial regime.
He was serving as parish priest in Caoayan when arrested on September 4, 1980 and charged
with subversion and illegal possession of firearms. He was first taken to Camp Diego in Ilocos
Sur, moved to Camp Dangwa in Benguet, and finally to Camp Bagong Diwa (Bicutan
Rehabilitation Center) in Metro Manila. All through those four months he continued to minister
to his fellow prisoners.
He was released on December 24, 1980, as part of the regimes preparations for the visit of Pope
John Paul II. In a letter afterwards to President Marcos, his provincemate, Agatep protested his
imprisonment as a frameup. If this is the kind of justice we get from the so-called guardians of
the New Society, then there is no wonder why there are some people who go to the hills to fight
the government.
Some time after, a reward for Agateps rearrest was posted by the authorities. At the age of 46,
on October 11,1982, the priest was killed together with Alfredo Cesar, a former deacon who had
been assisting him. The military claimed that the two died in an armed encounter with
constabulary soldiers, but many doubted this. Agateps body showed that he had been shot four
times from behind.
Many religious groups denounced the deaths of Agatep and Cesar. A memorial mass was held
for them at the chapel of the Daughters of St. Paul in Manila, sponsored by a newly-formed
Committee for the Protection of Church Peoples Rights. Twenty-seven priests, Filipinos as well
as foreigners, concelebrated, and about 500 persons, including Protestants, attended the
ecumenical rites.
ZORRO C.AGUILAR
BORN
August 7, 1942 in Dipolog City
DIED
September 23, 1984 in Dipolog City
PARENTS
Esteban Aguilar and Emiliana Campos
SPOUSE / CHILD
Virginia Legados / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Miputak Central School
Secondary: Andres Bonifacio College, Dipolog City
College: Andres Bonifacio College, Dipolog City
The common folk of Zamboanga del Norte loved human rights lawyer Zorro Aguilar because
they could always count on him to take up the cases of poor people, especially those who
suffered from oppression or were victims of persons in power.
They knew him as a simple man, a far cry from the elegantly dressed, English-speaking lawyers
of Makati. His friends said: He did not even have a typewriter, or a vehicle, and he lived in a
dilapidated house.
Yet it was Aguilar who consistently attended rallies, who was never too busy to go to the far-
flung barrios when he was needed, and who gave free legal assistance to those who needed it. Of
all the lawyers in Zamboanga del Norte at the time, he was known to have handled the most
number of human rights cases, serving without discriminating the poor from the rich.
Although he was frequently invited to speak at protest actions even outside Dipolog (in Cagayan
de Oro, Ozamiz, Pagadian, for example), he had no political ambition. He believed that elections
would only legitimize the Marcos regime, and would not solve the nations problems.
Before martial law, Aguilar was already editing a local paper in Dipolog City, called Nandau
(Todays News) in the Subanon language, which often published articles criticizing the Marcos
administration. For a time, he was also employed as a government social worker, mainly serving
remote barrio communities.
Upon becoming a lawyer, Aguilar concentrated on human rights cases. He worked fulltime with
the Free Legal Assistance Group, defending political prisoners and helping people assert their
rights under martial law.
Aguilar joined the protest movement that erupted after the 1983 assassination of former Senator
Benigno Aquino Jr.
He became chair of the Zamboanga del Norte chapter of the Coalition for Restoration of
Democracy (CORD). He led a protest march (Lakbayan) that went around Zamboanga del Norte
in May 1984. Three days before being killed, he was the main speaker at a Dipolog rally, where
once more he denounced the militarization of his province.
At the time of his death, Aguilar was set to join a fact-finding mission that would look into the
killing in July 1984 of a human rights researcher in Tampilisan town. The mission was also set to
document the existence of seven strategic hamlets in Godod town.
Aguilar began getting anonymous threats to his life, which he shrugged off. Im prepared to
die, he told a friend. Until then, he said, we can continue our service to the poor and exploited
people.
On the night of September 23, 1984, Aguilar was walking home with fellow human rights lawyer
Jacobo Amatong when two men came up to them and shot them both at close range. Aguilar was
hit twice in the chest and once in the nape, and died instantly. Amatong died in hospital eight
hours later, but not before identifying their attackers as belonging to the military. Two soldiers
were subsequently named as suspects by the National Bureau of Investigation. This was
confirmed by the driver of the getaway vehicle, but he himself was killed by unidentified men
one year later. Despite the many appeals from family and friends, no hearings were conducted on
the cases of Amatong and Aguilar.
About 10,000 people attended the funeral held for the two lawyers, an attendance unprecedented
in Dipolog history.
BORN
June 24, 1922 in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte
DIED
April 13, 1981 in Kibawe, Bukidnon
PARENTS
Agaton Alingal and Isidora Balladores
EDUCATION
Elementary: Dapitan Elementary School, 1936
Secondary: Ateneo de Zamboanga, San Jose Seminary
Sacred Heart Novitiate;
College: Woodstock College, Maryland (USA);
Our Lady of Martyrs, New York (USA)
Born in the Jesuit country that was northern Mindanao, it was perhaps inevitable for this son of
the soil and the sea to become a Jesuit priest.
Godofredo Alingal, called Fr. Ling by his flock, was ordained to the priesthood in 1953 in
Woodstock, Maryland (USA). He was first assigned to the province of Bukidnon, then to Ateneo
de Naga, Cagayan de Oro City, and in 1968, back to Bukidnon.
The Catholic Church was seeing dramatic changes as an aftermath of the Second Vatican
Council. The Gospel was henceforth to be preached beyond the walls of the church, in the fields,
market places, the hills, and lived as a witness to give people back their dignity and their rights.
Alingal embraced these new teachings.
Bukidnon was a land of great social divisions. Politics was rough and bullets counted more than
ballots. Peasants were oppressed by landlords, usurers and middlemen, and power was in the
hands of a few. Conflicts simmered between the indigenous tribes, the settlers from the Visayas,
and the ranchers and loggers who extracted the areas rich natural resources.
Alingal helped farmers start a credit union and a grains marketing cooperative. He helped
organize the local chapter of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) in Kibawe, Bukidnon.
With the repression and militarization that characterized the martial law regime, Alingal
redoubled his efforts in behalf of poor people. He started a community organization program,
aimed at organizing farmers, vendors and mothers to protest abuses and defend their rights.
The gentle and soft-spoken priest nevertheless spoke out against electoral fraud, threats and
harassments by the military, denouncing these from the pulpit and through the prelature
newsletter Bandilyo. In 1977, the martial law government closed down the prelatures radio
station DXBB, but Alingal started a blackboard news service instead. It was popularly known as
Kibawe Budyong. He built a giant blackboard in front of his church, broadcasting news that
was otherwise being suppressed and denouncing official abuses. The blackboard was repeatedly
vandalized, but he merely put up another one to replace it.
Alingal started getting anonymous threats. Stop using the pulpit for politics.... your days are
numbered, said one. What else is there to dothe priesthood is not a safe vocation, he said.
He had just gotten orders for reassignment to another parish when he was assassinated in 1981.
In the early evening of April 13, 1981, five men (three of them wearing masks) arrived at the
convent in Kibawe, and demanded to see the parish priest. Alingal, who was in his room reading,
opened the door; he was met by a bullet fired from a .45 caliber handgun. The assailants then all
fled on motorbikes. A physician living nearby heard the shot and rushed to Alingals side. The
murdered priest died in his arms.
At his funeral mass, two bishops and about 70 priests concelebrated. Thousands coming from the
town proper and the surrounding barrios and towns, joined the funeral march.
Many brought with them placards painted with the angry query: Hain ang justicia? (Where is
justice?) Alingals killers were never charged.
LEO C. ALTO
BORN
October 7, 1951 in Manila
DIED
August 1, 1975 at De Vinta Perla, Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte
PARENTS
Heracleo Alto and Enriqueta Clamor
SPOUSE / CHILD
Erlinda Lacaba / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Fort Bonifacio Elementary School, Makati City
Secondary: Fort Bonifacio High School, Makati City
College: University of the Philippines, Diliman
Pinaglingkuran niya ang sambayanan, ang buhay niyay isang bituing tatanglaw sa aming
landas are the words written on Leo Altos tombstone (He served the people, his life shines
light on our way).
Leo Alto was a 4th year pre-med student at the University of the Philippines when he joined the
Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP) in 1970. He started
attending discussion groups, teach-ins and rallies. He also joined workers pickets demanding
higher wages and better living conditions.
Later he joined the Panday Sining, a political theater group that was active in cultural campaigns
denouncing the increasingly authoritarian Marcos administration. Then he joined the Rizal
chapter of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and started organizing a KM chapter among children
of enlisted men and officers of the Philippine Army based in Fort Bonifacio. (Leos parents
owned a concession inside the army camp where the family also lived, his father being a retired
soldier.)
He later became KM coordinator for Rizal, organizing the propaganda, education and
mobilization campaigns of the various chapters in Rizal province.
At the height of a campaign to oppose oil price increases in 1971, Alto joined a barricade set up
by students in the UP Diliman campus, later to develop into the historic Diliman Commune.
Once he was arrested in Makati while putting up campaign posters.
As he got deeper into activism, Alto dropped out of college and immersed himself in the
communities. He joined a team that undertook a survey of peoples problems in the areas of
Binangonan, Morong and Jalajala in Rizal In 1971, under the banner of the Progresibong
Samahan ng Rizal, he was part of a team that organized a trek from the Sierra Madre foothills in
Jalajala, as part of a peoples long march against poverty that culminated in Plaza Miranda,
Manila.
During the great floods of 1972, Alto turned his organizing efforts into helping the displaced
families in Pasig, Rizal. Relief centers were opened, and the activists even managed to spark
political discussions among the refugees.
When martial law was declared in September 1972, soldiers raided the home of the Alto family
looking for him. Leo, eldest among eight siblings (he was Heracleo Jr.), managed to escape and
decided to join the underground resistance to martial law.
He underwent training as an acupuncturist and paramedic under physician-activist Juan

Escandor. In 1973, together with other student activists, he joined a Serve the People Brigade in
the countryside. They would organize local farmers, mostly Bisaya and llokano settlers as well
as the Subanon tribal communities fighting for their ancestral lands. They called him Doc.
At the age of 23, Leo Alto was killed by a unit of the Philippine Constabulary on 1 August 1975
in Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte. Another man, a Subanon, died with him. Altos body was
buried in Dipolog, Zamboanga del Norte until his family had it exhumed eleven years later. He
was laid to rest in Pateros, Metro Manila in 1986.
EMMANUEL I. ALVAREZ
BORN
October 16, 1949 in Imus, Cavite
DISAPPEARED
January 6, 1976 in Cavite City
PARENTS
Renato Alvarez and Jovita Igtiben
SPOUSE / CHILD
Luzviminda San Andres / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Rosario Elementary School, Rosario, Cavite
Secondary: Cavite National High School, Cavite City
College: University of the Philippines, Diliman
He knew a lot about revolutions.
His great-grandfather was Katipunan General Pascual Alvarez of the 1896 revolution. Emmanuel
himself grew up in Cavite, a province steeped in Philippine history. Thus it is not surprising that
he took up the call for revolutionary change in the Philippines, and gave his life to the cause.
Emmanuel was a consistent honor student, graduating at the top of his class in elementary and
high school. In 1969, he enrolled at the College of Public Administration at the University of the
Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, at that time already boiling with activist energy. A member
of the UP chapter of the militant youth organization, the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), he was
active in public discussions of pressing national issues, and helped organize KM chapters in
nearby communities.
His political involvement grew deeper after his election to the KM National Council. In 1971 he
became acting KM vice chair, and national chair shortly before martial law was declared in
1972. The militant youth organization was declared illegal, but continued to operate
clandestinely under Alvarez leadership.
Well-known for his sober views and soft-spoken ways, Alvarezs low profile served him well
after he joined the underground resistance; his friends say that was why he was able to elude
arrest for several years.
From the underground, he explained to his parents in 1975 that we must recognize the need to
act in order to solve our own problems...we cannot rely on others, much less the regime.
Ang tanging ambag ko na maibibigay sa bayan ay ang aking buong kakayahan na makatulong
sa pagbibigay ng direksyon at pamumuno sa mamamayan sa paglutas ng kasalukuyang
problema. (All I can offer the country is my absolute readiness to help in giving direction and
leadership to the people in solving our present problems.)
Kung akoy mahuhuli o mapapatay ng kaaway, huwag kayong lubhang mangamba o

malungkot. Nakahanda akong harapin ang ganitong kalagayan. Alam naman natin na ang
pagbabago ng lipunan ay hindi isang laro, katuwaan o sine. Itoy tiyak na may kalakip na
sakripisyo gaya ng katiyakan din ng tagumpay nito. (If I am arrested or killed by the enemy, do
not fear or grieve too much. I am ready for it. Indeed we realize that social change is no game,
whim or entertainment. It surely requires sacrifice from us, but just as surely is its victory
assured.)
On January 6, 1976 he left the family home in Cavite City, took a bus, and was never seen again.
It is said that he was picked up by two men in civilian clothes. The family suspected military
involvement in his disappearance.
Emmanuel Alvarez was 27 when he disappeared. His short life did not go to waste.
JACOBO S. AMATONG
BORN
October 11, 1936 in Dipolog City
DIED
September 24, 1984 in Dipolog City
PARENTS
Amando Amatong and Felicidad Sybico
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Helen Cadavedo / 2
EDUCATION
Elementary: Andres Bonifacio College, Dipolog City
Secondary: Andres Bonifacio College, Dipolog City
College: Andres Bonifacio College, Dipolog City
Jacobo Amatong belonged to a prominent family in Dipolog City. They owned a well-regarded
school, his brothers were well-known in Mindanaoan politics, and Amatong himself was a
respected lawyer and editor-publisher of a local paper named Mindanao Observer.
Besides serving as city councilor from 1971 until his death, he was active in many civic and
community organizations, and received numerous awards from civic, charitable, government,
professional, education and other organizations.
When the country fell under martial law and military abuses spread in his province of
Zamboanga del Norte, Amatong took up the cause for justice and human rights, particularly the
right to free speech and a free press. He espoused the cause of the common people. Mindanao
Observer defied martial law restrictions on newspapers and published articles critical of the
regime, especially the military. It exposed their involvement in protecting gambling operations,
in extortion activities, and the fabrication of military reports by an intelligence officer for
blackmail purposes. It reported on cases of summary execution of civilians and military bombing
of communities. It also published appeals on behalf of political detainees.
Mindanao Observer gained the respect of many Filipinos, but it did not endear Amatong to the
regime. He went further by taking up human rights cases and becoming an outspoken member of
the Western Mindanao Alliance of Sectoral Organizations-Nationalist Alliance for Justice,
Freedom and Democracy (NAJFD).
On September 20, 1984, eve of the anniversary of the imposition of martial law, Amatong again
defied the authorities and spoke at a rally denouncing the military abuses.
That week, Amatong and his friend Zorro Aguilar, also a human rights lawyer, had been
preparing to join a mission to document reports of military abuses in the province and to exhume
the bodies of two individuals who had been summarily executed three months earlier in
Tampilisan town.
The night before they planned to depart with the fact-finding mission, Amatong and Aguilar
were walking along a city street when two men came up and shot them at close range. Aguilar
died on the spot, while Amatong was brought to a nearby hospital by someone who recognized
him. Asked three times if he recognized the attackers, each time Amatong replied, Army... He
died in the hospital eight hours later.
Two soldiers were identified as the killers by a key witness, the driver of the getaway vehicle;
the latter was himself killed by unidentified men a year later.
Family and friends demanded justice from the government but no hearings were ever conducted
on the two killings. Few doubted that the order to kill came from martial law authorities.
Some 10,000 people came to attend the funerals held for the two lawyers, a sight never before
seen in Dipolog.
REYNANTE C. ANDAL
BORN
November 27, 1950 in Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro
DIED
November 3, 1972 in Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
PARENTS
Mariano Andal and Patria Concha
EDUCATION
Elementary: Juan Morente Sr. Memorial Pilot School, Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro
Secondary: Eastern Mindoro Academy, Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro
College: University of Santo Tomas
Reynante Andals father was a guerrilla in the resistance against Japans occupation of the
Philippines during World War II. The boy was fascinated by his fathers stories about the war,
tales full of heroism and love of country.
While their parents were out all day working to put food on the table, Rey, the eldest of nine
children, took care of the younger ones and their household. His father died just as Rey
graduated from high school.
Andal left for Manila in 1968 on a scholarship and enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas
(UST) for a degree course in political science.
He soon got involved in a Filipinization movement initiated by students from the Ateneo de
Manila, and helped found a counterpart in UST, the Kilusang Kristiyano ng Kabataang Pilipino
(known as 3KP). He also joined the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK). In 1970, he
was among the founding members of the reform-oriented youth group, Kapulungan ng Sandigan
ng Pilipinas (KASAPI). He coordinated support activities for the survivors and witnesses in the
incident in Bantay, Ilocos Sur in 1971 in which two sitios were burned down in an act of warlord
terrorism. He joined the relief operations during the massive flooding in Central Luzon in 1971.
Still that same year, he organized and headed the Samahan ng mga Kabataan sa Ikauunlad ng
mga Tsuper, which supported the transport strikes of the pre-martial law period.
An effective and charismatic leader, Andal gave fiery speeches and made friends with student
activists, whether reform-oriented or militant.
By the middle of 1972, he had stopped attending classes and was spending more time with
activist friends and jeepney drivers. When martial law was declared that September, with some
of his friends he headed for the hills of Pinamalayan, Mindoro, apparently emulating what his
father Mariano had done, to fight an oppressive regime.
Not long after, soldiers of Task Force Lawin surrounded the hut where they were staying and
opened fire. Killed instantly were two local youths, Antonio Pastorfide and Rene Julao, while
Andal and Dante Perez of Ateneo de Manila University in Manila were both wounded. During a
break in the firing, the wife of Perez, also an activist, ran out of the hut to ask the soldiers to stop
the shooting. The soldiers went inside and simply shot the two wounded men dead. Andal died at
21.
The following morning, a local paper bannered the story of four communist rebels killed and
three captured in an encounter with soldiers.
As Andals dead body lay in the coffin, his mother Patria tenderly wrapped it with the Philippine
flag and bravely sang Bayan Ko, a patriotic song she would hear him sing. In the days after the
incident, people in Pinamalayan who had been Andals friends were rounded up by police:
teachers, students, carpenters, even the owner of the local billiard hall filled up all the cells of the
local jail; some were beaten up.1
Some time later, Mrs. Andal was arrested when a carbine rifle was found in her house; she was
keeping it, she said, as a memento of her son. She was sentenced for illegal possession of
firearms and remained in prison for 13 years and was released only in 1986 after the martial law
government was dismantled. She died in 1997.
Defending her son and his activist comrades, Aling Patty said they were only defending the
peoples interests, Ipinagtatanggol nila ang ating karapatan.
TRIFONIO N. ANDRES
BORN
October 18, 1953 in Koronadal, South Cotabato
DIED
August 17, 1983 in Digos, Davao del Sur
PARENTS
Sergio V. Andres and Concepcion Non
EDUCATION
Elementary: Elementary:
Secondary: Marbel High School, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Seminary
Notre Dame of Marbel College;
College: Ateneo de Manila;
St. Francis Xavier Regional Major Seminary, Davao
Friends remember him as warm, loving and hardworking. His closest friend, a priest, said
Trifonio or Ponyong saw life as something to offer to others selflessly, for the sake of justice
and peace, love and unity.
Andres was a seminarian in Davao City when he became involved in human rights work. He
became a volunteer for the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines under the auspices of the
Citizens Council for Justice and Peace. He visited political prisoners and other detainees inside
police and constabulary jails in Davao City. In 1979, he testified as one of the witnesses during
an investigation of a massacre by soldiers of 14 people in Catalunan Grande, near Xavier
Seminary, where he was studying.
Seeing with his own eyes the grave abuses inflicted on the people, he became a committed
opponent of the martial law regime. He told his family stories about how a government-
supported fanatic group (the Ilaga) was waging a genocidal war against Muslims in remote
towns.
In a Biblical preaching in 1981, he expressed solidarity with dispossessed farmers and

indigenous communities, as well as with the underpaid workers, denouncing the injustice that
was being done to them. This community of ours, he wrote, is not anymore a community
based on love, but money, power and prestige.2 When one speaks of love, there must be justice:
Justice is the minimum of love. There is no love where there is no justice.3
Although Andres had already become a deacon in 1981, his bishop delayed his ordination into
the priesthood. Undeterred, he continued serving as full-time volunteer of TFDP and CCJP in
Davao.
On August 17, 1983, some 50 heavily-armed soldiers and militia men belonging to the Integrated
Civilian Home Defense Force swooped down on a wedding ceremony being held in Libungan,
North Cotabato, and arrested and interrogated 15 people. The soldiers said they were looking for
communist guerrillas.
The male prisoners were hogtied, their eyes and mouths taped, and were taken to the military
camp. Four were taken to the Metrodiscom Headquarters in Digos, Davao del Sur, where they
were executed. Trifonio Andres was one of them. His body bore multiple signs of brutal torture,
and there were gunshot wounds in the chest. He was 29 years old.
He died, said his friend Fr. Antonio S. Mayo, in the darkest night of our struggle to get out
from the land of bondage and slavery in order to bring light, to bring justice and peace, to bring
love and unity to our brethren groaning because of the excruciating pain of hunger and
deprivation....4
Reflecting on Ponyongs life, his brother Sergio Jr. wrote, His deep conviction [was that] mans
spirituality should grow hand in hand with the growth of technology. Spirituality to him [was] a
consciousness that should develop in all men that will be expressed as service to fellowmen,
justice, love, sharing and giving without preconditions even to the point of sacrificing ones life.
BORN
November 27, 1934 in Concepcion, Tarlac
DIED
August 21, 1983 at the Manila International Airport
PARENTS
Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and Aurora Aquino
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Corazon Cojuangco / 5
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Josephs College, Quezon City
Secondary: San Beda College, Manila
College: Ateneo de Manila, University of the Philippines, Manila and Diliman
Benigno Ninoy Aquino Jr. was born to a prosperous, landowning political family in Tarlac
province. He was an adventurous and brash young man whose phenomenal career began when
he was hired as a reporter at the Manila Times, then the leading Philippine newspaper. At age 18,
he was sent to report on the war that was going on in Korea.
He attracted the attention of President Ramon Magsaysay, who started Aquinos political career.
With the support of Magsaysay, Aquino was elected mayor of Concepcion, Tarlac, in 1955, the
youngest to occupy the post at the age of 22. In 1962, he was elected governor of Tarlac province
at age 28, again the youngest to occupy the post. And in 1969, he was elected senator, leading
the victory for the opposition and becoming the youngest (at age 34) to be so elected.
As senator, Aquino (who called himself a radical rich guy) took a progressive stand on several
issues. He opposed Philippine involvement in the Vietnam War and condemned military and
police abuses and the use of terror and violence against civilians.
Ninoy Aquino was a popular politician with youth and charisma. When he became a clear
frontrunner for the presidential elections in 1973, he began to be seen as a threat to Ferdinand
Marcos, then on his second and final term as president.
When Marcos declared martial law in 1972, he had Aquino arrested and put in solitary
confinement, and in 1978, a military tribunal sentenced Aquino to die by firing squad. However,
foreign governments and organizations flooded the regime with letters of concern in behalf of
Aquino and other political prisoners. To defuse the situation, Marcos allowed a retrial and called
for parliamentary elections (to the Interim Batasang Pambansa), letting Aquino run while still in
jail. Marcos candidates won and Aquino lost in the rigged elections, further worsening the
peoples disgust.
Aquino then launched a 40-day prison hunger strike to focus attention on the regimes abuses.
The sacrifice nearly killed him but it helped strengthened the peoples opposition to martial law.
To rid himself of Aquino, Marcos permitted him to go abroad in 1980 to undergo heart surgery.
For the next three years, Aquino stayed in the United States, where he continued to denounce
martial law and built a network of expatriates actively opposing the regime.
Aquino returned to the Philippines on August 21, 1983, fully aware that what awaited him was
another prolonged stay in jail or possibly even death. Upon landing at the airport, soldiers
fetched him from the plane, but he was shot dead as he descended towards the tarmac. He was 48
years old. The regime blamed an unknown gunman for the killing, but most Filipinos believed
that it was Marcos and his henchmen who plotted and carried out the assassination.
Three years of protests followed, growing bolder, stronger, and spreading all over the country.
Marcos was forced to call a snap presidential election in 1986, in which he was boldly
challenged by Corazon Aquino, the martyrs widow. By then the dictator was a very sick man.
The election results were massively manipulated, and many died trying to protect the election
process. This only fueled the peoples growing anger. One month after the election, a military
faction revolted, starting a civilian-military uprising that would later be called the People Power
Revolution. Multitudes poured into the streets to call openly for the ouster of the regime, and
finally after three days, Marcos was taken away from Malacaang in a US military helicopter.
With his family and several of his closest friends, the ex-dictator was flown to Hawaii where he
lived in exile until his death six years later.
In 1986, his wife Corazon Aquino became the countrys first president after Marcos. She
released political prisoners and had a new constitution written and ratified. The couples son,
Benigno S. Aquino III, was himself elected president in 2010.
JEREMIAS A. AQUINO
BORN
June 1, 1949 in Naguilian, Isabela
DIED
December 14, 1981 in Manila
PARENTS
Jorge Aquino and Maria Ancheta
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Bernadette de los Trios / 3
EDUCATION
Elementary: Naguilian Central School, Naguilian, Isabela
Secondary: St. Peters Academy, Culalabo, Isabela
College: Trinity College and St. Andrews Theological Seminary, Quezon City
Son of a poor couple in northern Luzon, Jeremias Aquino was ordained a priest of the Philippine
Independent Church in 1974, after struggling to finance his theological studies with the help of
his family (he graduated with honors).
Aquino came to activism through the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines. Despite the
restrictions under martial law, he joined rallies to denounce the regimes injustices and human
rights violations. He also joined the Christians for National Liberation.
As a young church worker, he was able to visit France and Switzerland. The experience of life in
these European countries showed him the vast difference between them and the Philippines. He
returned to the country to work among the urban and rural poor. The crowded communities of
Tatalon and Navotas in Metro Manila, and the highland villages in the Cordillera region, became
his church.
In 19751976, Aquino was a member of the Workers Institute for Social Enlightenment under
the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. He also served in a Quezon City parish and
as Aglipayan chaplain of the University of the Philippines. His next assignments (19771978)
were as director of the Manila-based Ecumenical Center for Development, staff member of the
Christian Conference of Asias rural youth program, and missionary priest of the PIC diocese of
Greater Manila. Then he was named acting program coordinator and youth director of the Laoag
(Ilocos Norte) diocese, and concurrently acting associate rector of Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte.
It was in this latter posting that Aquino was arrested in September 1979, at a constabulary
checkpoint in Sadanga, Mountain Province. With several companions, he was held at the
constabulary stockade in Bontoc, before he was being transferred to the Bicutan jail in Metro
Manila. He was released on Christmas Eve of 1980 together with other political detainees, after
prolonged fasting and hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.
After his release, Aquino received offers for work here and abroad, but he chose to stay in the
country and helped found the Freedom Shop, a carpentry shop for unemployed former political
prisoners. He also took in editing jobs for religious publications, where he wrote about problems
faced by his people, his church the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and the ecumenical movement.
He was a man of many talents: proficient in several languages, a good musician, a sensitive poet,
a man of the church who lived and felt deeply for the poor.
Aquino died in a Manila hospital on December 14, 1981, after one week of battling for his life
following a road accident. He was 32 years old.
SANTIAGO B. ARCE
BORN
May 1, 1937 in Agtangao, Bangued, Abra
DIED
September 7, 1974 in Bangued, Abra
PARENTS
Raymundo Arce and Magdalena Bitac
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Lydia Bermudez / 8
EDUCATION
Elementary: Agtangao Elementary School, Bangued
Secondary: Sagrado Corazon High School, Bangued
College: Sagrado Corazon College, Bangued
Santiago Arce was the only child of a poor couple eking out a living as tenant farmers in the
province of Abra.
A missionary priest assigned in his hometown noticed Arces gift for music and, wanting to
encourage him, helped put him through college as a working student. Arce became a teacher,
eventually becoming principal (and bandmaster) of the missionary-run Little Flower High
School in Pearrubia, Abra.
But he remained a farmer, helping his father (who also played in the town band) in tending the
fields of corn and sugarcane after school hours. He also served as a lay leader in the Catholic
parish in Pearrubia. Later he was elected president of the Samahang Nayon and the Irrigators
Service Association in his home village of Agtangao, Bangued.
Arce had gone to college in the 1960s, when nationalist ferment was creating a progressive
intellectual environment that helped mold his thinking.
In the early 1970s, Arce joined the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and later became its
provincial coordinator for Abra. Under his leadership and with the help of other priests and nuns
in the province, FFF conducted seminars for the farmers and organized local cooperatives.
Landlords harassed their activities, but Arce remained convinced about the need to reform the
tenancy system in the rural areas. The local martial-law authorities did not appreciate his
activities either.
In 1974, Arce was implicated in the murder of a police informer. The murder suspect had told
investigators that the school principal was the owner of the motorcycle used in the killing.
Santiago was arrested but released on the same day on the intervention of the seminary rector of
the Society of the Divine Word in Bangued. He was arrested again two days later. Afterwards,
residents living close to the military camp reported hearing during the night Arces agonized
moans and pleas for his life. He was shot dead a few hours later for trying to escape.
Hundreds attended his funeral despite the pervasive fear of retaliation from the martial-law
authorities. Classes in Catholic schools all over the province were suspended so teachers and
students could attend it. Twenty priests concelebrated the funeral mass. Arce was buried after the
longest and biggest funeral procession ever recorded at the time in Abra.
At the height of the Marcos dictatorships repression, such a public display of unity was
uncommon. It was because, as a friend said, Arce was well respected: Mahal siya ng tao. Kahit
sa mga hindi member ng FFF kilala siyang mabuting tao. Napaka-useful sa community.
Maraming naituturo. (The people loved him even those who were not FFF members looked up
to him as a good man. He was so useful to the community. He was able to teach many things.)5
FERDINAND M. ARCEO
BORN
January 18, 1952 in Quezon City
DIED
July 29, 1973 in San Joaquin, Iloilo
PARENTS
Reginaldo Arceo and Thelma Mirasol
EDUCATION
Elementary: University of the Philippines Elementary School, Quezon City
Secondary: Ateneo de Manila High School
College: Ateneo de Manila University
Born to a middle-class family, Ferdinand Arceos many talents brought him various awards from
his elementary school days all the way through college. Still, he seemed happiest when helping
others especially those who had less in life.
In college, Arceo, called Ferdie, gravitated toward student activism, becoming one of the
organizers behind the reform-oriented National Union of Students of the Philippines. He helped
out during the rescue operations for victims of the 1969 earthquake disaster in Manilas Ruby
Tower, meriting him a presidential award (but he refused to attend the awarding ceremony).
He read broadly about politics, including the writings of Marx, Lenin and Mao, and Filipino
ideologue Jose Maria Sison. These were considered forbidden literature but Arceo went on to
discuss them with his friends, believing the ideas were helpful for workers and labor unions. He
developed close ties to workers and visited them in their communities. During the summer of
1970, Arceo worked as a parish volunteer in Cagayan de Oro where he gained even more
insights into the problems in rural areas.
These personal experiences led him to found the Liga ng mga Demokratikong Atenista (LDA),
considered the first radical activist organization in Ateneo. The LDA aimed at raising the
political consciousness of Ateneo students and other youths outside the campus by engaging
them in discussion groups, and inviting them to teach-ins and eventually, getting them to become
involved in the parliament of the streets, demonstrations and protest marches. Ateneo activists
remember how, with arms locked, they stormed the school administration building in 1971.
When martial law was imposed in 1972, Arceo was about to take his last semester of studies for
a humanities degree. But he opted to drop out when school authorities warned him to stop his
activism, or he would not be permitted to enrol. Not only that, Arceo decided to join the New
Peoples Army in Panay island, in order, he said, to avoid being a sitting duck an easy target
for the military and more importantly, to live among the poor and (in his mothers words) to
understand them, know their needs, know their way of life so I can speak for them, articulate
their aspirations.
The Arceo family was a constant source of support for Ferdie, the eldest of three brothers and a
sister. His father Reginaldo resigned his executive position to be consistent with the principles
which his son was upholding. His example inspired the family to have more compassion for the
poor. In one of his last letters to them, Ferdie referred to the closeness of their family ties but
added: Let us hope that what will bind us together will not be limited to the confines of
consanguinity, but unity based on the things bigger than ourselves.
Exactly eight months after he left home for the Madya-as mountains, Arceo and a companion
were shot by policemen along a beach in San Joaquin, Iloilo. The incident was part of an
operation by state security forces against subversives in Panay. Arceo died at age 21.
BORN
March 30, 1954 in Delfin Albano, Isabela
DIED
June 25, 1983 in Ilagan, Isabela
PARENTS
Felimon Asuncion and Encarnacion Gambalan
SPOUSE
Moises Vicente
EDUCATION
Elementary: Aga Elementary School, Delfin Albano, Isabela
Secondary: Tumauini Academy, Tumauini, Isabela
College: Harris Memorial College, Manila
As a freshman student in Manila when martial law was imposed, Filomena Asuncion
concentrated on her studies and shunned any political involvement. Like many other youths
hoping to finish their education, find jobs and help their families, she refused to be diverted from
her goal.
When they tried to include her in their activities, she would tell her schoolmates at Harris
Memorial College, Let others do it. Our work is the work of religion, work of the soul. She
obtained a BA in Christian education from Harris Memorial College in 1976.
After graduation, she returned to Isabela as a deaconess of the United Methodist Church. She
took the post of Christian education and music director, and taught Sunday school, conducted
Bible studies and led the church choir. A natural leader and cheerful organizer, she became the
president of the district-wide United Methodist Youth Fellowship in the district and made many
friends.
In 1979, she was drawn into an ecumenical movement of Catholics and Protestants called
Timpuyog dagiti Iglesia or TIMPI. One of the groups aims was to address the plight of
exploited farmers. TIMPI wanted to help tenant farmers by organizing cooperatives as a defense
against farm cartels. Land and politics in Isabela were monopolized by a few families, who
controlled access to capital, farm machinery and buying stations.
That was the time when Asuncion, a small farmers daughter, realized that her calling was to
address the needs of the many who were not necessarily members of her church. Her direct
interaction with them convinced her so, more than any study groups or theoretical discussions. In
her Sunday sermons, she began speaking out against the oppression suffered by local peasants.
This did not please the landlord members of her congregation. She was soon branded a
subversive.
But the young deaconess was determined to continue acting on her beliefs; in fact she blamed
herself for not having been an activist earlier in life, for she could have done more.6 In 1981 she
was among those arrested at a farmers protest rally in Ilagan and jailed from April to October.
That was when she came to the conclusion that the military would never see the legitimacy of
protest actions, and that her church might not defend her if she pursued her commitment to the
farmers struggles.
Asuncion thus left her post in the church and joined the revolutionary underground then
operating in the area; she now worked full-time in organizing the local farmers in defense of
their rights. She now saw them as being part of her extended, spiritual family. The time has
come, she wrote a friend, when real involvement is needed for me to prove that I am indeed on
the side of change.7
Known in the area as Ka Liway, she was killed in 1983 after an armed encounter between armed
guerrillas and government forces in Ilagan. Witnesses said she was captured alive, maltreated
and abused before being killed.
Although she had despaired about the lack of support from her church, hundreds of church
members and friends gathered at the Central Methodist Church in Manila in July, one month
after her death, to give recognition to the work of Filomena Asuncion, the deaconess who
believed in giving her life for others.
ELSA BALANDO
BORN
1949, in Catubig, Samar
DIED
May 1, 1971 in front of the Congress building on P. Burgos, Manila
Elsa Balando was one of the earliest casualties of the peoples struggle for their rights under the
Marcos regime.
Little is documented of her personal circumstances before she left her hometown in Catubig,
Samar in 1968 to try her luck in Manila. Her friends only knew that, like them, she needed to
help her family survive.
First she worked as a housemaid for one year, then as a tindera (sales assistant). Later she found
a job at a garment manufacturer in Caloocan City, Rossinis Knitwear Factory as a seamer and
paid three pesos a day. The other women there also came from poor rural families in Misamis
Oriental, Agusan del Sur, Bohol, Pangasinan, I locos, Samar, Bicol, Nueva Ecija.
Eventually, Balando, called Liza by her friends, became a union organizer at Rossinis. She was
gifted with an inquiring mind, seeking answers to vital questions that bothered her. She was
already living the deep injustice of the situation where factory owners squeezed their profits from
the labor of the people they employed, forcing them to work in miserable conditions and for very
low wages. She joined study groups where she was able to connect the problems of working
people like her with the broader problems facing the whole of Philippine society.
When Rossinis workers went on strike for the first time in March 1971 to demand better
working conditions, Balando hardly left the picket line. She was among those who laid their
bodies on the ground trying to prevent a company vehicle from leaving the factory compound.
The city mayors goons harassed the strikers, but they refused to retreat.
On May 1, 1971, Balando was among 4,000 demonstrators, mostly students and factory workers,
who gathered in front of the Congress building in Manila, at a rally marking that years
International Labor Day. Combat troops from the 55thCompany of the Philippine Constabulary
and the Metropolitan Command (Metrocom) were deployed to guard the mass action;
machineguns were positioned on top of the building, and a military helicopter hovered in the air.
The rally was underway when explosions were heard and shots were fired. Balando tried to seek
safety, but bullets hit her three times in the chest before she could do so. She was among the
three persons who were killed in what would be known as the May Day Massacre of 1971.
Richard Escarta and Ferdinand Oaing also died, while fifteen others were wounded.
Balandos co-workers and friends chipped in to buy her a coffin, pay for her funeral expenses,
and send her body home by boat to her family in Samar. Hundreds came to Manilas North
Harbor to see her off, turning the leave-taking into a protest action against the repressive Marcos
government. In Samar, thousands came to her burial, including poor farmers from neighboring
barrios and towns.
A wave of indignation in and out of the country met the violent dispersal of the May Day rally.
Labor unions, members of the political opposition, and student groups all expressed their dismay
and anger at the incident. Demonstrators stoned the Philippine Consulate in Canberra, Australia.
Two months after Liza Balandos death, the union at Rossinis won its demands from
management.
BORN
March 18, 1948 in Baguio City
DIED
March 24, 1976 in Mauban, Quezon
PARENTS
Romeo Barros and Alicia Morelos
CHILD
1
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Josephs College, Quezon City
Secondary Far Eastern University Girls High School, Manila
College University of the Philippines Diliman
Maria Lorena Barros remains today as one of the most well-known heroes of the antidictatorship
struggle: a charismatic leader, gifted writer, icon of modern Philippine feminism, the gentle
warrior who defiantly confronted death at the hands of government soldiers, deep in the forests
of the Sierra Madre.
From early childhood, Barros showed keen intelligence, a searching mind and precocious social
awareness, nurtured by her mother Alicia Morelos. The latter, granddaughter of a Katipunero and
herself a member of the Hukbalahap guerrilla resistance, would become her daughters closest
friend and confidant.
Earning honors from grade school through college, Barros graduated from the University of the
Philippines in 1970 with a degree in anthropology. She started teaching after graduation, while
taking up masteral courses at the UP. She was already making a name for herself as a writer,
publishing poetry and essays in various publications and eventually being elected president of
the UP Writers Club.
By the end of the 1960s, Lorie Barros was being drawn into political activism. She joined
exposure trips to the rural areas and immersed herself in the emerging political literature. She
organized the all-women Makibaka (Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan) and became its
first chairperson. Makibaka chapters quickly spread across the country, in factories, in villages,
and even in exclusive girls schools.
Yet she was someone who refused to be confined to the stereotypical image of a student activist,
or a feminist activist. She did not repress her natural charm and kindheartedness, and she was
proud of her long shapely legs.
When President Ferdinand Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1971, Barros was one
of 63 student leaders charged with subversion. She went underground, married and had a son, all
the while keeping up a stream of correspondence with family and friends. She was arrested in
Bicol in November 1973, and jailed at Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna and transferred to Fort
Bonifacios Ipil Rehabilitation Center from where she escaped one year later with three other
political prisoners.
She rejoined the underground, helping to fight what had become a full-blown dictatorship. She
continued to write poems, songs and essays from the underground. In 1974, the regime
announced a P35,000 reward for her capture.
On March 24, 1976, Barros was seriously wounded in an armed encounter with constabulary
soldiers in Cagsiay II, Mauban, Quezon. A companion was killed instantly. Her captors promised
medical treatment if she would cooperate with them, but she said that she would rather die for
her beliefs. She was shot in the nape. She was 28 years old.
Lorie Barros was given a heroines wake and burial by family and friends. In a tribute to her
courage and principled life, her comrades marched with her coffin singing revolutionary songs,
risking arrest themselves. A well-attended necrological service was held at the UP campus.
BORN
July 14, 1950 in Legazpi City
DIED
March 21, 1975 in Villarey, Echague, Isabela
PARENTS
John Begg and Zenaida Acua
EDUCATION
Secondary: San Jose Minor Seminary, Quezon City
San Jose Major Seminary, Ateneo de Manila University, University of the
College
Philippines Diliman
Born in the Bicol region to an American father and a Filipino mother, William Begg renounced
his American citizenship when he turned 21. He believed that this was his country and the
Filipinos were his people, his mother explained.
William, or Bill, was a good student, graduating as salutatorian of his class in high school, and
getting excellent grades in college. He wanted to be a priest, and entered the seminary where
college courses were taken at the Ateneo; in his third year there, he began engaging in social
action work among poor communities in Barangka, Marikina, near the school campus. His
political views grew increasingly militant until school authorities eventually asked him to leave
the university and the seminary.
Begg was first arrested in 1971 for putting up posters in Marikina. Shortly after the declaration
of martial law in 1972, he was again arrested and detained in Fort Bonifacio.
After his release in April 1973, Begg went back to school to fulfill a promise to his father that he
would finish college. He enrolled at the University of the Philippines, taking up history. He tried
to live a normal students life, joining a fraternity and helping organize a history majors society.
He did not stay long in the university, however. In September 1974, Begg left for the countryside
to join the underground.
I cannot in conscience continue my academic studies, nor do I have any ambition to live a nice,
peaceful and secure life. For this in effect would mean a compromise of inaction in the face of
intensifying economic crises and repression as well as monopolization of political power by a
fascist dictatorship, he explained in a letter to his parents.
Through letters, Begg kept in touch with his family. As he described adjusting to his new life as
a rebel guerrilla, he also wrote eloquently about the need for basic changes, for humanitarian
service. I think all of us deserve a more humane and democratic social order. He was learning
acupuncture, and his group had started a medical clinic for a poor community. He asked his
parents to send him a medical encyclopedia which they did.
In March 1975, Begg was with a team of guerrillas that had gone to meet a doctor in Villarey,
Echague, Isabela, when they were attacked by a battalion of AFP troops. In the exchange of fire
that followed, four of his comrades were killed, while Begg himself was hit in the leg. Assessing
his situation, he urged the others to leave him behind so he could cover their escape. He was
apparently captured alive; when his body was eventually recovered, it bore the marks of severe
torture.
In a tribute to his heroic sacrifice, his family engraved the following words on his tombstone:
He laid down his life for his friends.
PEPITO V. BERNARDO
BORN
February 23, 1950 in Pearanda, Nueva Ecija
DIED
June 10, 1985 in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija
PARENTS
Pepito B. Bernardo and Marcelina Vicente
EDUCATION
Elementary: Pearanda Central School, Nueva Ecija
Secondary: Ma. Assumpta Seminary, Apalit, Pampanga
San Carlos Seminary, Guadalupe, Makati;
College:
Maryhill Seminary, Taytay, Rizal
Pepito Bernardo, Catholic priest, was not a person to follow the easy road.
Though he knew, even as a child, that he wanted to become a priest, after entering the seminary
he criticized its formation program for not being relevant enough to the peoples needs. As a
result, he and 10 other classmates were asked to transfer to another seminary. He did finish his
theology studies and was ordained priest in 1974.
His first assignment was to serve the Dumagat communities in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija and in
Dingalan, deep in the mountains of the Sierra Madre in Luzon. As parish priest, he tried to
integrate his own worldview and that of the Dumagat, who live very close to nature. Apparently
he was able to touch their hearts. It was said that some of them were willing to walk days, even
weeks, to hear Bernardo Father Pites to them give one of his simple sermons.
Bernardo also organized adult literacy programs, urging the Dumagat to think critically and to
speak out against injustice. The problems of body and soul had to be tackled together, he said.
By then he had become a member of the Christians for National Liberation.
In 1977, he joined the Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos and Rural Missionaries of the
Philippines where he served as coordinator for the Sierra Madre area.
Twice, Bernardo was detained by the military. The first time was in 1980 in Isabela when he was
questioned for being in possession of a slide projector which the local police authorities said was
banned in the area. He was taken to Bicutan Rehabilitation Center and from there a few months
later, on December 24, 1980, in time for the visit to the Philippines of Pope John Paul II.
It did not take long for the police to rearrest Bernardo, this time in Baler, Quezon, in August
1981. The torture he underwent while being interrogated was unusually harsh for a priest
water cure, suffocation with a plastic bag, electric shocks, being made to lie on a block of ice,
being burned with live cigarette butts, and solitary confinement.
His arrest was denounced by many, and petitions for his release and those of other political
prisoners poured in from various groups abroad. Eventually, the military released Bernardo into
the custody of Pampanga Bishop Oscar Cruz. He went on to serve as chaplain of the Pampanga
parochial hospital and as seminary instructor. He also continued to minister to the needs of poor
people. He left for a heart bypass in the United States, but returned to resume his pastoral work
after the operation.
Bernardo died in 1985 at the age of 35. He was on board a vehicle with three companions when
their vehicle was rammed by a six-wheeler truck. His companions survived their injuries but
Bernardo died on the spot. No investigation was made about the incident.
RENATO L. BUCAG
BORN
November 7, 1939 in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental
DIED
May 1, 1984 in Lunotan, Gingoog City
PARENTS
Victorino B. Bucag and Jorgia Lago
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Melchora Villegas / 4
EDUCATION
Elementary: Gingoog City Central School
Secondary: Christ the King Academy, Ginoog City
College: University of San Carlos, Cebu City
In 1971, Renato L. Bucag, a member of Liberal Party of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., was elected to
the municipal board of Gingoog, Misamis Oriental; he was the only oppositionist to win. Martial
law was imposed in 1972, but he was able to continue serving until 1978. Though local
governments under the dictatorship were controlled by the Marcos-party Kilusang Bagong
Lipunan, he was known for being independent-minded, and particularly concerned to ensure that
public funds would be well spent.
When he was no longer a municipal official, Bucag lent leadership and support to the
antidictatorship opposition until the 1984 elections for the regular Batasang Pambansa, when he
assumed the helm of the Pilipino Democratic Party-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) in Gingoog
City. By that time resistance to the Marcos regime was becoming bolder and more open.
Bucag was an effective campaigner since people knew him to be upright and honest. Family and
friends feared for his life. Locals say that the years 1982 to February 1986 were Gingoog Citys
bloody era, when numerous heinous killings were carried out by paramilitary groups and
notorious religious fanatics with the support of military and civilian authorities.9
Still, Bucag went around without bodyguards, even to remote areas of the city. He believed in
fighting for what he believed to be right for himself and for the country.
Living an aimless life is useless, he once wrote. A man, if he wants to be called a rational
being, has to commit himself to a common goal. Because whether you like it or not, there will
come a time when you have to choose between a meaningful death and a meaningless life.
He had been running a 41-hectare farm in Lunotan, on the outskirts of the city, where he planted
coffee and citrus. He started the Gingoog Farmers Association in the late 1970s. He held
Sunday community prayers with his farm workers and fellow farmers.
Bucag and his wife Melchora both loved the simple life on their farm, though he had the means
and the education to provide a more comfortable life for themselves and their four young
children.
Renato (called Dodong) graduated with honors in elementary and high school. He excelled as a
debater in college. He took up two years of law while working as a court interpreter; but he did
not complete his law degree.
Two weeks before the 1984 elections, husband and wife, with their youngest son Renato Victor
Jr., 11, were brutally killed by members of the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Force (ICHDF)
and the Tadtad, a group of religious fanatics.
Witnesses said the killers forced themselves inside the Bucags farmhouse on the night of May 1,
1984. The following day, neighbors found the three bodies hacked almost beyond recognition.
Four of the killers who were positively identified were arrested but later released by the military.
Witnesses had to go into hiding.
Over 20,000 people joined the funeral march held for the Bucag family. Cagayan de Oro
Archbishop Patrick Cronin publicly denounced the massacre and demanded speedy justice from
the government. Members of the political opposition, including Assemblyman Aquilino Pimentel
Jr., and Bucags sister Helen Canoy, called for the disbandment of paramilitary groups operating
in the province.
In July 1986, two years after the killing and several months after the dictatorship was dismantled,
four of the Bucag killers were convicted. The KBL mayor at the time of the massacre was
subsequently implicated and included as co-accused. But in 1988, the main suspect escaped and
the case has been pending in court. Four of the suspects were never arrested.
BORN
July 6, 1938 in Ubay, Bohol
DIED
October 9,1983 in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte
PARENTS
Escolastico Cabarubias and Maxima Damolo
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Apolonia F. Cabarubias / 12
EDUCATION
Elementary: Tapal Elementary School, Ubay, Bohol
Secondary: Ampayon High School, Butuan City
It was a hard life that Tranquilino Cabarubias had: a struggle to make the land productive, to
defend his community. Yet he had plenty of faith to keep him going: faith that freedom would be
achieved, that one day Gods kingdom shall reign forever.
Cabarubias, better known as Trank, was born in Bohol and he migrated to Mindanao hoping to
find new opportunities in the land of promise. He farmed a small land in the northeast, and
raised a family of 12. Despite his years of toil, however, he never managed to have the land titled
in his name.
Whats more, as time went by, and especially when the martial law dictatorship was imposed in
the 1970s, settler communities like his in Sangay, Buenavista, Agusan del Norte, came under
threat from big, Manila-based corporations wanting to take over the lands themselves, with the
support and encouragement of the Marcos regime.
Cabarubias, who had become a respected community leader, was also a lay worker in his parish
which was administered by the Sacred Heart Missionaries. It was he who organized the settlers
resistance against the entry into their villages of a powerful lumber firm. The company sent
armed goons who demolished the peoples houses with chainsaws, and stole farm implements
and carpentry tools. Cabarubias and the other leaders were arrested and detained for 14 days
without charges. But they succeeded in keeping their village safe and intact.
Another time, in the 1980s, a giant paper manufacturing company was all set to turn their farms
into a tree plantation. Cabarubias and his neighbors again mobilized to protest against the
encroachment. The corporation backed off.
Cabarubias served in the barangay council for many years until his death in 1983. He took
principled positions on national issues. In 1981, he led his community in boycotting the
presidential election, believing that it had been rigged to make the Marcos regime appear
legitimate. He publicly criticized the abuses of political and military officials and spoke out
against the greed of capitalists who amassed profits at the expense of poor people.
Repeatedly warned to stop being so hardheaded or else suffer the consequences, Cabarubias
knew his life was in danger. He asked his older children to look after the family and the farm
should anything happen to him.
In October 1982, New Peoples Army (NPA) guerrillas ambushed a vehicle in barangay Sangay,
killing three policemen and two civilians. Although Cabarubias was one of those injured in the
attack, the military interrogated him and tried to make it appear that he was somehow involved.
Then on the night of October 9, 1983, armed men barged into his house, pretending to be from
the NPA and asking for medicine. When Cabarubias refused, he was shot in front of his terrified
children and wife, who had just given birth.
Soldiers in full battle gear came to the funeral, apparently in an effort to scare away the big
crowd of mourners. They cannot leave Trank alone even in death, observed one resident.
But Trank had not been afraid to die. In a farewell poem, he visualized the day of victory When
the shadows of sorrow shall pass away, for there shall be justice in the land, / All will be free and
happy... When that day comes, he wrote, Come visit our graves / And behold the flowers
dancing in the wind....
CLARO G. CABRERA
BORN
December 14, 1956 in Angeles, Pampanga
DIED
May 31, 1984 in Angeles, Pampanga
PARENTS
Leonardo Cabrera and Lourdes Goingco
EDUCATION
Secondary: Republic Central College, Pampanga
Claro Cabrera, Lito as everyone knew him, lived all his life in the crowded community of
Sapang Bato in Angeles City, on the edges of the huge American military base at Clark Air Base.
The people found intermittent employment as construction workers, tricycle drivers, bartenders
and waitresses in the numerous small bars that catered to American soldiers. Many women
washed clothes, the younger ones sold their bodies. Little children peddled garlands of flowers,
or they begged for coins.
With so few holding down decent, long-term jobs and drug use further used up what little money
people earned, no wonder there were so many broken families. Young people dropped out of
school because they could not afford it, or simply found no point in continuing their studies.
Lito Cabrera grew up amid all these hardships. He and his seven brothers and sisters lived with
their mother, who was separated from their father. He quit studying after two years of high
school and worked on construction projects that usually lasted a few months. Other relatives also
helped the family.
One day in the early 1980s Cabrera and some of his friends were drawn into the activities of the
Concerned Citizens of Pampanga, said to be the oldest cause-oriented organization in Central
Luzon.11 They began attending rallies, explaining to their neighbors and friends what the issues
were all about. They were part of the nationwide Lakbayan-Sakbayan marches.
A change was noticed in Lito Cabrera: people saw that he was good at working with the youth,
getting them away from drugs, teaching them handicrafts, how to make and sell hand-printed
shirts. He sang and played the guitar with them.
In 1984, the Marcos regime scheduled elections to be held for the Batasang Pambansa. Because
the results were sure to be rigged, cause-oriented organizations campaigned nationwide for a
boycott. As the campaign gained widespread support, the military and local officials mobilized
to ensure the victory of the regimes candidates. At a public meeting, boycotters were openly
threatened by the barangay captain, who said, I dont know what will happen to you...just start
praying.
In the early morning of May 28, 1984, Cabrera was picked up by constabulary soldiers near his
home in Sapang Bato, together with Pepito Deheran and Rolando Castro. The three were taken to
a constabulary camp in Angeles City where they were beaten and forced to say they were
members of the New Peoples Army.
After days of searching by their families, the bodies of Cabrera and Castro were found dumped
on the bank of the Apalit river, one kilometer apart from each other. Both bore many stab
wounds. Deheran managed to crawl away and had himself brought to a hospital. Before
succumbing to his wounds, he signed a statement revealing the identities of two of their attackers
as members of the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Force and soldiers in uniform with no
name tags.
The parents of the three victims sued the persons named by Deheran, but nothing more happened
after the in itial hearings of the case. One of the two accused was found dead a year later,
reportedly killed by the NPA, and the other one has not been seen or heard from since then.
CRISOSTOMO CAILING
BORN
1937 in Misamis Oriental
DIED
July 6, 1985 in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Praxedes Cailing / 6
Under the Marcos dictatorship, Mindanao was a harsh place to live in, especially for the poor and
defenseless.
The islands rich resources its forests, minerals and fertile soil were being plundered with the
blessings of the regime. Settlers tilling their small farms, as well as the original inhabitants of
Mindanao, lumads, were being harassed and evicted so big corporations could take over the land.
In the area where Crisostomo Cailing lived and practiced law, the people in the rural areas were
suffering under the government policy of population and resources control. In practice, it was a
food blockade, meant as a counter-insurgency measure. Residents were allowed to store enough
rice for only three days, as the military was suspicious that the supplies would make their way to
the rebel guerrillas in the mountains. The people found the policy very oppressive, as they had to
spend more money and time in buying limited quantities. They also had to endure the indignity
of having their purchases inspected.
Cailing was not one to make fiery speeches, but he consistently defended the victims of such
abuses. He went to court to protest against illegal arrests, and he looked after the rights and
welfare of the numerous political detainees. He shunned opportunities to become rich, never
owned a car, and chose to live a simple life. His clients were invariably poor, and at times it was
he who gave them money for their needs.
In the 1980 local elections, he ran for mayor of Balingasag under the Mindanao Alliance Party,
but lost to a candidate fielded by Marcos Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.
He joined the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) in 1982, extending his services to seven
municipalities in Misamis Oriental subjected to harsh military policies. As an elected member of
the board of directors of the areas electric service cooperation, he looked out for consumers
rights too.
He participated in local actions launched during the May 1984 campaign to boycott the elections.
On election day itself, hundreds of protesters gathered on the beach and cheered as Tommy
Cailing crowned a Miss Boycott.
As the military terror worsened in Balingasag to include the burning of houses, stealing of crops
and household goods, assassinations and abductions, Cailing tried to get the help of more city
lawyers and human rights advocates from Cagayan de Oro city to investigate the situation.
One evening in early July 1985, Cailing was at home, seated in front of an open window, when a
gunman took aim and killed him before walking away to get aboard a motorcycle waiting one
block away. His daughter, 15, witnessed the murder.
About 5,000 came to bury Tommy Cailing. The storm of anger caused by his death caused the
military to temporarily suspend the food blockade policy in the rural areas nearby. But no one
has been prosecuted for the crime.
BORN
April 6,1952 in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija
DIED
May 4,1974 in San Mariano, Isabela
PARENTS
Jose F. Calderon and Rosenda Ramos
SPOUSE / CHILD
Julieta Cruz / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Philippine Wesleyan College, Cabanatuan City
Secondary: Philippine Wesleyan College
College: University of the Philippines Diliman
The young Jose R. Calderon was his schools most outstanding student from first grade to fourth
year high school. He showed interest in the arts, particularly in drama and dance, and was active
in the Methodist Youth Fellowship.
Addressing his classmates as their valedictorian upon their graduation from high school, he
stressed the role of the youth in helping create a society where economic justice and political
freedom prevail: We may not live to see the fulfillment of this dream but certainly, we can lay
down the foundation of its beginning. Let us therefore dedicate our golden hours, enthusiasm and
energy to the challenge of the times economic development, freedom and security.
When he entered the University of the Philippines as a political science major, campus activism
quickly drew him in. He joined the Nationalist Corps of the UP Student Council, the Samahang
Demokratiko ng Kabataan and the Alpha Sigma fraternity. Summer breaks found him and his
friends living in the rural areas, as part of a learning from the people campaign.
Calderon was active in the big demonstrations in Manila, in what would later be known as the
First Quarter Storm of 1970. When student rallies were violently dispersed on January 30 and 31
in Mendiola, near Malacaang Palace, he was there.
Reared in the Methodist Church, Calderon interpreted his growing involvement in activism not
only as a social demand but as an expression of his Protestant faith. When in July 1971 he finally
decided to leave the university and commit himself fulltime to the movement, he wrote his
parents:
Kung tatandaan lamang ninyo na narito sa kilusan ang aking kaligayahan at wala sa pag-
aaral, marahil ay matutuwa pa kayo sapagkat ang anak ninyo ay nakatagpo ng magandang
kahulugan para sa kanyang buhayisang buhay na sa aking palagay ay higit na kristiyano at
maka-Diyos kaysa sa palaging pagpunta sa kapilya nang hindi naman isinasabuhay ang turn ng
bibliya. (If you consider that it is being in the movement and not being a student that makes me
happy, you may be glad that your son has found positive meaning in life its a life that I think
is more christian and godly than if one were to spend his time praying in the chapel but without
practising what the Bible teaches.)
He asked his parents not to blame themselves for his decision. Blame the system, he said,
which created millions of poor people, exploited by foreigners and a few greedy Filipinos. As
long as that kind of system prevailed and a fairer system not put in its place, he wrote, more
parents will lose their children, more children will lose their parents, and more husbands or
wives will lose their spouses. He was ready, he declared, to give up his life in the struggle to
establish this radical change in society.
In July 1971, Calderon went to the jungles of Isabela in Northern Luzon to join the New Peoples
Army (NPA), then a newly-organized guerrilla group. In his letters, he described the numerous
hardships and sacrifices they were going through, as the Marcos regime launched all-out efforts
to eliminate them while it was still early enough. Taking the name Ka Elmo, he served with the
NPA until he was killed in a battle with government forces in May 1974 in San Mariano, Isabela.
His letters have been compiled by his family in a book Mga Liham ni Ka Elmo (Letters from Ka
Elmo), a record of his patriotism and bravery, his efforts to overcome material and emotional
difficulties, and his unwavering solidarity with the people.
ROLANDO M. CASTRO
BORN
April 1, 1952 in Angeles City, Pampanga
DIED
May 31, 1984 in Angeles City, Pampanga
PARENTS
Venancio Castro and Felicidad Mawirat
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Elvira Belisario / 4
EDUCATION
Elementary: Sapang Bato Elementary School, Angeles City
Secondary: Republic Central College, Pampanga
They were really close friends, these three: Rolando Castro, Claro Cabrera and Pepito Deheran.
When Rolands eldest son was baptized in church, Peping Deheran stood as godfather. When the
second boy was baptized, Lito Cabrera was asked to be his godfather.
Castro was the first to get married and raise a family. He and his wife Elvira met while they were
working at a hotel: he was a laborer and she washed bed linens. Upon settling down in Angeles
City, the young husband supported his brood by driving a tricycle. Sometimes he would also find
temporary work, building houses, at the nearby US military base. He was a good man,
thoughtful and hardworking, Elvira said. I never had any problem with him.12
When Roland became an active member of Concerned Citizens of Pampanga, a cause-oriented

organization that campaigned against human rights violations by the martial law regime, he
didnt exactly inform her but she knew. When he made remarks about Marcos policies not
being good for the country, I thought to myself that he was probably hanging out with the
activists. That was three or four years before he died.
She would learn from his friends about the rallies they joined. Once, Roland was gone for a
week. It turned out he had joined a Lakbayan [protest march]. He showed us pictures of him and
his friends. Many people from Sapang Bato were also there.
Castro divided his time between his growing family and his community work, where he aimed to
help the youth spend their time wisely by teaching them handicraft skills and involving them in
sports activities. The three buddies built themselves a small hut near Cabreras place, and used it
as their own sort of clubhouse.
The three became very active in the campaign to boycott the 1984 Batasang Pambansa elections
that the Marcos regime had called. It was obviously intended to pacify the peoples raging
protest movement, especially after the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. On the local
level, government supporters had instructions to suppress any dissenters and push through with
the exercise.
Shortly after the elections had been held, Castro, Deheran and Cabrera were abducted from their
little hut by a team of militia led by a soldier. They were brought to a military detachment where
they were interrogated, beaten and stabbed repeatedly. Afterwards the bodies of Castro and
Cabrera were dumped into the nearby Apalit River. Deheran survived, and made a statement
before dying later; in it he named two of their attackers.
Elvira was left to raise their four boys by working again as a laundrywoman. The families of the
three friends sued but the case did not prosper.
CRISTINA F. CATALLA
BORN
December 25, 1950 in Tondo, Manila
DISAPPEARED
July 31, 1977 in Makati City
PARENTS
Ambrosio Catalla and Iluminada Farma
EDUCATION
Tondo and Sampaloc, Manila;
Elementary:
Sta. Clara Elementary School, Lamitan City, Basilan
Basilan City High School;
Secondary:
Ramon Magsaysay High School, Quezon City
College: University of the Philippines Los Baos
As the child of a government auditor whose work assignments took him and his family to various
areas of the country, Melania Cristina Catalla was born and spent her early childhood in Manila
but lived and studied in Mindanao for several years, before finishing high school in Quezon City.
Her father was then assigned to the University of the Philippines in Los Baos, Laguna. Cristina,
or Tina to friends, enrolled at the College of Agriculture, majoring in economics. She was soon
active in many extracurricular activities. Besides the UP Student Catholic Action and the Delta
Phi Omicron sorority, she joined the Cultural Society where she became active in the education
committee. In her senior year, she was named associate editor of the campus paper Aggie Green
and Gold where she wrote thought-provoking columns.
Although she was a quiet young woman, in 1969 Catalla already began actively participating in
university-wide protest activities. Friends saw her everywhere: sitting in discussion groups,
marching in rallies, going to protest concerts, attending lecture-forums. The following year, she
joined the militant Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan.
For many student activists, the 1971 suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by President Marcos
was a turning point. Catalla became filled with a sense of urgency and mission. She stopped
going to school, deciding instead to work fulltime as student and youth organizer. At first she
worked in areas around the campus then later moved to the nearby towns of Laguna.
She showed outstanding leadership qualities as she helped organize marches, mobilizing the
public to protest Marcos growing abuses and imminent move towards creating a dictatorship.
These efforts culminated with the organization of the Southern Tagalog Movement for Civil
Liberties in 1972. Catalla was put in charge of coordination for Batangas sectoral organizing, as
well as the training of instructors for popular education courses.
She was with five other youth activists in Makati, Manila, when all six disappeared on July 31,
1977. Family and friends made repeated efforts to find them Catalla, Manuel Sison, Rizalina
Ilagan, Jessica Sales, Ramon Jasul and Gerardo Faustino but they could not find the youths. In
1978, military authorities wrote to the families of the three missing women, saying they had been
killed in an encounter between soldiers and New Peoples Army guerrillas in Mauban, Quezon.
However, no bodies have been produced, except for Sisons which was found in a common
grave at the public cemetery in Lucena City.
MARY CONSUELO (REMEDIOS) CHUIDIAN
BORN
May 4, 1937 in Manila
DIED
November 21, 1983 in the seas off northeastern Mindanao
PARENTS
Juan R. Chuidian and Consuelo Albert
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Scholasticas College, Manila
Secondary: St. Scholasticas College, Manila
College: St. Scholasticas College, Manila
Postgraduate: St. Louis University, Missouri (USA)
Remedios Chuidian, later known as Sister Mary Consuelo or Sister Elo, was born into a life of
privilege. She had her fill of parties and pampering, and she was able to study for a masters
degree abroad. Many were surprised when in 1961 she joined the Religious of the Good
Shepherd and volunteered to be assigned to Mindanao.
In line with the promotion of social teachings by the Roman Catholic Church, Chuidian
embraced a life of poverty and sacrifice among the oppressed and marginalized people in
Mindanaos rural areas. She began attending protest rallies. She started giving awareness
seminars. She opened her school facilities to tribal groups, labor groups, and others who could
not afford to rent expensive venues for their meetings and forums.
Her first assignment as a missionary sister was in Maragusan, Davao del Norte, where upland
farmers grew coffee and cacao, and life was very hard. People depended on rain for water. They
had no electricity. There were frequent landslides.
Among the Mansaka, an indigenous community, Sister Elo and the other nuns started a program
to train lay apostolates, kaabag, who went out to the villages to hold prayer services and give
communion in the absence of a priest. The sisters also trained catechists and organized a social
action center. Sister Elo learned to wear bakya or wooden clogs, and to bathe in the creek, like
everybody else.
She learned to take these difficulties in stride, in the same way that she remained unfazed by the
mistrust shown towards them by government troopers and New Peoples Army guerrillas both
operating in the same area.
Her next post was in Laac, Davao del Norte, where the people had been forced to relocate from
their original communities and regroup in so-called hamlets, so as to remove them from the
influence of anti-government guerrilla units.
The people could not return to their farms, so there was little food and much discontent. The
hamlets, under the strict control of the military, had no running water, no toilets, no bathrooms.
Epidemics broke out, and children were getting sick and dying. One Christmas Eve, Sister Elo
and another nun had to bring a sick person down from the hamlet to a hospital in town; it was a
very bad road. The nuns ate the same food as the other people, mostly camote, corn and
bagoong. Sister Elo lost a lot of weight. Her letters to her family , however, spoke not of her own
difficulties but of military atrocities, corpses, torture, weeping widows, starving children,
droughts and floods.
In 1982, Chuidian moved to Davao City when she was appointed superior of the RGS
community there. She was also elected chair of the Womens Alliance for True Change
(WATCH) and coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines for South Mindanao. She
became a leading figure in the Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) and the Association of
Religious Women of Davao (ARWOD).
These new responsibilities allowed her to help more people suffering from martial law, victims
of ambushes needing medical attention, families forced to live in hamlets, activists on the
governments wanted list seeking refuge, rape survivors, and even wounded guerrillas.
Sister Mary Consuelo Chuidian, nicknamed Rubia as a child because of her naturally light-
colored hair, transformed into the much-loved, ever helpful Sister Elo who lived to serve the
poor. She was admired for her sincere spirit of self-sacrifice. She was one of those who died in
1983 when their ship, the MV Cassandra, sank on their way to a meeting in Cebu. Survivors said
the nuns were among those who took care of the children and helped organize the distribution of
life vests, not taking any for themselves.
BORN
September 26, 1963 in Manila
DIED
March 1984; body found in Silang, Cavite
PARENTS
Nemesio Clarete and Gregoria Mendoza
SPOUSE / CHILD
Angelina Ruiz / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Bridgets College
St. Bridgets College;
Secondary:
Western Philippine Colleges, Batangas City
College: Western Philippine Colleges, Batangas City
Ronillo Noel Clarete was a senior commerce student in Batangas City when he was killed.
Clarete, who was Noel to friends and family, was active in various organizations in and out of
school. He was vice-president, then president, of the organization of banking and finance
students in his school. He joined the Omega Epsilon Xi fraternity and was a member of the
Batangas City Student Forum.
School authorities took notice of Clarete when he and two other student leaders, Ismael Umali
and Aurelio Magpantay, created the Makisama Party, which led the students in protesting against
tuition fee increases. Their party also accused the school administration of restricting campus
press freedom and of refusing to recognize an elected student council.
Clarete was suspended for his participation in these school protests.
In the aftermath of the assassination in 1983 of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., Nilo started joining
rallies denouncing the abuses of the Marcos regime. He became an active member of the
Batangas chapter of the Justice for Aquino Justice for All (JAJA) movement.
He went missing with three other young men who had joined a Lakbayan (Lakad para sa
Kalayaan ng Bayan) in Manila in the first week of March 1984. Clarete had told his wife and
mother that he needed to go to Manila to secure a government clearance. He never returned
home. His mutilated body and that of the others were found weeks later in Silang, Cavite, in a
shallow grave.
The four Lakbayanis were given a solemn funeral together in Batangas City on April 13, 1984.
CESAR C. CLIMACO
BORN
February 28, 1916 in Zamboanga City
DIED
November 14, 1984 in Zamboanga City
PARENTS
Gregorio B. Climaco and Isabel Cortez
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Julia Floreta / 6
EDUCATION
Secondary: Zamboanga Normal School
University of Santo Tomas;
College:
University of the Philippines
At Cesar Climacos funeral, some 200,000 people joined a five-hour procession that walked him
to his grave on a hilltop in Zamboanga City. It seemed the people could not do enough to show
how much they loved their mayor: they showered his coffin with petals and confetti, they prayed
and wept, they put up placards and streamers along the way.
Certainly he knew his life was in danger but Climaco was not afraid to go on doing what he had
always done: fighting injustice and corruption, trying to make peace in the community,
defending the poor and weak from the powerful.
The Marcos dictatorship was the most powerful of all his adversaries, and he was not afraid of it
either. He openly denounced the imposition of martial law in 1972, because it robbed Filipinos
of their basic rights and liberties. He vowed never to cut his hair until it was lifted. When Marcos
announced that he was lifting martial law, Climaco called it a sham and still refused to cut his
hair.
When Benigno Aquino Jr. was killed in 1983, Climaco had a shrine erected in his honor and
inscribed it with bold accusations against the military as perpetrators of the crime. He sent
several telegrams to Marcos urging him to set up an independent tribunal to try the case, and to
order the legal panel to cooperate with the Tanodbayan, or ombudsman.
Climaco devoted a total of 30 years to public service. Aside from some years spent in national
positions as customs commissioner and presidential assistant on community development in
the 1960s he was most well known as the fighting mayor of Zamboanga City. Before being
elected (as an oppositionist) in 1980, he had already served, and made a good reputation, in that
position from 1953 to 1963.
An unconventional man, Climaco obviously loved his job. He liked to go around by himself on
his motorcycle, dressed like any ordinary person. Muslims and Christians in the Zamboanga
community got along with each other, thanks to his leadership. He was always telling jokes and
playing pranks, but he was serious about curbing abuses of authority. He publicly blamed the
military and police for the many crimes in his city that were being committed and going
unpunished.
Cesar Climaco was killed he was shot by an assassin firing from behind at a time when the
struggle against the dictatorship was reaching its height. President Marcos was very sick, but few
were allowed to know it. Protest actions were raging every day against all aspects of the
dictatorship.
Two weeks after Climacos death, cause-oriented organizations struck back by launching a ten-
day welgang bayan throughout Mindanao.
Despite the widespread indignation, however, the murder remains unsolved.

BORN
June 7, 1903 in Manila
DIED
PARENTS
Isidro Concepcion and Catalina Reyes
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Dolores Concepcion / 5
EDUCATION
Elementary: San Beda College
Secondary: San Beda College
San Beda College;
College:
Universty of Santo Tomas
Chief Justice Roberto Coneepcion is remembered as one of those who refused to legitimize one-
man rule by Ferdinand Marcos. His was the heavy burden of seeking to preserve the Supreme
Courts independence from the dictators attempts to control it.
He was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when martial law was declared by Marcos in
September 1972, and when, shortly afterward, a Constitution tailor-made for his illegal rule was
promulgated and ratified by a show of hands in so-called peoples assemblies.
Though it was Marcos himself who had appointed Concepcion in (1966) to head the highest
court of the land, Concepcion denounced the imposition of martial law. He asked his fellow
justices to declare the proclamation of the 1973 Constitution as null and void. However, the
majority of the justices chose not to side with him: the final decision held that although there
were flaws in its ratification, there was no judicial obstacle to the [Marcos] Constitution being
considered in force and in effect.
The courts resolution on the issue became final on March 30, 1973. One week after, on April 8,
1973, Concepcion resigned one month and 10 days ahead of the date when he would have been
compulsorily retired. He was delivering a message to a regime that was not listening.
After leaving the Court, Concepcion continued to express his commitment to the rule of law by
supporting human rights causes through legal assistance to the poor.13 He also continued to teach.
With the downfall of the dictatorship in 1986, he was appointed to serve as a member of the
Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution. He made significant contributions
toward reforms in the judiciary, and most notably, he is credited with providing safeguards
against a recurrence of Marcos-style dictatorship.14
Throughout his 40-year service in the judiciary, Roberto Concepcion was consistent in his
defense and advocacy of civil liberties, the rights of the accused, nationalist policies and
legislation. He showed exemplary conduct in upholding ethical standards in his personal and
public life.
Born in Quiapo, Manila, Concepcion learned the value of hard work and discipline from his
parents (his father owned a small business). He graduated summa cum laude from University of
Sto. Tomas law school in 1924 and topped the bar examinations in 1924. He first entered
government service in 1929 as an assistant attorney in the Bureau of Justice, rising through the
ranks until he was appointed to the Supreme Court as associate justice in 1954.
He died in 1987 at age 83, still involved in the task of helping craft a new charter for the nation.
MARY CONCEPCION (LOURDES) CONTI
BORN
February 9, 1937 in Bauan, Batangas
DIED
PARENTS
Jovencio Conti and Maria de la Pea
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bauan Elementary School, Batangas
Secondary: Bauan High School, Batangas
College: St. Bridget College, Batangas City
Lourdes Conti was born in Batangas and studied there at the St. Bridgets School, run by the
Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS). In 1973 she joined the Good Shepherd sisters, taking the
name Sister Mary Concepcion by which she was to become well-known and respected as a
teacher, missionary and development worker.
Sister Cons was one of three nuns sent to Agusan in Mindanao in 1978 to start an RGS
community in the province. The sisters settled in a town along the river, living with a local
family because they did not have their own convent. The place was remote, food was scarce, and
transportation difficult. To move around, the women hitched rides on logging trucks, tractors,
and bulldozers.
They put up a school for the children of the Banwaon Manobo who lived in the area. Logging
companies had operated there for years, making the people work for low wages and leaving their
natural environment in ruins.
It was Contis first assignment out of Luzon. She did not speak Bisaya, the common language in
Mindanao, but she adjusted easily to the hard life there. She said, I have made a vow of poverty
and I want to live a simple life.15
In 1980, when Conti was transferred to the RGS community in Davao, she organized and headed
the Community-Based Health Program (CBHP) in the diocese of Tagum.
CBHP pioneered a holistic approach to health in the rural areas by helping community members
to understand the sociopolitical and economic factors which contributed to their poor health and
poverty. It sought to empower the local people by developing health workers from among
themselves. Thus, apart from attending to health concerns needing attention, the CBHP program
also raised social awareness through training and education seminars.
Because of this, CBHP staffers were regarded with suspicion by the military. Anyone caught
with acupuncture needles (acupuncture was a common mode of treatment offered under the
program) was likely to be detained or interrogated. The risks did not discourage Sister Cons; she
continued visiting the barrios and holding seminars for barrio people.
Community health workers found her a great source of comfort. They noted her smile and her
willingness to do menial tasks. Her previous teaching experience was a big help and they were
able to expand the health program to most parishes in the diocese.
Sr. Mary Concepcion Conti died in 1983 with three other RGS sisters on their way to a meeting
in Cebu when their ship, MV Cassandra, sank. Survivors said the nuns were among those who
helped in the evacuation of the passengers, especially the children, disregarding the need to save
their own lives.
ELISEO G. DAPOG
BORN
May 14, 1951 in Guinayangan, Quezon
DIED
June 7, 1985 in Gumaca, Quezon
PARENTS
Felipe Dapog and Crisanta Gunay
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Basilia Manalo / 4
Eliseo Dapog was the eldest son of a farming couple in Quezon province. His parents just had
enough to feed nine children, but not to send them to school after the elementary grades. His
father was ailing and Eliseo began early to take responsibility for the family, and their six-
hectare farm where they grew rice and corn.
Even as a teenager, Dapog already involved himself in community affairs, joining a campaign
against cattle rustling when he was only 15 years old. He also started a family early, getting
married at age 16. Eliseo taught his four children the values he himself lived by, foremost of
which was to defend the rights of the powerless against a powerful few.
Chosen to serve as barangay captain in 1978 and reelected in 1981, Dapog was disturbed by the
human rights violations occurring in his community and in the nearby barrios. Villagers were
being detained and tortured, even worse, summarily executed by the military, on mere suspicion
of being opposed to the dictatorial regime and siding with the rebel guerrillas. He spoke openly
against these abuses.
He helped organize a rally on February 1,1981 to protest the highly intensified militarization of
his province. Soldiers opened fire on the marchers, killing two farmers and wounding scores of
others. The incident came to be called the Guinayangan massacre.
Still, Dapog continued to defend the peoples rights. Twice in 1984, he hosted a fact-finding
mission of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, organized to document the continuing
abuses. In preparation for their arrival, the barangay captain went around, encouraging people to
overcome their fear and to tell the truth.
Dapog was one of the signatories to a resolution asking the Batasang Pambansa, the martial law
parliament, to investigate the widespread abuses and violations of human rights in Quezon.
Many other barangay leaders in the province remained silent, fearing for their lives.
Only death stopped Dapog. In the early afternoon of June 7, 1985, he boarded a passenger bus on
the way to Los Baos, Laguna, to speak at a protest rally. In Gumaca, just after Guinayangan,
three armed men, wearing face masks, stopped the vehicle and forced Dapog to go with them.
Moments later, gunshots were heard. Dapog was later found dead with wounds in his forehead,
neck and chest.
The body was brought to the municipal hall of Guinayangan, and a memorial mass said in his
honor. Thousands from all over Quezon came to pay their respects during the four-day wake that
followed. People crammed the municipal hall and overflowed into the streets, mourning for this
leader who spoke for them, gave them his life, and died for them.
JEREMIAS S. DE JESUS
BORN
September 15, 1928 in Capas, Tarlac
DIED
January 15, 1986 in Capas, Tarlac
PARENTS
Dimas de Jesus and Maria Siapo
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Cristina Capian / 3
EDUCATION
Elementary: Capas Elementary School
Secondary: Feati University, Manila
College: Feati University, Manila
A local leader of the political opposition to the Marcos regime, Jeremias de Jesus was killed
fighting for genuine and honest elections to replace the oppressive dictatorship.
De Jesus was a trusted supporter of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. who had been murdered in 1983
as he returned from exile in the United States. When martial law was imposed in 1972, de Jesus
had been working for Jose Yap, Aquinos close ally who represented the province of Tarlac in
the House of Representatives.
Thus, throughout martial law and especially with the persecution of Aquino by the Marcos
regime, de Jesus remained loyal to the cause; by the 1980s, he was known in his hometown of
Capas as the grand old man of the political opposition. When Marcos called for a snap
presidential election in 1985 in an attempt to provide legitimacy to his extended rule, de Jesus
worked tirelessly in support of Corazon Aquinos campaign to oust Marcos through the ballot.
He was named municipal chair of the PDP-Laban party in Capas.
Marcos desperately wanted to win in Tarlac to show that he could beat Corazon Aquino in her
home grounds. According to some, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan or KBL [Marcos party] is
bent on winning by a wide margin [here] so massive electoral frauds will be justified elsewhere.
The atmosphere in the province became very tense. Armed supporters of the mayor would take
pictures of inspectors in election registration centers, and harassed those who stayed loyal to the
Aquinos. Members of the Civilian Home Defense Force went around telling people to vote for
Marcos and threatening to kill opposition leaders including de Jesus.
On January 14, 1986, de Jesus joined a group that went to the United States embassy in Manila
to complain about the electoral terrorism in Tarlac.
The following day, back in Tarlac, de Jesus was on the road after having distributed food to
PDP-Laban poll watchers in Barangay ODonnell. The car he was riding in was stopped along
the way by an unidentified person, who sprayed bullets from an M-16 automatic rifle and then
escaped. De Jesus and the driver, Alberto Briones, were both killed.
Thousands came to de Jesus funeral, including provincial and municipal officials who joined the
funeral march to express their protest. By that time the international media were focusing on the
Filipino peoples struggle to oust the Marcos dictatorship so that the brazen murder was widely
reported abroad.
When the snap election was held just a few weeks after, Corazon Aquino beat Ferdinand Marcos
in her home province, thanks in large part to people like Jeremias de Jesus who sacrificed their
lives to help end the dictatorship.
PEPITO L. DEHERAN
BORN
January 6, 1956 in Ormoc, Leyte
DIED
June 2, 1984 in San Fernando City, Pampanga
PARENTS
Tomas Deheran and Gregoria Lumanta
EDUCATION
Elementary: Sapang Bato Elementary School, Angeles City, Pampanga
Secondary: Republic Central College, Angeles City
Pepito Deheran was a quiet teenager in Angeles City, Pampanga, happy to play basketball with
his friends. He stopped going to school after his second year in high school and tried to earn for a
living in various ways, mostly as a tricycle driver, to augment his familys income.
After Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was killed in 1983, Pepito, called Peng by family and friends,
became involved with the Concerned Citizens of Pampanga. He joined protest rallies organized
in Angeles City to denounce the regimes abuses. He campaigned actively to expose the May
1984 Batasang Pambansa elections as a maneuver to fool the people, organizing meetings in his
barangay and building core groups for the boycott movement. The local authorities did not like
it.
In the early dawn of May 30, 1984, soldiers and members of the local militia (Civilian Home
Defense Force or CHDF) raided a hut in Sapang Bato, where Deheran, with his close friends
Rolando Castro and Lito Cabrera, owner of the hut, were sleeping. The three were brought to a
nearby constabulary detachment where they were tortured. All of them denied being members of
the New Peoples Army. They were then taken out of the constabulary detachment to an isolated
place and were stabbed repeatedly. They were then left for dead, on the banks of the nearby
Apalit River, one kilometer apart from each other.
After his attackers had gone, Deheran crawled to the roadside, hailed a passing vehicle and asked
to be taken to a hospital. At the Central Luzon General Hospital, he was treated for 14 stab
wounds, a broken leg, and bruises all over his body. Some of the attackers were known to him,
he told his mother Gregoria, naming two militia members. He also said the soldiers were in
uniform but without name tags. He gave the same information in a sworn statement witnessed by
several lawyers.
Very early the following day, June 2, Gregoria was keeping watch when she saw a man pull
down the hospitals electric power switch, and another man entered the intensive care unit where
her son was lying in critical condition. Then she heard her daughter shout: Mother, Mother,
Peng has been stabbed again!
Pepito Deheran died from his many wounds that same evening. He was 27.
During his wake, his mother recounted, they received the news that Deherans passport had been
approved; he could now leave for the Middle East, where he would have worked as a laborer.
BORN
November 4, 1944
DISAPPEARED
March 19, 1971 in Manila
PARENTS
Feliciano del Rosario and Geronima Bernardo
SPOUSE
Frances de Lima
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bonifacio Elementary School, Sta. Cruz, Manila
Secondary: Arellano High School, Manila
College: Lyceum of the Philippines, Manila
Carlos del Rosario was a brilliant student, who won leadership, oratory and declamation awards.
He was chosen city councilor of Manila during Boys and Girls Week. A writer for his high
school paper, he was chosen as delegate to the secondary school press conferences.
At the Lyceum where he obtained his degree in political science, he was vice-president of the
student council. After graduation, he taught at the Philippine College of Commerce (now
Polytechnic University of the Philippines).
Fellow teachers describe del Rosario, called Caloy or Charlie, as amiable and easy to get along
with, diligent and trustworthy. He was an organization man and an effective articulator.
He was a student activist in the mid-1960s, having imbibed the ideas of nationalists such as
Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tanada, Jose Laurel, Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino. He
denounced neocolonialism and, particularly, the highly unequal relationship between the
Philippines and the United States. There was a need, he said, for another propaganda movement
such as that launched by Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and Graciano Lopez Jaena, which
started the Philippine Revolution in 1896. He also believed that the Katipunan revolution led by
Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and others was unfinished and had to be completed.
His staunch nationalism and advocacy of national sovereignty and independence led him to be
among the early organizers of the Kabataang Makabayan in 1964. Del Rosario was the militant
youth groups first vice-president; he was also national treasurer and secretary-general.
During the crucial First Quarter Storm of 1970, he was instrumental in organizing the massive
demonstrations, conferences and congresses that helped revive and spread the nationalist
movement in the Philippines. That same year, he was a key member of the Movement for a
Democratic Philippines (MDP) that mobilized a broad front of activist organizations.
Del Rosario disappeared at the height of student agitation and protest actions. He was last seen
on the night of March 19, 1971, putting up posters for a forthcoming MDP national congress
inside the PCC campus in Lepanto, Manila. He was expected later that evening at an MDP
meeting in Quezon City, but he did not show up.
His parents, suspecting that the military may have had something to do with his disappearance,
searched for him in the various military camps. They asked for Malacaangs help, combed
through newspapers, and listened attentively to radio and television newscasts, hoping to get
some clues about what happened to their missing son.
But they never found him.
Carlos del Rosario was 27 years old when he disappeared.

BORN
October 2, 1953 in Iloilo City
DIED
April 20, 1984 in lbajay, Aklan
PARENTS
Johnny dela Fuente and Lucy Lahaylahay
EDUCATION
Elementary: Central Philippine University, Iloilo
Secondary: Central Philippine University, Iloilo
University of the Philippines Visayas;
College:
Central Philippine University
In 1973, soon after the opening of the first school year under martial law, a group of college
students in Iloilo were arrested while writing slogans and putting up posters that protested
against the militarization of their campus.
Edward dela Fuente and eight other young people were arrested and beaten up, and kept in jail
for 14 months. After his release, Edward was persuaded by his parents to go back to school, but
he did not finish his course in political science. He dropped out to take an office job. His heart,
however, was not in it: there was a bigger challenge out there.
I believe that fighting the dictatorship is a noble cause and I would regret it if I dont join, he
told his father. I also believe that its a noble cause, the father said. But I do not want to be
sending you to your death. I cannot give my permission. Then Im not asking for your
permission, the son replied. Youve merely been informed of my decision.
Dela Fuente was the eldest son of two leaders of the Baptist Church in Iloilo. He regularly
attended church services and was president of the National Baptist Youth of the Philippines. He
was also editor-in-chief of the campus paper at Central Philippine University (CPU). He had a
gift for expressing his ideas and feelings in Ilonggo and English.
Even before 1972, he had already joined the Kabataang Makabayan chapter in CPU. When
martial law was declared, he continued organizing clandestinely in school (where his mother was
teaching), among students, faculty and employees.
After taking leave of his family, dela Fuente spent the next 10 years among the poor people
living in the central mountain ranges of Panay. He was Ka Ponso, a skilled negotiator and
trouble shooter, often sent to expansion areas to settle conflicts or to organize new groups. He
had a way of stating truths that was acceptable to people. He was an articulate writer and a
serious artist. He kept abreast with his reading.
On March 29, 1983, Edwards younger brother John was asleep in a relatives house when he
was shot at close range by men in uniform. The local constabulary authorities said it was an
armed encounter, but most people said he had been salvaged. In a handwritten poem sent to
his family, Edward wrote about our dream: . . .an eternal flame/ that lights/ countless torches/
in the throbbing hearts/ of millions.
One year later, on April 20, 1984, a Good Friday, Edward himself and two others were killed in
the village of Unat, a few kilometers away from the town center of Ibajay, Aklan. The military
said they died in an encounter with a constabulary patrol.
Eyewitnesses said that Edward, Diore Antonio Mijares and an unidentified person, were captured
alive and shot dead some distance away from where they fell. The eyewitnesses also said that
Edward could have escaped but he returned to assist Mijares who was more gravely wounded.
The autopsy reports indicated they had been tortured.
At dela Fuentes wake in their residence in Jaro, Iloilo City, hundreds of people came to pay
their respect. Most of them were peasants from all over Panay. They told his family how their
son made an impact on their lives, his mother said. And when it was time to take him to his final
resting place four kilometers away, they insisted on carrying his coffin on their shoulders.16
His only surviving brother, Manuel, said Edward, had a brave vision about a world where
oppression and poverty have no place, and I believe he died trying to work for this kind of a
world.
BORN
DIED
April 24, 1982 in Catbalogan, Samar
PARENTS
Daniel dela Paz Sr. and Lydia Alcantara
SPOUSE / CHILD
Sylvia Ciocon / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Don Bosco Technical Institute, Makati
Secondary: Don Bosco Technical Institute, Makati
College: University of the Philippines, Diliman and Manila
After graduating from medical school, Remberto Daniel Bobby dela Paz turned his back on a
potentially lucrative career in Manila and left for Samar, to set up a community-based health
program there for the poor. There he was assassinated by martial law forces.
In the 1970s, dela Paz was a student activist in UP Diliman and later in medical school. He
joined the Samahan ng mga Makabayang Siyentipiko and Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan, and
took part in the First Quarter Storm and the Diliman Commune. At the UP College of Medicine,
he contributed articles to the newsletter UP Medics, joined the Progresibong Kilusang Medikal,
helped organize the Medical Students Society, and volunteered in the colleges outreach program
called Klinika ng Bayan.
He spent his required six-month rural medical work in Samar province where he saw the dark
reality into which Ferdinand Marcos one-man rule had plunged the province. He saw, besides
extreme poverty, widespread maltreatment and abuse of citizens. It was a place where medical
services were badly needed. Upon becoming a full-fledged doctor in 1978, he returned to the
province with his wife Sylvia, also a new physician.
The couple set up the community-based health program and their first clinic in Gandara, Samar.
It was open to everyone. Using the Primary Health Care approach, dela Paz went to remote
villages to attend to the sick, teach first aid, basic hygiene and nutrition to community health
workers. He used appropriate technology with herbal medicine and acupuncture, and even
assembled an acupuncture oscillator made from local materials at minimal cost.
The martial law regime took note of the couples activities, and they were labelled as
subversives. Threats to their safety became more and more apparent, and friends urged them to
leave Gandara.
They did move, but only to nearby Catbalogan City where they resumed their work. I am a
doctor and the only thing I should fear is not being a good one, were dela Pazs memorable
words. He explained: Kami ay mga iskolar ng bayan at nais naming magbahagi ng kaalaman at
kasanayan sa taong bayan na katuwang ng pamilyang nagpaaral sa amin. (The people paid for
our education just as much as our families, and we should share our knowledge and skills with
them.)
Many poor people came to the dela Paz clinic for treatment, and some may have been members
of the New Peoples Army operating in the area; invariably, they left with added knowledge and
skills. As a doctor, Bobby dela Paz refused to limit himself only to treating diseases. Instead, he
went to the people and lived with them, in the process witnessing the effects of an unjust system
upon the health and lives of poor communities, especially the children. He came to the
conclusion that when government itself becomes their oppressor, the people have a right to rise
up in arms.
Dela Paz was assassinated by a single gunman on April 23, 1982, while he was working in his
clinic. For over seven hours at the Samar Provincial Hospital, doctors took turns operating on
him to save his life, while his wife Sylvia facilitated blood donations from friends, community
health workers and former patients even from nearby islands. Outside the cordoned-off hospital,
scores of people, rich and poor, held a vigil and prayed. Dela Paz succumbed just past midnight.
He was 29 years old.
BORN
January 25, 1937 in Pontevedra, Negros Occidental
DIED
December 5, 1980 in Iligan City
PARENTS
Pacifico and Amada Dingcong
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Ma. Consuelo S. Dingcong / 5
EDUCATION
Elementary: Miranda Elementary School, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental
Secondary: Miranda High School, Negros Occidental
College: University of the Visayas, Cebu City
The long and oppressive rule of the Marcos dictatorship would not have been possible without
the support and cooperation of powerful civilian officials at the local level. The regime relied
mainly on its military forces, and many of these civilian officials also had a military background.
They maintained private armies who functioned as paramilitary units of the regular armed forces.
In such places, and especially during the dictatorship, violence ruled. Governance was not
subject to the rule of law, but only to the wishes of the local tyrant who spent the peoples money
as he wished, and controlled illegal activities such as gambling and smuggling. The
governments counter-insurgency program was frequently an excuse for the killing of political
opponents.
Demosthenes Dingcong was a journalist who wrote about government and military corruption
and abuses under the harrowing conditions of martial law. He was killed for it.
Dingcong was the provincial correspondent of the newspaper Bulletin Today. Like most
community journalists, he wrote for several publications and hosted a radio program. Although
he was a well-known personality, it was not easy for him to live a comfortable life; he and his
family lived in a house that they rented for P70 a month.
Writing under martial law conditions was difficult enough, but Dingcong faced greater
difficulties than most. Lanao was a stronghold of Marcos henchman, the warlord Ali Dimaporo,
then Lanao governor. Yet Dingcong continued to do his job. I have never been cowed [into
exchanging] my freedom to write the truth, he wrote just before he was killed.
He exposed anomalies committed by local politicians, military abuses, the plight of political
prisoners, the existence of a military protection racket for big-time jai-alai bookies in Iligan, and
corruption in public office, among others. City officials often threatened him, one of whom even
pointed a gun at him once. In another incident, two men tried to shoot him in a market place.
In October 1980, Bulletin Today published his expos on fund irregularities at the government-
run Mindanao State University, where Dimaporo sat as chairman of the board. The article
revealed the disappearance of a P1.35-million fund intended for students food and allowances.
Dingcong had to go into hiding after this expos was published. Writing to the National Press
Club, he said that certain persons had been roaming the city looking for him, ready to kill him on
sight. After a few days, however, he went back home. But on December 5, a gunman crept from
behind him inside his house in Iligan City and shot him in the head.
Journalists all over the country, led by the National Press Club and other professional
organizations, issued statements expressing anger over his killing.
And although the local officials stayed away from Dingcongs wake and funeral, thousands of
ordinary people came to mourn his death.
In a tribute to the martyred journalist, the bishop of Iligan, Fernando R. Capalla, pointed out:
...[A]t last a poor person like Demy one of your own in your poverty was able to destroy the
myth that the truth about Lanao and Iligan cannot be told and publicized.
Because of the strong negative reaction, President Marcos had to promise an immediate
investigation and justice for Dingcong. Four suspects, all constabulary soldiers, including a
personal bodyguard of Dimaporo, were arrested. One actually admitted to being the gunman.
However, three were immediately cleared of charges. The confessed killer was released not long
after and got hired as a bodyguard of another provincial official.
JOSE W. DIOKNO
BORN
February 26, 1922 in Manila
DIED
February 27, 1987 in Quezon City
PARENTS
Ramon Diokno and Leonor Wright
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Carmen Icasiano / 10
EDUCATION
Secondary: De La Salle High School
De La Salle College;
College:
University of Sto. Tomas
Even if we have to wade through blood and fire, we will be free. We will develop. We will
build our own societies. We will sing our own songs.
At the height of the martial law dictatorships abusiveness and greed, Jose W. Diokno never lost
faith in the Filipino peoples ability to overcome hardships and construct a better future.
Considered one of the worthiest senators the country ever had, Diokno was an exemplary public
servant and a champion of civil liberties who devoted himself to the collective struggle for
democracy, justice and freedom.
He was the son of Ramon Diokno, a nationalist political figure who was associate justice of the
Supreme Court at the time of his death in 1954; his grandfather was Katipunan revolutionary
general Ananias Diokno of Batangas.
Jose W. Dioknos intellectual brilliance was manifested early: valedictorian of his high school
class, he obtained his commerce degree in 1940 summa cum laude; and shortly after that, at the
age of 18, topped the board exam for certified public accountants (so young his license was
withheld until he turned 21).
World War II interrupted his law studies at the University of Santo Tomas but he used the time
to work in his fathers law office. By special permission from the Supreme Court, Diokno was
allowed to take the bar in 1944 even without a law degree. He and Jovito R. Salonga topped the
bar exams, both getting the same high score. Many years of outstanding law practice followed.
Appointed to President Diosdado Macapagals cabinet as justice secretary in 1962, Diokno

caught the publics attention when his investigation into the dealings of American businessman
Harry Stonehill turned up evidence of massive government corruption. But it was Diokno who
was forced to resign.
That same year, he ran and won as a senatorial candidate of the Nacionalista Party, to which
Ferdinand Marcos belonged. In the Senate, he championed the national interest in important
economic legislation and foreign policy. He was on his second term as senator when Marcos
suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1971, effectively authorizing the arbitrary arrest of
citizens. Diokno resigned from the Nacionalista Party in protest. By then he was in the thick of
the mass protests that registered the peoples opposition to, among others, oil price increases and
the abuse of civil liberties.
Diokno was among the first to be arrested when Marcos declared martial law in 1972. He was
imprisoned for two years without charges, including several months of solitary confinement in
Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija. After his release in 1974, he organized and led a small
group of lawyers to form the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), which provided legal
counsel to political prisoners and other victims of martial law.
With him as its chair from 1975 to 1982, the Civil Liberties Union of the Philippines published
the first serious analysis of martial rule in the booklet, The State of the Nation after Three Years
of Martial Law.
After the downfall of the Marcos regime in 1986, Diokno was appointed chair of the Presidential
Commission on Human Rights, although he was already seriously ill by then. He was also the
first head of the Philippine government panel that conducted peace negotiations with the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
For all his responsibilities as a public advocate, he was a good family man, teaching his 10
children by example together with his wife and closest companion Carmen Icasiano.
Jose W. Diokno succumbed to lung cancer on February 27, 1987, one day after he turned 65. His
legacy of outstanding service to the Filipino people is remembered to this day.
MACLIING DULAG
BORN
1930 in Tinglayan, Kalinga
DIED
April 24, 1980 in Tinglayan, Kalinga
SPOUSE/CHILDREN
Samun / 6
To the Marcos dictatorship, the indigenous communities of the Cordillera mountain range in the
north of Luzon could easily be dealt with as it proceeded to build a dam project on the Chico
River.
But the Kalinga and Bontok peoples knew that the project would flood their rice fields and their
homes, communal forests and sacred burial grounds. It would destroy their lives by changing
their environment forever.
Macliing Dulag was a respected elder of the Butbut tribe in the tiny mountain village of Bugnay.
He was a pangat, one of those listened to by the community because of their wisdom and
courage. He was also the elected barrio captain of Bugnay, serving out three terms since 1966.
Ordinarily, he tended his rice fields and worked as a laborer on road maintenance projects
(earning P405 a month).
In 1974, the regime tried to implement a 1,000-megawatt hydroelectric power project, funded by
the World Bank, along the Chico River. The plan called for the construction of four dams that
would have put many villages under water, covering an area of around 1,400 square kilometers
of payew (rice terraces), orchards, and graveyards. As many as 100,000 people living along the
river, including Macliings Bugnay village, would have lost their homes.
Macliing became a strong and articulate figure in this struggle which pitted small nearly
powerless communities in the Cordilleras against the full powers of the martial law regime.
Kalinga and Bontok leaders were offered bribes, harassed by soldiers and government
mercenaries, even imprisoned. But the anti-dam leaders, including Macliing, stayed firm in their
opposition to the project. They argued that development should not be achieved at such extreme
sacrifice.
If you destroy life in your search for what you say is the good life, we question it, Macliing
said. Those who need electric lights are not thinking of us who are bound to be destroyed.
Should the need for electric power be a reason for our death?
Macliing expressed the peoples reverence for the land, affirming their right to stay: Such
arrogance to say that you own the land, when you are owned by it! How can you own that which
outlives you? Only the people own the land because only the people live forever. To claim a
place is the birthright of everyone. Even the lowly animals have their own place . . . how much
more when we talk of human beings?
Resistance to the dam project unified the Cordillera region. Macliing and other Cordillera leaders
initiated a series of tribal pacts (bodong or vochong), which helped cement this unity and create a
very broad alliance of the communities and their supporters. They recognized the leader of the
Butbut as their spokesperson, for although Macliing had had no formal education, he always
found the right words for what they needed to say.
Macliing was murdered by government soldiers on April 24, 1980. They surrounded his house
one night and sprayed it with bullets. His assassination solidified opposition to the dam and won
it sympathizers from all over the country and even abroad. Even the World Bank, which would
have funded the dam construction, withdrew from the project, finally forcing the martial law
government to cancel its plans.
Four of Macliings killers were charged and in 1983 tried before a military tribunal. An army
lieutenant and a sergeant were subsequently found guilty of murder and frustrated murder. The
lieutenant was later reinstated in the army, rose to become a major, and then himself was killed
in 2000 by the New Peoples Army.
ALBERT R. ENRIQUEZ
BORN
October 2, 1963 in Lucena City
DISAPPERED
August 29, 1985 in Lucena City
PARENTS
Mario Enriquez and Clarita Rivera
EDUCATION
Elementary: Sacred Heart College, Lucena City
Secondary: Quezon Provincial High School
Luzonian University Foundation
College:
(now Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation)
Albert Enriquez was a young human rights worker in Quezon when he was abducted in 1985,
only 200 meters away from home. Despite all his familys efforts to find him, he disappeared
without a trace.
Enriquez was a bright student with many accomplishments. He belonged to the top 10 of his high
school graduating class, passed the qualifying examinations for the Philippine Military
Academy, and was one of only two high school graduates from Quezon province to be given a
state scholarship to go to college.
Instead of pursuing a military career, however, he chose to enrol in civil engineering at the
Luzonian University, the biggest school in the province. Martial law had curtailed the activities
of student organizations, but under his leadership as president of the technology department, the
various school organizations and fraternities were able to unite and revive the University
Collegiate Student Council. Enriquez was elected its chairman for the school year 19841985.
Under his leadership, the council negotiated with school authorities for improvements in school
facilities and a freeze on tuition fee increases.
This was a time, after the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, when people
were deciding, all over the Philippines, that enough was enough. Enriquez, who was only in
grade school when martial law was declared, now became an active participant in cause-oriented
politics. He volunteered to work with the local unit of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines,
which had been documenting the numerous cases of violations and military abuses in Quezon.
He joined the Lucena City chapter of Bayan, and later became its secretary. He assisted
prominent human-rights lawyers Joker Arroyo, Wigberto Taada and Ed Abcede in a court case
involving political detainees. At a protest rally held to commemorate the second death
anniversary of Aquino, he was the master of ceremonies, and he read out to the audience the long
list of human rights violations in the province.
Not long afterwards, Enriquez was on his way home when two armed men dragged him from the
tricycle he was riding into a car. He shouted: I am Abet Enriquez. My parents are Mario
Enriquez and Clarita Rivera. Tell my parents Ive been picked up by the military! Two days
later, his family heard that tricycle drivers in the area had been talking about the incident.
His parents searched high and low for their only son. They approached relatives and friends to
help them. They wrote letters to the authorities, all the way up to Malacaang. They visited
various detention centers, military camps and defense offices.
Sometimes, they received answers that gave them hope he was still alive, and they just needed to
bring him a change of clothes. More often there would be denials that a young man of that name
was being held in custody. Once, they received a tip from an anonymous letter writer that a
military man who knew about the abduction was preparing to leave the country.
The parents of Albert Enriquez died without seeing him again.

JUAN B. ESCANDOR
BORN
November 14, 1941 in Gubat, Sorsogon
DIED
March 31, 1983 in Metro Manila
PARENTS
Sotero Escandor and Victoriana Barrameda
EDUCATION
Elementary: Gubat North Central School, Sorsogon
Secondary: Gubat High School, Sorsogon
College: University of the Philippines Diliman and Manila
Juan B. Escandor was a medical doctor a cancer specialist and radiologist at the nations
premier hospital, the Philippine General Hospital but also an indefatigable social worker,
according to his friends, who knew how frustrated he was with the injustice of the prevailing
system in the country.18
He wanted to help build a better Philippines. More simply, he dreamed of putting up a hospital in
his hometown and conducting free clinics for the poor (which he was already doing whenever he
could).
Escandor was a graduate (1969) of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. He
started at the radiology department of the UP-PGH, becoming chief resident in 1971 and
eventually consultant. He then headed the research department of the Cancer Institute of the
Philippines in 1972, and taught at the UP College of Medicine.
When martial law was declared in 1972, he left behind a promising career to go underground,
volunteering to serve in the rural areas in the Cagayan Valley. The regime issued a P180,000
reward for the capture of the NPA doctor.
His decision was not at all surprising to those who knew him. Almost from the very beginning,
Escandor was seriously involved in nationalist causes. He was a founding member of the militant
student organization, the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), and became active in its workers bureau.
He organized institutional workers at the PGH. He worked among urban poor communities.
He spearheaded the formation of the Sorsogon Progressive Movement in 1969 and helped put up
the Progresibong Kilusang Medikal. When the First Quarter Storm erupted in 1970, he was at the
forefront of the mass actions. He was again very active in the 1972 Operasyon Tulong which
brought medical services to flood victims in Central Luzon.
Escandor is invariably described as a dutiful son, a diligent student and a doctor dedicated to
healing his patients, unmindful of any material reward. He was handsome, athletic (a member of
the UP track and field team), he had everything, as his father said.
Escandor was killed in Manila in 1983 in circumstances still not completely established. He and
a companion, Yolanda Gordula, had dinner with friends in Caloocan City on March 30, 1983; it
was the last time they were seen alive. A few days later, military authorities announced that
Escandor had been shot dead in an encounter with constabulary troopers in Bohol Avenue,
Quezon City. But conflicting details about the incident were never explained.
An autopsy performed later on the body revealed that Escandor was severely tortured before he
died. No trace has been found of Gordula until today.
Johnny Escandor was 41 years old when he died. His death, according to his classmates at
medical school, remind[s] us all that the primary duty of the physician is to heal. And that
healing transcends social boundaries and political beliefs.
RONILO T. EVANGELIO
BORN
March 22, 1960 in Batangas City
DIED
March 1984, presumably in Cavite
PARENTS
Quirino Evangelio and Paulina Tumbaga
EDUCATION
Julian A. Pastor
Elementary: Elementary School,
Batangas City
Secondary: Batangas National High School
College: Pablo Borbon Memorial Institute of Technology, Batangas
The beginning of the end for the Marcos dictatorships oppressive rule, it can be said, was
when Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was killed at the airport upon his arrival in the Philippines
after years of exile abroad. It stirred the nation including those who had previously kept silent
into deciding that the time had come to take action and work actively for the regimes downfall.
Nilo Evangelio had been working as an electrician at the Batangas city hall, earning the meager
income on which his parents and younger siblings depended. But the shocking assassination of
Aquino jolted him and his friends. They started attending rallies and organizing political
meetings. Evangelio was designated as the provincial coordinator for the Justice for Aquino,
Justice for All (JAJA) chapter in Batangas.
In March 1984, a big protest march was scheduled to be held, the first of its kind, involving one
column of marchers coming from the north of Manila and another from the south. Tens of
thousands would walk for seven days, starting simultaneously on March 1 from San Pablo City
(Laguna) and Concepcion, Tarlac. The two columns would meet at the Quirino Grandstand in
Rizal Park and hold a culminating rally there.
The march was called Lakbayan or Lakad para sa Kalayaan ng Bay an (Peoples March for
Freedom). It was part of a campaign to boycott the elections for the Batasang Pambansa, to be
held the following month.
Evangelio and his friends Ismael Umali, Aurelio Magpantay and Ronilo Noel Clarete, all of them
In their 20s, joined the Lakbayan. On March 7, the last day, they were at the site of the rally with
the rest of the tired and hungry marchers. Early that evening, the four said they would be going
somewhere for a while, but leaving their belongings with the others. Then they disappeared.
After three weeks of searching by their families, the bodies of Evangelio and the three others
were accidentally found in a shallow grave in Silang, Cavite. They had been brutally tortured. To
this day, their killers have not been identified. The exact date and place of their death have also
not been established.
Crowds of sympathizers joined the funeral procession and wake of the four, who were buried in
a single casket because, as their families said, they disappeared together, died together and lived
together for a cause.
GERARDO T. FAUSTINO
BORN
DISAPPEARED
July 31, 1977 in Makati City
PARENTS
Bienvenido Faustino and Leonor Tordesillas
EDUCATION
Elementary: Lourdes School, Quezon City
Secondary: Lourdes School, Quezon City
Even as a young boy in high school, Gerardo Faustino was already interested in current affairs,
and his opinions expressed progressive and nationalist ideas. He was the eldest of two sons of a
lawyer and a teacher. He did not choose to follow his fathers profession, with a glamorous and
lucrative future ahead of him, but took up a degree course in agriculture instead.
Martial law was already in force when he entered the University of the Philippines in Los Baos
(UPLB) in 1973. The UP Student Catholic Action was one of those organizations that were
allowed on campus (others had been banned), and Faustino joined it. He particularly appreciated
UPSCAs extension programs for students who wanted to help the poor.
At UP Los Baos, a raging issue at the time was the role played by American government and
business interests in determining academic and research programs. Students and faculty members
denounced what they saw as the universitys subservience to foreign dictation, and Faustino was
part of the protest actions they organized.
Recognition of his leadership skills came as Faustino was elected a representative to the UPLB
student conference, an interim body created due to the abolition of the student council upon the
proclamation of martial law in 1972. He was chosen to head a committee that worked hard
toward the restoration of this council.
On the last weekend of July 1977, Faustino went home to Quezon City as he usually did, then
left for what he said was an important meeting. It was the last time his family would see him
alive.
When he failed to come for two successive weekends, his parents got worried and started asking
around. They discovered that other parents were also looking for their activist children from UP
Los Baos, all of whom had disappeared with their son. Ten persons had disappeared within
days of each other, possibly in a single operation: Gerry Faustino, Jessica Sales, Modesto Sison,
Ramon Jasul, Cristina Catalla, Rizalina Ilagan and four others.
Months after that, the families of Ilagan, Catalla and Sales were told by the military that the three
missing young women were killed in an encounter in Mauban, Quezon. But the authorities
denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the six. Their bodies were never found, except for
that of Sison which was later found buried in a common grave in Lucena City.
TULLIO FAVALI
BORN
December 10, 1946 in Sustinente, Mantora (Mantua), Italy
DIED
April 11, 1985 in La Esperanza, Tulunan, North Cotabato
A Roman Catholic priest who had been serving in Mindanao for less than a year, Tullio Favali
was the first foreign missionary to be killed by the martial law regimes paramilitary forces.
Favali was a native of Mantora (or Mantua) in northern Italy, and was ordained a priest in June
1981. He belonged to the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), an international
society of priests and brothers exclusively dedicated to the evangelization of predominantly non-
Christian nations and underdeveloped countries. In the Philippines, they are assigned in
Zamboanga, North Cotabato and in Metro Manila.
Arriving in the Philippines in November 1983, Tullio Favali was named parish priest of La
Esperanza in Tulunan, North Cotabato, in June 1984. At the time of his murder he was just
beginning to adjust to a different culture, but his parishioners loved him for his gentleness,
simplicity, humble ways, and readiness to serve.
Large areas of Mindanao, including the North Cotabato area, were then in the grip of armed
pseudo-religious cults who roamed around sowing terror among the people. These groups were
of Bisayan origin, and came about in the late 1960s. This was in response to the violent conflicts
over land rights between the original, indigenous communities and settlers migrating to
Mindanao from the Visayas.
Under the dictatorship, with the growing strength of the revolutionary guerrilla movement, the
fanatical cults were turned into useful pawns for the governments anti-insurgency campaign.
They were officially recognized as paramilitary units and allowed to freely operate as Barrio
Self-Defense Units or BSDU, later renamed Integrated Civilian Home Defense Forces or
ICHDF.
One of the cults was the Ilaga group led by the Manero brothers; they even garnered citations
and medals from the AFP. Notorious for their killing sprees, which included cannibalism, they
enjoyed the protection of the military and powerful local civilians. (Their father was barangay
captain of La Esperanza.)
On 11 April 1985, Norberto, Edelberto and Elpidio Manero along with other members of their
heavily-armed ICHDF band had already been drinking in public all morning. Elpidio Manero
showed a list of people they suspected to be siding with the rebels. When asked by one of these
persons to explain why he was on their list, the group got angry and Edelberto fired his gun,
hitting the man.
The man and his wife fled into a house nearby, and others in the neighborhood also took cover.
Some ran to find the priest and ask for his help. Mounting his motorcycle, Favali rushed to the
house where the people had sought cover. He rushed out again when he saw the militiamen
setting his motorcycle on fire. But Edelberto only said, Father, do you want your head blown
off? He proceeded to do exactly that, shooting the priest pointblank in the head; he further
desecrated the dead body by kicking it in the head, shooting it again in the face, and stamping his
feet on the corpse.
The killing provoked a huge outcry from the public and from the Vatican and the Italian
government. It called international attention to the Marcos dictatorships human rights violations,
including the rampant and uncurbed abuses of the paramilitary forces, the continuing recruitment
and arming of civilians for military uses, and the militarys encouragement of fanatical pseudo-
religious cults in counter-insurgency.
Because of the outcry, the martial law authorities arrested the Manero brothers in 1985 after
several months of dilly-dallying. That same year, seven individuals were convicted for Tullio
Favalis murder, including Norberto Manero. However, they continued to be seen in public even
if they were supposed to be in prison. In 1999, President Joseph Estrada granted Norberto pardon
and let him out of jail. Because of the overwhelming negative reaction from the public, however,
Estrada had to withdraw the pardon. Norberto Manero was rearrested in 2000 and remains in
prison.
BORN
May 17, 1957 in Sampaloc, Manila
DIED
August 24, 1985 in Bakun, Benguet
PARENTS
Angelo Fernandez and Amalia Aguinaldo
EDUCATION
Elementary: Legarda Elementary School, Manila
Secondary: Ramon Magsaysay High School, Manila
College: University of the East; Philippine School of Arts and Trades
Resteta Fernandez was a passionate girl, articulate and fond of debates.
Her father was a carpenter and could barely afford to send his children to school. Nevertheless he
tried to help his daughter, an honor student, to study some more after graduating from high
school. When this became obviously difficult, Resteta (Res) gave up college and found work
to help her family.
She worked for a time as a saleslady at a department store, and even did office work at the main
headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary in Camp Crame. Then she found a job as social
action worker with the Protestant Pastoral Institute, which took her to the depressed areas of
Cavite and the slums of Tondo.
At the time of the imposition of martial law, Res Fernandez had already been introduced to
activism by her brother Jose; she was then a sophomore at Ramon Magsaysay High School, in
the working-class neighborhood of Sampaloc, Manila. Like many of her fellow activists,
Fernandez felt she needed to continue her commitment to the poor. She went to Isabela as a
clandestine youth organizer.
Arrested in 1980 for rebellion, insurrection and subversion, she spent the next two years in the
PC Provincial Command jail in Ilagan, Isabela. After her release, she stayed with her family for a
few months, and then resumed her social and political action work in the underground;
apparently she was assigned in the Cordillera region in northern Luzon.
Res Fernandez was killed on August 24, 1985 in a raid by constabulary soldiers in Beyeng,
Bakun, Benguet, together with the Catholic priest Nilo Valerio and a third companion, Soledad
Salvador. Witnesses said the three were beheaded and their heads displayed in several barrios,
before being buried in a single grave. But their families never found a single corpse of the three
bodies, not even their heads.
LUIS GABRIEL
BORN
1930 in San Mariano, Isabela
DISAPPEARED
October 7, 1985 in San Mariano, Isabela
PARENTS
Alingatan Gabriel
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Magdalena Gabriel / 3
EDUCATION
Barangay Ueg Elementary School, Ibujan, San Mariano
For years, Luis Gabriel had been a konsehal (councilman) of his community, serving it well and
honestly. The people were predominantly Ibanag, indigenous inhabitants of the Cagayan Valley.
Theirs was a remote place located not far from the Sierra Madre mountain range, 10 hours by
banca, upstream from the San Mariano town center.
Like his constituents, Gabriel was a subsistence farmer, planting rice, corn or peanuts on a two-
hectare lot. Though he had had only four years of formal education, he was highly regarded and
well liked, (nalaing nga makigayyem he easily made friends).
When the villagers elected him barangay captain of Ibujan in 1982, he took steps to stop petty
crimes, particularly the stealing of farm animals. He was asked to settle family disputes and even
personal quarrels. He introduced the idea of cooperative farming, where the farmers were able to
cultivate larger areas and gain bigger harvests by pooling their resources. He met frequently with
his constituents and quietly urged them to resist corruption and exploitation by those who would
take advantage of their simplicity.
Militarization intensified in Isabela during the early 1980s, amid the intractable popular
resistance to martial law. The authorities stepped up the recruitment of civilians to the local
armed militia, then known as the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Force or ICHDF. But
Gabriel refused to cooperate: he was concerned about the record of abuses by the military, whose
earlier operations in the village had resulted in looting and arbitrary arrests. Organizing an
ICHDF unit in Ibujan, he felt, would cause more trouble and endanger more lives in the event of
an armed encounter between the government forces and guerrillas of the New Peoples Army
(NPA). Because of his refusal, the military tagged him as an NPA sympathizer.
On October 7, 1985, heavily armed men led by an army sergeant took away Luis Gabriel and
three other members of the Ibujan barangay council Roger Baui, Antonio Bunagan and Juan
Managuelod saying they were needed as guides for a military sortie. After three days had
passed without news from the four men, their families started looking for them.
At the home of a barangay official in Villa Concepcion, Cauayan town, the women were told that
the four had been sent home the previous day. Then they went to see their mayor to report the
problem but he refused to be involved. They tried to see the constabulary commander in Echague
town but they were not received. They also tried to see the provincial governor, but they were
told he was in Manila.
Human rights groups responded to the families call for help in locating the missing men. The
Isabela Priests Assembly, led by their bishop Miguel Purugganan, sent letters of appeal to
military and defense officials.
But Luis Gabriel and his companions have not been found to this day.
BORN
DIED
March 2, 1973 in Pasig City
PARENTS
E. Voltaire Garcia and Leonora R. Garcia
SPOUSE
Eloisa Abelarde
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. James Academy, Malabon City
Secondary: Ateneo de Manila
Postgraduate: University of Chicago, USA
Enrique Voltaire Garcia II was gravely ill at the time, but President Marcos must have feared
him so much that he was among the first ones ordered to be rounded up and jailed when martial
law was imposed in 1972.
In the 1960s, even before student activism gained momentum among the Filipino youth, Garcia
was already an outstanding achiever at the University of the Philippines in Diliman: chairman of
the university student council and editor of the Philippine Collegian, champion debater and
honor graduate. An independent thinker, his 1967 masters thesis advocated the abolition of the
US military bases in the Philippines. He led early protest rallies against Marcos undemocratic
rule.
After several years of law practice, mostly handling labor cases, he was elected representative of
the first district of Rizal province to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. Here he poured his
energies into putting forward proposals that would steer the country forward along a nationalist
and democratic orientation.
Among the resolutions authored by Garcia was one proposing the immediate abrogation of the
Parity Amendment the product of political and economic coercion by the US government that
had the effect of crippling Philippine growth right from the start.
He also authored a resolution abolishing tax exemption for religious and other properties, and
prohibiting tax privileges for these, arguing that these only helped certain religious groups. .
.amass more wealth through tax savings at the expense of the broad masses of our people.
Among the other measures that he helped to push was a proposal to nationalize the oil industry,
and to declare inalienable the countrys mineral resources. After extensive discussions on what
system of government would best suit the Philippines, given all the weaknesses already evident
in the existing one, a proposal was made by the delegates for such a responsive, responsible and
accountable system.
What Marcos must have resented most was a resolution that would disqualify any former
president of the republic from becoming president or prime minister under the new Constitution,
and furthermore barring him (the incumbent) from any term extension under the existing
Constitution. Unsurprisingly, most of the nine authors of the resolution, Garcia included, were
ordered arrested when martial law was declared.
After a short period of detention in Camp Crame and in Fort Bonifacio, Garcia was released and
placed under house arrest (with a dozen guards making sure he would not escape). He had been
battling leukemia for some years.
Voltaire Garcia died on March 2, 1973 at the age of 30.

BORN
June 9, 1941 in Bacolod City
DIED
PARENTS
Roman C. Gonzaga and Salvacion dela Rama
EDUCATION
Elementary: La Consolacion College, Bacolod City
Secondary: La Consolacion College, Bacolod City
College: University of the East, Manila; La Consolacion College, Bacolod City
Mary Virginia Gonzaga was a woman with compassion, responsibility and a sense of mission.
Orphaned early, she had to be responsible for her brothers and sister. She graduated from college
with a degree in commerce (1967) and then became an organizer for the Young Christian
Workers in her birthplace of Negros Occidental. This was before she entered the religious life as
a novice of the Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS), where she took her final vows in 1979.
Among Gonzagas assignments were with slum dwellers in Cebu and then with migrant workers
in Agusan. The social and economic realities that revealed themselves to her made her critical of
development plans that sacrificed the well-being of poor people. In response, the sisters gave
seminars that made the people aware of their rights and the various means they could use to
address their problems. Local community leaders were identified and given training so that they
themselves could teach and organize the others.
But Sister Gin contracted malaria and typhoid in Agusan; when she had recovered, she was
sent back to Mindanao as superior of the small RGS community in Sapad, Lanao del Norte,
where there was some tension between Muslims and Christians.
Muslims made up almost half of the students in the diocesan school where Gonzaga taught. The
school made it a point not to force or encourage them to join Catholic services, but instead tried
to merely be accepted in their apostolate of presence. After school hours the sisters would visit
the students in their homes.
Mary Virginia Gonzaga died in 1983 when an overloaded, dilapidated interisland vessel, the MV
Cassandra, sank in the sea four hours after leaving Nasipit, Agusan del Norte bound for Cebu.
She and three other RGS sisters were among the more than 600 passengers of the boat, of whom
only 184 survived.
Other justice and peace workers who also perished in that tragedy included Inocencio Ipong of
the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), Sr. Amparo Gilbuena, MSM; Sena Canabria
and Evelyn Hong of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), Sr. Josephine Medrano,
FMA; Rev. Ben Bunio, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP); and Fr. Simon
Westendorp, O.Carm. They did all they could to help others put on their life vests and evacuate
the sinking ship.
LILIOSA R. HILAO
BORN
March 14, 1950 in Bulan, Sorsogon
DIED
April 5, 1973 in Camp Crame, Quezon City
PARENTS
Maximo Hilao and Celsa Rapi
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bulan Elementary School, Sorsogon
Secondary: Bulan High School, Sorsogon; Jose P. Laurel High School, Manila
College: Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
From the day martial law was imposed by President Marcos in September 1972, Liliosa Hilao
began to wear black as a sign of mourning, because, as she wrote then in her diary, Democracy
is dead.21
Barely six months later she herself was dead, in the first reported case of a political detainees
death under martial law.
A talented young woman with many friends and extracurricular activities, Hilao garnered honors
all through her school years. She was due to graduate cum laude with a degree in communication
arts in 1973. But although student activism was at its height by the time she entered college, she
did not join rallies or shout slogans. Besides, she had asthma and allergies that prevented her
from being more physically active.
At the same time, she had a strong sense of justice and a mind of her own. This was expressed in
the thoughtful essays she wrote for the student paper at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
(where she was associate editor); some had titles like The Vietnamization of the Philippines
and Democracy is Dead in the Philippines under Martial Law.
One evening in April 1973, drunken soldiers barged into the Hilao family residence in Quezon
City, looking for Hilaos brother, an engineer. They were members of the Constabulary Anti-
Narcotics Unit. When the young woman insisted that they produce a search warrant or an arrest
order, the soldiers beat her up, then handcuffed and took her away. She was brought to Camp
Crame, headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary (now the Philippine National Police).
There a brother-in-law, an army officer, was able to see Hilao. He saw for himself that she had
been tortured but he was unable to do anything. The following day, her older sister Alice was
called to the Camp Crame Station Hospital. Liliosas body bore visible marks of severe torture,
and even sexual abuse. She was already dead.
The authorities claimed that Hilao committed suicide by drinking muriatic acid. Officials at the
highest levels declared the case was closed.
Because of the tragedy, several members of the Hilao family had to leave their home to avoid
arrest and detention, or worse. For years, they were aware of being under military surveillance.
At the graduation ceremonies held two weeks afterward by the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng
Maynila, a seat was kept vacant for Liliosa Hilao, who was still conferred her degree,
posthumously and with honors.
In Bulan, Sorsogon, where she was born, the municipal council named a street after her in 2001.
ANTONIO M. HILARIO
BORN
November 7, 1947 in Quezon City
DIED
February 18, 1974 in Libacao, Aklan
PARENTS
Tiburcio V. Hilario and Concepcion Mendinueto
SPOUSE / CHILD
Anne Andrada / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: Lourdes School, Mandaluyong City
Secondary: Lourdes School, Mandaluyong City
College: University of the Philippines
Antonio Hilario, popularly known as Tonyhil or Hilton in the pre-martial law student movement,
grew up in Quezon Citys La Loma district. His father was a lawyer and his mother a school
nurse.
Among their ancestors, the family was proud to count Tiburcio Hilario, the first revolutionary
governor of Pampanga under the First Philippine Republic, and Marcelo Hilario del Pilar, one of
the most well-known propagandists against Spanish colonial rule. Zoilo Hilario, a noted poet in
Kapampangan and Spanish who later became a congressman and a trial judge, was his
grandfather.
The fourth of seven children, Tonyhil had a quiet childhood. He made toys out of scrap wood
and later showed an interest in electronics, taking apart broken-down transistor radios to see how
they worked. He rarely socialized, preferring to read or go to the movies instead of playing
basketball.
After graduating from high school, he enrolled in electrical engineering at the University of the
Philippines. However, he never completed his course, as campus political activities began taking
up all his time.
In those early years of student activism, Hilario emerged as a leading figure. He led discussion
groups organized by the UP Nationalist Corps and participated in its many countryside trips as
part of the groups learning-from-the-masses program. It was here where Tonyhil first learned
about rural poverty and oppression.
He was at the historic rally of 26 January 1970, which opened the turbulent period called the
First Quarter Storm. He ended up that night nursing a bandaged head and a body turned black
and blue by police truncheons. The experience seemed to strengthen his convictions.
Hilario was among the founding members of the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK), a
militant youth group that quickly moved into the forefront of the student movement. As its first
secretary-general, he took charge of building SDK chapters in Quezon City, in Manilas
university belt and poor communities and in other urban centers outside of Metro Manila. Under
his leadership, SDK membership grew from a few hundreds to thousands nationwide.
When President Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1971, Hilario was included in a
list of activists charged with subversion. Then the following year, when martial law was
imposed, SDK went underground and so did he.
His initial assignment in the revolutionary underground was to build clandestine youth groups in
Manila that would support the resistance to martial law. Later, he was sent to Panay island to
organize rural communities, train armed recruits, and expand guerrilla operations there.
Less than two years after, he was killed while meeting with several other people inside a hut in a
remote village of Libacao, Aklan, in the mountain fastnesses of central Panay. Without warning,
government troops had surrounded them and opened fire. Antonio Tagamolila and Rolando
Luarca were killed instantly, along with the pregnant villager who owned the hut. Hilario, hit in
the chest, urged his other companions to leave quickly. A witness said that the soldiers beat him
up and had him dig a grave for himself and his two dead comrades. The bodies were exhumed
later, and the family gave Tonyhil a proper burial in a Manila cemetery.
Much admired for his quiet strength and simple, hardworking ways, Antonio Hilario lies in his
grave with an epitaph that reads: Behind the words, contradiction, dialectics, struggle lies
the desire to see man become human again.
RIZALINA P. ILAGAN
BORN
June 19, 1954 in Los Baos, Laguna
DISAPPEARED
July 31, 1977 in Makati, Metro Manila
PARENTS
Tranquilino Ilagan and Sarah Parabuac
EDUCATION
Elementary: Los Baos Central School, Laguna
Secondary: U.P. Rural high School, Laguna
Whatever she decided to do, Rizalina Ilagan excelled at it.
In school, she was always at the top of her class. Consistently, she would be chosen to attend
conferences such as those held by the youth organizations Future Farmers of the Philippines or
the Future Agricultural Homemakers of the Philippines. She was also active in her high schools
speech and drama club, directing several plays, including one which won her a trophy as the best
director. She contributed articles to the school organ, the Ruralite. Enrolled at the University of
the Philippines in Los Baos, she was even selected Miss Freshman 1971 for her beauty and
brains.
Yet this quiet young girl, who liked nothing better than to read books in the seclusion of her
room nagmomongha sa silid, (cloistered like a nun) her family often teased her became a
militant activist. It was in senior high school that Riza Ilagan joined a local chapter of the
Kabataang Makabayan (KM).
As usual, Ilagan excelled. She was a mainstay in the theater group Tambuli under its director Leo
Rimando. When KM set up Panday Sining to become a national theater organization, she was
assigned to be its coordinator in Southern Tagalog.
Panday Sining performed plays where the common people were in factory sites, plantations
and depressed areas. Its stage was any space a picket line, basketball court, churchyard, market
place. Performances were realistic, the message a challenging one: the working people must fight
to be free and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
When martial law was declared in 1972, Ilagan left the university in order to continue full-time
work in organizing and educating communities and sectors in the underground resistance to the
dictatorship. At the time of her disappearance several years later, she was on the editorial staff of
Kalatas, an underground newsletter in Southern Tagalog. Military intelligence was known to be
keen on finding her.
Between July and August 1977, Ilagan and nine others in the Southern Tagalog network went
missing one after another. The Ilagan family learned that she was abducted by military
operatives on the way to a meeting. She had been with two companions, Jessica Sales and
Cristina Catalla, also from UP Los Baos. They have never been seen again.
JUVELYN JARAVELLO
BORN
July 16, 1965 in Fabrica, Negros Occidental
DIED
September 20, 1985 in Escalante, Negros Occidental
MOTHER
Lilia Jaravello
EDUCATION
Eusebio L. Gonzaga
Elementary:
Elementary School
Secondary: Holy Trinity Academy
College: University of Negros Occidental Recoletos
Eighth of the 11 children of Lilia Jaravello, Juvelyn Jaravello was adopted as a six-month-old,
sickly baby by her aunt Elsa. (The family surname is also written as Jaravelo and Jarabelo.)
Juvelyn would grow up to be a cheerful, lively girl who liked competing in contests (even beauty
contests) and who would train to be a student captain in the citizens army training program in
high school.
Her aunt put her through school, so that she went on to get a degree in commerce from the
University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos in Bacolod City.
Jaravello joined the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines during her last semester in
college, and became its coordinator for northern Negros shortly after. After graduation, she
joined her home parish in Fabrica, where she led bible-sharing sessions, did parish surveys, and
took charge of distributing food assistance to the needy. A member of the Children of Mary, this
hardworking young woman of great faith became president of the diocesan youth organization.
She went full time into community organizing, particularly in the town of Escalante.
It was a time when popular anger against the Marcos dictatorship was building up to a powerful
climax. Communities had become conscious of their downtrodden situation, and they wanted to
put an end to it. All over the country, mass protests were being organized. In September 1985, a
three-day peoples strike welgang bayan was planned to be held all over the island of Negros,
the center of the sugar industry and ruled by the so-called sugar barons.
The protest strike was being called to make a stand against hunger, extreme poverty, and
increasing militarization. It would be held during the Thanksgiving celebration that the
Marcos regime declared every year to commemorate the New Society. Twenty-eight bus and
jeepney drivers associations stopped plying their routes. Public and private schools suspended
classes, offices and some business establishments were closed in support of the strike. On Sept.
20, the rallies in Bacolod city, Binalbagan and Kabankalan proceeded peacefully despite threats
of dispersal by the constabulary.
In Escalante, thousands of people massed in front of the municipal hall and on the road to
Bacolod, 98 kilometers away. They were mostly farmers and sugarworkers. Jaravello helped
organize the youth of Fabrica to support the strike, and during the strike itself, she was kept busy
cooking and doing chores in support of the strikers.
On the afternoon of the second day of the strike, the strikers were attacked by a combined force
consisting of constabulary soldiers, paramilitary members, and armed goons of local sugar
plantation owners. As they fired water cannons on the demonstrators, Jaravello moved to the
frontline, I should have brought my shampoo, she kidded. When the firetrucks ran out of
water, the soldiers started throwing teargas canisters.
One of the canisters fell near Jaravello who picked it up, to throw away from the people. Just
then, a soldier pulled a trigger, and she was hit. Then machine guns from atop the municipal hall
started firing. A stampede followed. People ran in different directions. Some screamed for a stop
in the firing. Some had their arms linked, still trying to keep the strike in formation, when bullets
hit them. Some were hit as they ran for the safety of the nearby sugarcane fields. Others tried to
protect their fellow strikers and ended up getting hurt themselves.
Jaravello and 19 others died in the Escalante massacre, all from gunshot wounds; hundreds were
hurt.
More than 50 persons were charged for the crimes, among them Armando Gustilo, a former
congressman with a private army, and who was close to Marcos; he died abroad in 1986.
RAMON V. JASUL
BORN
May 26, 1954
DISAPPEARED
July 1977
PARENTS
Gabriel Jasul and Sofia Villaflor
EDUCATION
Elementary: Lucban Elementary School, Lucban, Quezon
Secondary: Lucban Academy, Lucban, Quezon
Ramon Jasul was the fourth child of a middle-class family from Lucban, Quezon. He was bright
and diligent and showed strong leadership qualities. He was corps commander in his senior year
in high school and contributed to the high school paper, The Banahaw.
Jasul had a questioning mind, refusing to accept things as they are. What is truth? he asked.
We must, he said, try to learn the unknown.22 He wanted to be a journalist. In his high school
yearbook, he wrote: The best use of a journal is to print the largest amount of important truth
which tends to make mankind wiser, thus happier.
Enrolling at the Lyceum of the Philippines when student activism was at its height, Jasul joined a
group called Samahang Molave. He was an ordinary member but active in its teach-ins, group
discussions and seminars. He joined rallies and demonstrations, occasionally getting hit with
truncheons; once he was detained for several hours at the police headquarters in Manila.
When the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in 1971, he left Lyceum and returned to Lucban.
There, he organized the Bagong Kabataan ng Lukban (New Youth of Lucban), which he headed
until martial law was declared in 1972.
Jasul went underground and continued to organize youth groups in his area, this time, directed
against the new repressive regime. In 1973, his older brother Alfredo, who had also gone
underground, was killed by PC troops in Tayabas, Quezon.
Ramon Jasul disappeared in July-August 1977, together with nine other activists: Cristina
Catalla, Gerardo Faustino, Rizalina Ilagan, Jessica Sales, Modesto Sison, Emmanuel Salvacruz,
Salvador Panganiban, Virgilio Silva and Erwin dela Torre. Members of the 2nd Military
Intelligence Group based in Southern Tagalog are suspected to be behind their disappearance.
Only Sisons body has been found, buried anonymously in a common grave at a cemetery in
Lucena City in March 1978.
Writing about her brother, Carmen Jasul said that his dream for the Philippines was for it to be
prosperous, happy and free of violence: Isa siya sa mga naghahangad ng isang lipunang
masagana, maligaya at malaya sa anumang anyo ng pandarahas.
EVELIO B. JAVIER
BORN
October 31, 1942 in Hamtik, Antique
DIED
February 11, 1986 in San Jose, Antique
PARENTS
Everardo Javier and Feliza Bellaflor
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Precious Lotilla / 2
EDUCATION
Elementary: Antique Central School, Antique
Secondary: Ateneo de Manila High School,
Postgraduate: Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA
Evelio Javier was a bright young lawyer who at the age of 29 defeated an entrenched incumbent
and became one of the youngest provincial governor in the Philippines. Throughout martial law
he steadfastly maintained his political independence from the Marcos regime. This independence
cost him his life.
Javier studied at the Ateneo, where he finished high school and college. He became president of
the student council and while in law school, editor-in-chief of the Guidon.
Imbued with the idea that politics is the concern of good and decent people, he returned to
Antique after having taught at the Ateneo for five years. He ran for governor, and won, serving
for the next eight years despite his personal opposition to martial law.
His first instinct was to resign, recounted a friend, but he was prevailed upon by his family,
friends and supporters because everybody thought that martial law, being a temporary measure,
was not going to last long. As it turned out, the temporary measure became a permanent way of
life, and he realized that it was preferable for the Antiqueos to have a leader in such times
than none at all.
After that he declined to serve another term, and instead went to Harvard University to take up a
masters course in public administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Shortly after Benigno Aquinos assassination in 1983, Javier returned to the Philippines and ran
for a seat in the Batasan (martial law parliament) as representative of Antique. Shortly before the
elections, seven of his supporters were killed in an ambush. In what was seen as a sham election,
the Marcos-aligned warlord Arturo Pacificador was proclaimed the winner. (At the Batasan,
Pacificador would be chosen majority floorleader for the Marcos party, Kilusang Bagong
Lipunan.)
Undeterred by this defeat and despite threats to his life, Javier next focused his energies on
campaigning for Corazon Aquino and Salvador Laurel who were facing President Marcos in the
snap presidential elections set for the first week of February 1986. He played a key role in
uniting the opposition behind Mrs. Aquino. He served as provincial chair of the Unido-Laban
party.
Five days after the snap presidential elections, Javier was shot dead by hooded men in broad
daylight and less than 100 meters away from the provincial capitol where election returns were
being canvassed and tallied. The first volley wounded Javier but the assassins were able to corner
and finish him off some distance away.
Seventeen persons, including Arturo Pacificador and his son Rodolfo, and a notorious ex-PC
soldier, were indicted with the Ministry of Justice. The ex-assemblyman was arrested only in
1995, to be acquitted by the regional trial court in Antique for the prosecutions failure (the court
said) to establish Pacificadors involvement in the murder.
Evelio Javier, 44, was killed at a time when public outrage was at its height against the Marcos
dictatorship. In fact, just days later, Marcos with his family and close friends would be flown out
of Malacaang to exile in Hawaii. Months later, in September 1986, the Supreme Court nullified
the proclamation of Arturo Pacificador as congressman of Antique.
Javiers body was flown to Manila where it lay in state at the Ateneo de Manila and served as
rallying point for the forces which coalesced to become the EDSA people power. It was then
flown back to Antique for burial. Provincemates mourned their young leaders death in an epic
funeral procession that ran the 160-kilometer length of the island of Panay.
BORN
April 14, 1916 in San Ramon, Zamboanga
DIED
PARENTS
Eriberto B. Misa and Lucia Erquiaga
SPOUSES / CHILDREN
Jess Paredes Jr.; Othoniel Jimenez / 10
EDUCATION
Elementary: Public school
Secondary: Philippine Womens University, Manila
College: University of Sto. Tomas
Ester Dolores Misa Paredes Jimenez became involved in the anti-dictatorship struggle through
her children, whom she had raised to be independent and to have minds of their own.
When her youngest son informed her in 1975 that he was intending to drop out of college in
order to go full time in the underground. She held my hand and said, I am very proud of you.
Then she shed some tears. It was the very first time and, I believe, the last time, I saw her cry. It
was also the proudest moment of my life. That moment would repeatedly come back to inspire
me to move on in spite of the difficulties.
She opened her home to underground activities, including the production of revolutionary
publications, and weekly meetings of activists. Her home became a refuge for wounded
revolutionaries or those in hiding. On two occasions, she personally drove a wounded guerrilla to
the hospital for treatment.
Earlier in her life, Jimenez was a widow who, at age 41, was left to raise and support 10 children
by herself. Her first husband was Jess Paredes Jr., a lawyer and broadcaster who died in an
airplane crash with President Ramon Magsaysay in 1957.
When martial law was imposed, her children were grown and she was already in her mid-60s.
Still she became involved in urban guerrilla activities against the regime through the Light-A-
Fire Movement, with her second husband Othoniel Jimenez. The members of this group were
arrested in December 1979, among them Ester and her husband. After her release in 1981 she
continued to visit him and the other detainees in the Bicutan jail to minister to their needs.
Members of the Light-A-Fire group, including Ester and Othoniel Jimenez, were sentenced to
death by a military court in December 1984 but the sentence was never carried out. After the
EDSA people power in 1986 and the abolition of the Marcos dictatorship, the Supreme Court
nullified the death sentences.
Ester Jimenez was neither ideologue nor political leader, but she was a steadfast person who
simply did what she believed was right. She gave generously of herself without expectation of
reward or praise. Many came to call her Mommy in recognition of her good heart and
selflessness.
She died in 1997 at the age of 81, after a long illness.

MARY BERNARD (VIRGINIA) JIMENEZ
BORN
April 3, 1923 in Sta. Ana, Manila
DIED
September 11, 1984 in Quezon City
PARENTS
Francisco R. Jimenez and Anastacia Correa
EDUCATION
Elementary: Sta. Ana Elementary School, Manila
Secondary: Far Eastern University High School, Manila
College: University of Santo Tomas
To the numerous political detainees under the Marcos dictatorship, Sister Mary Bernard Jimenez
was a welcome sight whenever she arrived under the heat of the sun, lugging heavy packages
containing coffee, slippers, snacks and reading materials.
A motherly-looking woman whose sincerity and compassion won the hearts of activists and
guerrilla fighters alike, they even came to call her sister-comrade. A poem was made for her:
Malayo ka pa Kapatid-Kasamang Bernard nakikita na kita.../ Kulay lupa mong habito,
sagisag ng pagkamakumbaba/ Yay nagniningning kung tinatamaan ng sikat ng araw/ Tungo sa
mga detenidong pulitikal. (I can see you coming from afar, Sister-Comrade Bernard/ Dressed in
the humble color of the earth/ Your habit shines in the sun as you draw nearer to us political
detainees.)25
Born Virginia Jimenez, Sister Mary Bernard, CM, joined the Carmelite Missionaries soon after
graduating with a degree in education in 1948. For decades she taught at various Carmelite
schools, in the provinces (Batangas, Iloilo, Quezon) and in Quezon City.
When martial law was imposed, she was already in her fifties, but Jimenez became one of the
earliest volunteers to work at Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), a program
organized in 1974 by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines. She
became the TFDP coordinator for Metro Manila.
There was much work to be done with the jails full of persons who had been unjustly detained by
the police and military. Jimenez was a very effective human rights worker. She cajoled and
argued her way into detention camps, bringing with her food, medicine and handicraft materials
for the prisoners. Her gentle ways and cheerful disposition disarmed the captors. She was often
the first to bring a friendly word to political prisoners being held in isolation. She was a familiar
figure to those who were imprisoned in Camp Crame, Camp Bagong Diwa (Bicutan
Rehabilitation Center) in Bicutan and the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa, as well as Camp
Olivas in Pampanga.
Jimenez gave special attention to prisoners who had few or no visitors. She tirelessly worked for
their release papers, going the rounds of military and defense ministry offices. Through her
efforts, they regained their freedom. Often the most difficult to visit and the hardest to have
released papers were political prisoners in the maximum security prisons. She also gave them
special attention.
Sr. Mary Bernard Jimenez was one of TFDPs most hardworking members. Fatigue, hunger and
fear failed to stop her. Only cancer eventually did. Her death in 1984 was mourned by hundreds
of political prisoners and human rights workers. She was 61 years old.
EDGAR GIL M. JOPSON
BORN
DIED
September 21, 1982 in Davao City
PARENTS
Hernan Jopson and Josefa Mirasol
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Gloria Asuncion / 3
EDUCATION
Elementary: Ateneo de Manila
College: Ateneo de Manila University;
One of the most well-known figures in the student movement before the martial-law period,
Edgar Jopson was president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), then
the largest student formation with members coming from 69 schools.
Jopson, widely known as Edjop, led the NUSP to become involved in current issues. When two
barrios in Bantay, Ilocos Sur were burned down in a feud between local politicians, Edjop and
his group went to get the terrified residents out of the area and housed them on campus until their
safety was assured. Likewise, when huge floods in 1972 left large areas of Luzon underwater for
weeks, Jopson solicited the support of government and business groups for a project where
hundreds of youths went to reforest parts of the Sierra Madre mountains for several weekends,
stopping only because martial law had been declared. It was the NUSP that initiated the massive
rally held in front of the Congress building on January 26, 1970, as Marcos made his state of the
nation address.
One memorable anecdote of that period was about Jopson and other student leaders going to
Malacaang to dialogue with Marcos, soon after that rally. There the boyish Jopson insisted that
the most powerful person in the land promise not to seek a third term of office, and to put it in
writing. Angrily, Marcos refused to agree to such a demand from a mere grocers son.
At the time, the most hotly debated topic in the student movement was whether a
radical/revolutionary or a moderate/reformist path was the better approach to social change.
Jopson, who was popularly identified as a moderate, preferred to stress that in reality the two
sides were united in their objectives. In his speech as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men by
the Philippine Jaycees in 1970, he said, Solutions to our problems may divide us but [such
divisions] should never override the unifying need for these solutions. It is this need that unites
us in the student movement; it is this need that unites us ultimately with other progressive sectors
in our society.
After graduation, Jopson turned away from job opportunities here and abroad, choosing instead
to work with the Philippine Association of Free Labor Unions. He took up law at the University
of the Philippines, which he abandoned after a couple of years, convinced that the laws he was
studying were for the rich. He remained with the labor movement, living among the workers and
helping draft collective bargaining agreements. He was instrumental in organizing the landmark
workers strike at La Tondea distillery in 1974, the first significant open mass protest under
martial law.
By this time, with the martial law regime closing off all avenues for peaceful change, Jopson had
taken the radical path. He was soon a ranking leader of the anti-dictatorship revolutionary
movement, tasked to head the preparatory commission for the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines. In 1979 he was arrested in Metro Manila and tortured while under interrogation.
After ten days, he escaped and immediately rejoined the underground. He made a written
testimony that detailed the physical and mental torture he underwent, his torturers names, rank,
and personality profiles.
In 1981, with a P180,000 prize on his head, making him one of the most wanted persons in the
country, Jopson simply went on with his work; he went to Mindanao, learning and writing,
developing insights into the unique characteristics that shaped the regions history and present
situation.
On September 20, 1982, he was captured during a military raid in Davao City, shot while trying
to escape, brought to the military camp and interrogated. He refused to cooperate and was
summarily executed the following day. He was 34 years old.
Edgar Jopson became a symbol of the modern idealistic Filipino youth who faced the realities
of their time without flinching, gladly giving all, including their lives, for the country and the
people.
ESTELITA G. JUCO
BORN
DIED
July 12, 1989 in Manila
PARENTS
Alfonso Juco and Francisca Guinto
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Paul College Manila
Secondary: St. Paul College Manila
College: St. Paul College Manila
Resistance to the dictatorship was a shared undertaking of the Filipino people, and it included
middle-class professionals, students, workers, peasants, government employes, armed
revolutionary fighters and other advocates of nonviolence.
Estelita Juco was a teacher for 36 years at St. Pauls College, an exclusive girls school where
she herself had studied from the elementary grades to her graduation with a bachelors degree in
education summa cum laude. She taught courses in English, journalism, sociology, public
relations, and history, among others. She was the longtime moderator or adviser, of the school
newspaper, The Paulinian.
Before that she had been a well-known student leader in the 1950s, having been very active in
the College Editors Guild, the Student Catholic Action, the Conference Delegates Association
and the Student Council Association.
As a teenager, Juco was seriously wounded in the final days of World War II, during the Battle
of Manila. Her family had taken refuge in the Philippine General Hospital, not far from where
they lived, as the bombing intensified and the fighting raged between American and Japanese
troops. Jucos younger brother died as they lay wounded together; she found herself disabled,
blind in one eye, right arm and left knee both gone. Years after the end of the war, she was sent
to Japan for three months for a leadership training course. She won many friends, including
members of the imperial family, for speaking as a victim of the Japanese occupation of the
Philippines, but having no bitterness towards Japan.
Jucos political activism was manifested in the 1950s when she campaigned for Ramon
Magsaysay as president, who won in 1953. She also campaigned for Manuel Manahan (1957)
and Raul Manglapus (1964), who both lost.
Under martial law, she joined several groups that formed the budding opposition, among them
Joaquin P. Rocess Taza de Oro group. With journalist Jose Burgos Jr. she helped revive the
College Editors Guild (which had been abolished) as the Metropolitan Association of College
Editors. But while Juco was totally against the dictatorship, according to a friend, she was
also very much against violence. She would not hear of resorting to it even to topple what to her
was a repressive regime. She was in fact an advocate of non-violence.26
In 1980 she was invited by Burgos to write a column for We Forum (Once More with Feeling)
and later for Malaya (Woman in the City of Man.) She criticized martial law, decried human
rights violations and lambasted Imelda Marcos increasingly frivolous activities, exulting
afterward that nothing can quite surpass the excitement and tremulous satisfaction of those
weekly pieces of brinkmanship that challenged the conjugal dictatorship when Freedom lay
dying and human life was cheap.27 One night her house mysteriously burned down, and she
suspected that the fire had something to do with a particularly critical column she wrote about
Imelda Marcos.
When Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated in 1983, Jucos activism became more
militant. She wrote increasingly bold articles, joined street marches against the dictatorship, and
helped organize St. Paul alumnae to join the protest actions. She campaigned for Corazon
Aquinos election to the presidency.
After martial law had ended, Juco retired from teaching and was appointed as sectoral
representative of women and the disabled in the first post-dictatorship Congress. She held the
post for two years until her death on July 12, 1989.
BORN
December 10, 1948 in Cagayan de Oro City
DIED
March 18, 1976 in Asuncion, Davao del Norte
PARENTS
Jose M. Lacaba Sr. and Fe Flores
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Lalli de Vera / 2
EDUCATION
Elementary: Pasig Catholic College, Rizal
Secondary: Pasig Catholic College, Rizal
Emmanuel Lacaba was a poet who searched for meaning and relevance in his art and life, and
discovered these in the midst of the Filipino masses.
He won many awards as a poet, fictionist, essayist and playwright; he was a magazine illustrator,
a stage actor and a production hand. He taught at the University of the Philippines, wrote songs,
practiced the martial and even the occult arts. He was an honor student from grade school to high
school (studying in the United States for one year as an exchange scholar), and he went to
college on a full scholarship.
Flower child Eman Lacaba started to show political awareness during the First Quarter Storm
of 1970, when he began taking part in political actions. He named his two daughters, born during
that period, Miriam Manavi Mithi Mezcaline Mendiola, and Emanwelga Fe.
Lacaba was teaching a course on Rizals life and works when he was arrested and detained due
to his participation in a labor strike. He lost his job at the UP as a result.
In 1974, he decided to join the New Peoples Army (NPA) in South Cotabato. He took the name
Popoy Dakuykoy, an allusion to a comic book character whose name he had once used for a
character in an epic poem he had written in the 1960s.
His passion for writing was well known. When he ran out of paper to use, he wrote on the back
of cigarette foil wrappers. In one of his poems, he described himself as the shy young poet
forever writing last poem after last poem, the brown Rimbaud who became a peoples
warrior.
Lacaba had been with the NPA for two years when, in March 1976, an informer led a troop of
soldiers to the peasant hut where he and his fellow guerrillas had spent the night. With no
warning shots or calls for surrender, the soldiers opened fire. All the guerrillas were killed
immediately, except Lacaba and a pregnant teenager who were both wounded. They were being
taken to Tagum, Davao del Norte, when the sergeant who headed the soldiers gave the
instruction not to bring anyone back alive.
The pregnant woman was first to be shot dead, then Lacaba, who is said to have dared the
informer, Go ahead, finish me off. The informer had then put a .45-caliber pistol into his
mouth and fired. Lacabas mother claimed her sons body later.
Eman Lacaba is perhaps the first nationally-known creative writer who joined the armed struggle
against the Marcos dictatorship. Poems and articles were written about him after his death. A
collection of his poems, Salvaged Poems, was published posthumously in 1986. Another
collection, Salvaged Prose, of his short stories, plays and essays, came out in 1992.
BORN
August 30, 1950 in Carigara, Leyte
DISAPPEARED
late November 1975 in Paco, Manila
PARENTS
Reginaldo Pascual and Carolina Jimenez
SPOUSE / CHILD
Vicente Ladlad / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Paul College, Tacloban City
Secondary: UP Preparatory High School, Manila
Leticia Pascual loved books. As a young girl, she was laman ng bookstore, and by sixth grade
serious philosophical works were part of her reading fare. Her intellectual interests were nurtured
by her parents; her father, a pediatrician, was once director of the Philippine General Hospital
and her mother a professor in graduate school.
Pascual excelled as a student at the University of the Philippines in Los Baos (UPLB), where
she was expected to graduate magna cum laude in agricultural chemistry. But her nose was not
always buried in books. Tish, as friends called her, joined the Samahang Demokratiko ng
Kabataan and co-founded the UP Cultural Society and the League of Editors for a Democratic
Society. In her third year she became the first woman editor of the student paper Aggie Green
and Gold.
Although Pascual grew up in the city and had a relatively sheltered middle-class upbringing, she
rapidly became aware of the social and political realities that the countrys poor had to live with.
Her writings began to show this deepening understanding of her countrys politics, especially
when she actually started making extended visits to Southern Luzon farming communities and
learning about their problems.
Her parents were worried for Tish because she was frail, but they realized that it was a decision
they could understand and respect, and admired her for it. When Marcos suspended the writ of
habeas corpus in 1971, she left her studies and continued to work among the peasant farmers in
Laguna and Quezon provinces. In 1973 she married fellow activist Vicente Ladlad and gave
birth to their daughter in 1975.
In late November of 1975, she left home to meet with some comrades in the area of Paco Church
in Manila; she was expected to return later that day. The group all disappeared without a trace.
Parents and friends looked for her at the defense and constabulary headquarters but their efforts
were fruitless.
HERMON C. LAGMAN
BORN
February 12, 1945 in Tabaco, Albay
DISAPPEARED
May 11, 1977 in Metro Manila
PARENTS
Pedro Eduardo Lagman and Cecilia C. Lagman
EDUCATION
Elementary: Tabaco Central Elementary School, Tabaco, Albay
Secondary: Caloocan High School, Caloocan City
As early as in his high school days, Hermon Lagman who was student council president and
editor-in-chief of the school paper, showed the qualities of a principled and uncompromising
student activist when he protested and editorialized irregularities in the results of the competency
examinations for graduating students.
In college, he organized rallies and demonstrations and expressed his nationalist views as a
senior editor of the Philippine Collegian and as editor-in-chief of the Law Register, official
organ of the law students at the University of the Philippines.
When he passed the bar in 1971, he became a militant advocate of labor rights, offering his
services free especially to workers pursuing cases of illegal layoffs and unfair labor practices. He
was a volunteer lawyer of the Citizens Legal Aid Society in the Philippines and a founding
member of the Free Legal Assistance Group.
Lagman was among the lawyers arrested after the declaration of martial law in 1972. He was
kept in prison for two months without charges. From detention, he wrote to his mother Cecilia:
At sunrise today, while standing idly in the morning cold, I saw two sparrows perched
together.... (They) looked at us human beings here, and I looked at them. They seemed to have
more understanding than some men.... At noon today, two clients came.... They cried.... I always
dream here of all of you. We have a surfeit of energy for dreams.
He was arrested again in 1976 but released on the same day. At that time, labor groups had
grown increasingly militant, staging pickets and strikes and resisting repressive martial law
edicts. Lagman was legal counsel to many of these labor unions. Notably, among these unions,
was the Kaisahan ng Malayang Manggagawa sa La Todena Inc., which spearheaded the historic
first open defiance of the martial law ban on strikes and other mass actions.
On May 11, 1977, Lagman and his associate Victor Reyes left Quezon City to attend a meeting
in Pasay City when they disappeared. Someone who refused to identify himself called Lagmans
mother to say that her son Hermon had been abducted. Searches and inquiries by relatives and
friends in military camps and known detention facilities have failed to ascertain the fate and
whereabouts of the two victims of enforced disappearance.
Hermon C. Lagman showed a deep and abiding commitment to the causes he espoused, and a
fearlessness in living such a commitment. Said his mother: My son, although outwardly gentle
and unassuming, was an angry young man. But his anger was not the mock anger of a showman,
but the strong, silent rage of a warrior.
BORN
DIED
February 18, 1976 in Mauban, Quezon
PARENTS
Jose A. Lansang and Flora Celi
EDUCATION
Elementary: UP Elementary School Diliman, Quezon City
Secondary: Philippine Science High School
The youngest child of two university professors, Lorenzo, called Nik, was fondly considered a
genius by his family. He started reading at age three and wrote verses too. By the time he was in
sixth grade, he was said to have read through all the volumes of Colliers Encyclopedia, aside
from becoming totally engrossed in the book, Philippine Society and Revolution, authored by
Amado Guerrero, and other sociopolitical writings. Drawing on a prodigious memory, he would
discuss all the main battles of the first and second world wars. Like his father and one brother, he
was proficient in writing essays as well as poems.
When Lansang entered the Philippine Science High School in 1970, his political involvement
deepened, especially after joining the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. With the suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus in 1971, he went full time into youth and community organizing,
living in a very poor section of Tondo in Manila, having been adopted into the home of a
family there. He left school by his second year.
After the declaration of martial law, when he was 16, Lansang went to join the guerrilla
underground in Quezon province. There he lived, close to three years, among the marginalized
farmers and fisherfolk along the Pacific coast, helping them to analyze and find solutions to their
problems.
One day in February 1976, Lansang was in a car with five others, bringing rice and food supplies
to Quezon from Manila. Apparently, they were being trailed by constabulary forces that caught
up with them in Barangay Cagsiay I in Mauban town. Lansang and three of his comrades, one of
them a pregnant woman named Leah Masajo, were shot dead and buried in a common grave in
Lucena City. He was 19 years old.
BORN
December 3, 1932 in Tayug, Pangasinan
DIED
February 8, 1986 in Diadi, Nueva Vizcaya
PARENTS
Simplicio and Trinidad Laurella
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Belen Mabbayad / 3
EDUCATION
College: Arellano University, Manila
Francisco Laurella learned about responsibility for others early in life. Their father having died
during the Japanese occupation, he looked after his family, including three younger sisters, even
before reaching his teenage years.
Determined to pursue his studies, he went to Manila and earned a teachers certificate and (in
1966) a teachers degree from the Arellano University. He taught social studies subjects in
Paniqui, Tarlac then in Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya. He met and married Belen Mabbayad in
Bagabag. The couple moved to Diffun in Quirino province where they settled down and brought
up their three children.
At school, Laurella was a fatherly disciplinarian. He coached the boys basketball and girls
softball teams.
In 1971, he left his teaching job to work on the family farm in Diffun. He also ran for municipal
councilor. Despite the lack of backing from the major political parties, Laurella won and served
his term. When martial law was imposed in 1972, Laurella made a decision not to seek reelection
or engage in any more political activities.
When the 1986 snap presidential election was called, after many years as a private citizen,
Laurella knew it was time to stand up and be counted. He joined the United Nationalist
Democratic Organization (Unido), and openly campaigned for Corazon Aquino. This exposed
him and his family to great risk, as Quirino province was then ruled by the warlord Orlando
Dulay, a Marcos ally.
As the antidictatorship movement grew stronger nationwide, Laurella found the courage to
become even bolder, delivering speeches to urge his provincemates to support a change in the
political regime. Speaking over the local radio in Cauayan, Isabela, two days before the election,
he lambasted the Marcos regime, saying: We are buried in debt. We have been sold away by
President Marcos. The next generations will not be able to pay off all these loans. The
government has to be changed.
On the night of February 6, 1986, Laurella was with Fernando Pastor Sr. and the latters son,
Fernando Jr. when they were intercepted at a security checkpoint. The three were brought to the
governors residence where they were detained in a van for three days before they were killed,
and their bodies thrown into a creek in Barangay Balete in Diadi, Nueva Vizcaya. Balete
residents found them four days later.
Quirino governor Orlando Dulay was arrested for the kidnapping and murder. In 1993, the
Supreme Court affirmed the life sentence imposed on him by the Quezon City regional trial
court.
Frank Laurella and the two other Unido leaders were posthumously awarded by their party and
by the provincial government of Quirino in 1990 for their supreme sacrifice and courage for the
cause of truth, justice and democracy.
EMMANUEL L. LAZO
BORN
July 2, 1968 in Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya
DIED
October 21, 1985 at Taft Avenue, Manila
PARENTS
Baudillo Lazo and Lydia Lumapit
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bintawan North Elementary School, Nueva Vizcaya
Secondary: Nueva Vizcaya General Comprehensive High School, Bayombong
College: Central Luzon State University, Nueva Ecija
Emmanuel Lazo was the quiet and well-behaved son of a peasant couple in Barangay
Bintawan, Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya, the youngest of their children. When he entered college
and became an activist, his gift for writing, drawing and the stage found expression in the
peoples movement against the dictatorship.
The country fell under martial law when he was in grade school, but it was in high school when
Manny Lazo started to be bothered by the problems he saw around him and the larger Philippine
society. His hometown had by then become highly militarized, and he knew abuses were
rampant.
In 1985, as soon as he entered the Central Luzon State University in Cabanatuan City, Nueva
Ecija, he joined the League of Filipino Students. Lazo also helped organize a cultural group
called Akda (Alyansa ng Kabataan sa Dula at Awit) and performed in plays, sang songs and
recited poetry during rallies. He was often the lead in Akdas street plays, sometimes taking the
role of an activist, a guerrilla in the anti-Japanese resistance or even national hero Andres
Bonifacio. Often he drew political cartoons, posting these on the door of his locker in the college
campus. The assassination of former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. touched him and he made a
sketch of Aquino with the caption: Who is this man? Who was the assassin?
In 1985, when peoples protests were erupting everywhere against the dictatorship, a big rally
was held in Manila highlighting the urgent demands of the peasantry: lower the price of farm
inputs like fertilizer and pesticides, stabilize farmgate prices. Lower interest rates on production
loans. Implement genuine agrarian reform, stop militarization of the countryside.
The five-day march, originating from various points in Luzon and converging at Manilas
Liwasang Bonifacio would end on October 21. Ten thousand people joined, among them Lazo
and his friends. He had never been to Manila before.
But the marchers never reached Liwasang Bonifacio as planned. Just before noon of that day,
along Taft Avenue, police forcibly broke into their ranks. Patrol cars rammed the marchers. This
was followed by smoke bomb explosions and pistol shots. The rallyists ran in different
directions. Lazo was separated from his group and was last heard shouting to his companions to
keep close together: Mga Nueva Ecija, mga Nueva Ecija, huwag kayong maghihiwalay!
Someone then saw him fall, a bullet having pierced his skull. Another young marcher, Danilo
Valcos, was himself killed as he tried to help the victims.
Mannys brother Elmer who had voluntarily foregone college in order to support Mannys
desire for further studies passed by the scene of the tragedy just minutes after the shooting, not
knowing that his younger brother had just fallen there, age 17.
EDMUNDO R. LEGISLADOR
BORN
November 24, 1950 in Oton, Iloilo
DIED
July 27, 1973 in Sibalom, Antique
PARENTS
Albino Legislador and Piedad Rivera
SPOUSE
Mary June Abordo
EDUCATION
Elementary: San Nicolas Elementary School, Oton, Iloilo
Secondary: UP Iloilo High School;
Don Bosco Technical School, Negros Occidental
College: University of the Philippines Iloilo
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 lesser in number. 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 full time 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 returned to Iloilo the
following June but soon after left again for 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 Legisladors 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.
BORN
November 24, 1914 in Lubao, Pampanga
DIED
December 16, 1980 in San Fernando, Pampanga
PARENTS
Emigdio Lingad and Irene Bulaong
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Estella Layug / 6
EDUCATION
Elementary: Lubao Elementary School
Secondary: Pampanga High School
College: University of the Philippines, Philippine Law School
In January 1980, the dictatorship held elections for governors, vice governors, mayors and vice
mayors. The Marcos dictatorship was then at the height of its powers and had just decimated the
Liberal Party-Laban coalition in the fraud-ridden election for members of the Interim Batasang
Pambansa in 1978.
The opposition coalition had decided to boycott the 1980 elections, but Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.
(in exile at the time) believed that despite the certainty of being cheated, it would be an
opportunity to further expose the regimes 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
Pampangas 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 dictatorships 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 drivers 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, Lingads 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 M. LOPEZ
BORN
January 31, 1952 in Manila
DIED
June 1976 in San Guillermo, Isabela
PARENTS
Domingo Lopez and Marta Mejia
EDUCATION
Elementary: Project 6 Elementary School, Quezon City
Secondary: Philippine Science High School
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.
MARY CATHERINE (LUCINDA) LORETO
BORN
April 30, 1944 in Pasig, Rizal
DIED
November 21, 1983, off the coast of northeastern Mindanao
PARENTS
Antonio Loreto and Lucia Olavides
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bambang Elementary School, Pasig
Secondary: Rizal High School
College: University of the East;
Lyceum of the Philippines
Sr. Mary Catherine Loreto was born Lucinda Loreto, the child of an army dentist who died
missing in action during World War II. His widow raised her two daughters by herself.
Loreto earned two university diplomas, in foreign service and business administration. She
worked in a bank, went to parties and wore miniskirts like other young women at the time, the
1960s. Her family was surprised when she decided to become a nun (a Religious of the Good
Shepherd, RGS) in 1973. The country was under martial law.
Working in a poor community in Manila brought her face to face with the suffering caused by
poverty. Sometimes she would join residents of the slums protesting against the forcible
demolition of their homes, like them going through the experience of being hosed down by water
cannons.
She was then assigned to Isabela and Cebu, but it was in Bicol where she was exposed to the
abuses perpetrated by the military under the dictatorship. She became a defender of human
rights.
She joined the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, a group of sisters from different religious
orders who undertook development programs in poor rural communities.
In Davao, Loreto volunteered for the field office of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines
(TFDP) and was soon its coordinator.
Resistance to the Marcos dictatorship was growing in Davao City and adjacent areas.
Communities supported legal as well as extra-legal protest actions, and even the New Peoples
Army and its urban-based Sparrow Units.
Human rights violations continued unabated. TFDP-Davao received countless requests for
lawyers, assistance in locating missing persons and so on. Loreto, as the task force coordinator,
carried a heavy burden. But she was aware that her status as a religious afforded her some
measure of protection. She went about her tasks with great dedication and courage.
She visited detainees in the camps, sought out military officials in searching for missing persons,
traveled to remote areas to inform the families of those who had been detained or killed. She
escorted relatives to funeral parlors and morgues to identify bodies. Once she secured the baby of
an activist couple and temporarily brought it to the convent to be cared for. Resourceful and
friendly, she even developed a network of informants drivers and funeral parlors owners,
among others, for locating missing persons. Detainees were particularly thankful for her efforts
in organizing visits by friends and in soliciting material assistance for their needs.
On a boat trip to Cebu in 1983, Sr. Catherine Loreto drowned with three other RGS nuns during
the sinking of the MV Cassandra. Survivors said it was the nuns who alerted the passengers that
the ship was sinking because the crew refused to admit it. The sisters roused sleeping passengers,
gave instructions on survival measures and made sure that the children especially had life vests.
The sisters themselves did not take life jackets. Out of more than 600 passengers, less than 200
survived the disaster.
RIZALDY JESUS M. MAGLANTAY
BORN
December 30, 1960 in Ibajay, Aklan
DIED
August 3, 1985 in Kalibo, Aklan
PARENTS
Pedro and Estrella Maglantay
EDUCATION
Elementary: Ibajay Elementary School, Aklan
Secondary: Melchor Memorial High School, Ibajay, Aklan
College: National College of Business Administration, Manila;
Aklan College, Kalibo, Aklan
In college, Rizaldy Maglantay was a student leader at the National College of Business
Administration in Manila. After that he found an office job at a multinational corporation, which
would have meant stable employment and a normal life.
But it was martial law, and Maglantay knew that life could not be normal, especially after a
close friend, Diore Mijares, was summarily executed by military personnel in April 1983.
Summoned by his conscience, Maglantay quit his job in Manila in order to serve as a volunteer
for Task Force Detainees in his home province of Aklan.
For the next two years, Maglantay documented human rights abuses and assisted political
prisoners despite minimal wages and, especially, the grave risks involved in human rights work.
As far as he could see, he said, there was no democracy in the Philippines and human rights did
not exist. He decried the widespread torture, arbitrary arrests, salvaging (extrajudicial killings),
hamletting, etc., saying: If I dont do something, who will explain all this to the people here?31
Shortly before he was killed, Maglantay had ignored an invitation for questioning by the
commanding officer of the constabulary based in Abago, Ibajay, Aklan. On the night of August
2, 1985, however, he agreed to go drinking with an acquaintance whom he knew to be in the
military. The two were seen in a beerhouse talking until late that night.
Maglantay was found dead early the following morning inside the grounds of an elementary
school. His body had 30 stab wounds and other marks of torture. The man who had been with
him, a PC corporal, left Kalibo for the province of Iloilo hours just earlier.
The human rights community in the Philippines angrily denounced the crime, leading Gen. Fidel
V. Ramos, then vice chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to order an
investigation. The case has not been solved.
AURELIO D. MAGPANTAY
BORN
November 12, 1952 in Bauan, Batangas
DIED
March 1984; found dead in Silang, Cavite
PARENTS
Macario Magpantay and Brigida Dimalibot
EDUCATION
Elementary: Cupang Elementary School, Batangas
Secondary: Bauan High School, Batangas
College: Mapua Institute of Technology;
Western Philippine Colleges and Bauan Vocational School (Batangas)
Aurelio Magpantay was called Boy by everyone. He was the neighborhood kuya, a kind and
helpful guy, the one you wish could have been your elder brother.
He was a bright student, earning honors in elementary and high school, and even started out as a
college scholar in engineering at Mapua. The family was, however, unable to keep him there,
and so he went back home and enrolled in a course in welding at a vocational school, where he
finished at the top of his class. Then he won a scholarship at the Western Philippine Colleges in
Batangas to study for a commerce course. He joined the staff of the student paper, Western
Advocates. His political involvement in the antidictatorship movement began as a student in
Manila, and continued even as he transferred to other schools.
Magpantay was set to graduate from WPC when he was killed. He was one of four young men
who disappeared during a Lakbayan, a Peoples Long March against Poverty, and found dead
weeks afterward. They were the Lakbayani Ismael Umali, Ronilo Evangelio, Noel Clarete,
and Boy.
After the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. on August 21, 1983, Magpantay joined the
Batangas chapter of the Justice for Aquino Justice for All Movement, as well as the Batangas
chapter of the August Twenty-One Movement. He was detained for a short time in October-
November 1983. Two men in civilian clothes but claiming to be constabulary officers arrested
him while he was in the middle of a JAJA meeting inside a church in Tuy, Batangas. He was
released after more than 10 days of interrogation and torture, and only after his captors learned
that he was the nephew of a town mayor. But he and his family knew that he continued to be
under close military surveillance.
Still, Magpantay remained an active participant in the many rallies and protest actions that were
taking place then in his province, the Southern Tagalog region, and indeed all over the country.
On March 6, 1984, he joined the Lakbayan or Lakad para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (Peoples
March for Freedom). The next day, he and his friends Ismael Umali, Renato Evangelio, Noel
Clarete, and Boy took leave of the others in their contingent as they rested in Manilas Rizal
Park. That was the last time the four were seen alive. Three weeks later, their bodies were found
dumped together in a shallow grave in Cavite. Magpantays body bore stab wounds and both
wrists were tied together. His family believes he was summarily executed, salvaged, by martial
law authorities.
RODELO Z. MANAOG
BORN
July 11, 1960 in Mauban, Quezon
DISAPPEARED
June 21, 1984 in Southern Tagalog
PARENTS
Arsenio Manaog and Numeriana Zabala
EDUCATION
Elementary: Mauban South Elementary School
Secondary: Philippine Science High School;
M. L. Quezon University High School
College: Luzonian State University, Lucena City;
University of the Philippines Los Baos
Rodelo Manaog was another bright young man, a natural leader, who disappeared under the
Marcos dictatorship.
The eighth child in a brood of nine, the young Delo loved school. He graduated valedictorian
from elementary school, and was the first from Mauban, Quezon to be admitted to the
prestigious Philippine Science High School (PSHS), which he attended for three years, after
which he transferred and graduated from another high school. He then entered the Luzonian
State University in Lucena City, where he became involved in the university student council and
the school organ, The Luzonian, as well as other campus activities. As a child tagging along with
an elder sister as she attended political teach-ins, and because of the pervasive discontent with
the dictatorship, Manaog imbibed a nationalist outlook early on. He became a Kabataang
Makabayan activist while still in PSHS, during the early years of martial law.
Moving to the University of the Philippines in Los Baos in 1977, Manaog joined the staff of the
UPLB Perspective. In one article, he tried to make his fellow students understand that it was only
right to question the universitys orientation: Para saan ba ang pasilidad, kagamitan at gusali
Kung ang programang pang-edukasyon naman ay hindi akma sa kalagayan ng lipunang
nangangailangan nito? ...Nagiging manpower supplier tayo sa sistemang lumulukob sa ating
ekonomiya. (Whats the use of these facilities, equipment and buildings if the curriculum is not
suited to the conditions of our society? We only serve to supply the manpower for the system
that controls our economy.
His friends were not surprised when he decided to quit school in order to become a full-time
labor organizer. I will never let my schooling interfere with my education, he declared.33
He worked with the National Federation of Labor Unions, and the Institute for Workers
Leadership and Development in Laguna. His friends would see him from time to time. They
knew he was aware of being under surveillance. But when he did not show up for two months,
they began looking for him and also informed his family. They had last seen him inside a grocery
store at the UPLB campus on June 21, 1984.
A campaign was organized to look for Manaog. Pickets were held in front of military camps. The
military denied any involvement, but Delos family and friends remain unconvinced. They never
found him.
RAUL S. MANGLAPUS
BORN
DIED
July 25, 1999 in Manila
PARENTS
Valentin Manglapus and Justina Sevilla
SPOUSE/CHILDREN
Pacita LaO / 5
EDUCATION
Georgetown University (USA)
As a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Raul Manglapus sponsored a resolution

that would ban President Marcos from reelection, and his spouse from succeeding him.
Marcos answered that by exercising one-man rule or, as others put it, a conjugal dictatorship
together with his wife Imelda. Manglapus would have been one of the many oppositionists
arrested after the declaration of martial law in 1972, if he did not happen to be travelling abroad
at the time.
Manglapus, who was already a prominent politician at the time, spent many years of exile in the
United States where he campaigned against the Marcos regimes fundamentally undemocratic
nature, its corruption and excesses. His group, the Movement for a Free Philippines, focused on
lobbying in America to persuade the US government to withdraw its support for the dictatorship.
Much admired for his oratorical prowess and intellectual gifts, Manglapus was consistent in his
advocacy for reforms in the countrys political and economic system, including land reform and
a change from the presidential to the parliamentary system. He authored the Land Reform Code
(RA 3844) during his first term as senator (19611967). He founded the Christian Social
Movement in 1968, and the Progressive Party of the Philippines.
While in the US, he held teaching and research posts at Cornell University in New York, the
American University in Washington DC, and the Harvard University Center for International
Relations. He also worked for two years with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
New York and another two years as president of the Center for Development Policy in
Washington DC (19831985).
After his return to the Philippines in 1986, Manglapus was elected to the Senate for a second
term, then appointed by President Corazon Aquino as her Secretary of Foreign Affairs (he had
already served as such under President Carlos P. Garcia in 1957). He remained at his post until
1992.
Manglapus continued to promote political reforms with his involvement in such organizations as
the Center for Christian-Muslim Democracy, Christian Democrats International, Democracy
International, the United Muslim Democrats in the Philippines, the National Union of Christian
Democrats.
He died in Manila in 1999, at the age of 80.

RODRIGO MORDENO
DIED
August 7, 1982 in Sta. Josefa, Agusan del Sur
EDUCATION
Religion Teachers Course, Stella Formation Center, Oroquieta City, 1981
Rodrigo Mordeno worked at the Catholic parish in the town of Sta. Josefa, Agusan del Sur, in
northeastern Mindanao. He had just been designated area coordinator of the relief and
rehabilitation program of the local diocese, helping in the distribution of relief goods and
processing of interest-free loans for local residents.
Mordeno, known to all as Diego, had only been at his job for a few weeks, doing it with much
enthusiasm, when he was killed by Armalite-wielding gunmen.
There was no logical reason for anyone to murder Mordeno, a well-liked young man in his early
20s who had grown up in Sta. Josefa.
Except that it was martial law, and Sta. Josefa, like many other towns in Mindanao, was under
the rule of the gun. An Airborne Unit of the Philippine Air Force and a unit of the Philippine
Armys Engineering Brigade were based in the town, aside from the Integrated National Police
and paramilitary Civilian Home Defense Force.
The military had set up strategic hamlets, an idea borrowed by the Philippine military from the
US effort to control the civilian population during the war in Vietnam. The objective was to
deprive rebel guerrillas of the support of the people living in outlying areas, by forcing them to
live instead in virtual concentration camps where they were strictly monitored and unable to
work on their farms.
Human-rights networks, both local and international, were increasingly aware of the existence of
the hamlets. They helped bring public attention to the miserable conditions and the abuses to
which the people there were being subjected. Of course such publicity did not make the
dictatorship happy.
One day, a group of human-rights workers, including some affiliated with the church and others
who were journalists, arrived in Sta. Josefa intending to visit the hamlets. Mordeno was assigned
to be their guide. But soldiers stopped the group from meeting with the villagers and, blamed
Mordeno for taking them there.
Not long after that, on the night of August 7, Mordeno was heading home from a wedding party
with his brother Richard, 13, when they met two armed men on the street. As the two brothers
continued to walk, bursts of gunfire came from behind. Richard saw Diego fall clasping his neck.
With bullets whistling over his own head, Richard ran for his life and hid in a canal beside the
road. The two armed men left after failing to find him.
Next morning Diego Mordenos body was recovered, riddled with bullets. The crime had
happened in the vicinity of military detachments.
His friends surmised that his execution was related to the help that he was extending to displaced
people in the military hamlets.
Churchworkers from all over Agusan, Surigao and Davao provinces came to bury Mordeno, in a
funeral march that was the longest that the people of Sta. Josefa town ever saw.
IMMANUEL M. OBISPO
BORN
DIED
October 17, 1984 in San Pablo City, Laguna
PARENTS
Isagani Obispo Sr. and Ma. Auxilium Medina
EDUCATION
Elementary: Saint Anthony School, Manila
Secondary: Mataas na Paaralang Pang-Agham ng Maynila
College: De La Salle University, Manila
Immanuel Obispo was an honor student from elementary school to college. A scholar at De La
Salle University, where he was a third-year biology major (a brilliant student, according to his
thesis adviser), he engaged in many extracurricular activities and joined the staff of campus
papers.
Although he did not fit the popular image of the stereotypical student activist he had a quiet
and scholarly manner, a slight build and a limp due to polio. Obispo was an active participant in
the antidictatorship movement as a member of the De La Salle chapter of the militant League of
Filipino Students. He joined protest rallies and demonstrations, and criticized the regimes
policies in his articles for student publications.
Obispo left for school on October 17, 1984 and met there with friends, but failed to return home
that day. His family reported him missing. After eight days of searching, they were informed that
Imos body was in a hospital in Laguna, where he had been brought, still alive after being run
over by a train.
But so many questions remained unanswered: What was he doing there? Who were the unknown
persons inquiring after him at the hospital? Who was the fake priest who called his teacher and
gave false information about Imos whereabouts? Why did his chest bear what looked like
cigarette burns?
Immanuel Obispos murder took place at a time when the regime was carrying out many violent
acts against its critics, including the killing of Alex Orcullo in Davao City and Jacobo Amatong
in Dipolog City.
At De La Salle University itself, students had been noticing intensified military intelligence
surveillance. Thus, it was not hard to believe that Imo was killed by the military.
MATEO C. OLIVAR
BORN
September 13, 1950 in Catmon, Cebu
DIED
November 7, 1985 in Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur
PARENTS
Petronilo Olivar and Consorcia Colinares
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Thelma Sudarin Olivar / 6
EDUCATION
Elementary: Catmon Elementary School, Cebu
Secondary: Gabriel Jurado National High School, Catmon, Cebu
College: Notre Dame College, General Santos City
Son of a poor farming family in Cebu, Mateo Olivar migrated with his young family to Tukuran,
Zamboanga del Sur in search of better opportunities in life. After high school, he had gone to
college but could not afford to continue after one year.
Adding to his meager income from tilling the soil, Olivar found work as a janitor at the
municipal hall in Tukuran. In 1978 he was invited by his pastor to attend a five-week seminar
called Christian Living in the World Today. He was so inspired and enlightened by it that he left
his janitorial job to become a full-time churchworker in the Tukuran parish.
As such, he attended more seminars, shared experiences with other people, travelled to far-flung
villages of the parish.
Even greater challenges and opportunities came when Olivar joined the staff of the diocese of
Pagadians Community-Based Health Program and Family Life Apostolate. He learned herbal
medicine, applying it to help the people in villages all over the 15 towns covered by the diocese.
He traveled long distances over very bad roads, and on any available transport. But he thrived.
He never wavered, never hesitated, said his parish priest.
However, because his work entailed going deep into the villages, discussing with people and
spreading new ideas, Olivar attracted the militarys attention. He started receiving threats. One
day in August 1985, a group of armed militia men stopped the jeep he was riding, looking for
him. Fortunately, none of them knew how he looked like and the other passengers covered up for
him. His friends were worried.
Apparently, Tiyong Olivar had come under suspicion as a revolutionary organizer. But the
priests defended him, saying he was organizing for liberation, not revolution.
Olivars work for liberation came to an end on November 7, 1985 when three men fired at him
while he was riding his motorbike on his way home. The ambush happened less than 500 yards
from a military checkpoint in Dimasangca, Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur. Church workers
deeply mourned this religious mans death. On the day he was buried, the bishop of Pagadian
declared that no other mass would be said in the diocese that day except for Tiyongs funeral
mass.
MANUEL F. ONTONG
BORN
DISAPPEARED
November 26, 1975 in Manila
PARENTS
Pedro Ontong and Teresa Farma
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bonifacio Elementary School, Manila
Secondary: Arellano High School, Manila
College: University of Santo Tomas, Manila
Manuel Ontong was, like many artists, a quiet man whose inner feelings ran deep. In fact, in
1970 the Art Association of the Philippines cited him as the Best Expression of the Filipino
Soul.
That was the year he joined the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan, of which his younger
brother was already a member. He also joined Sining Bayan, an organization of socially
committed artists that included stage, movie and television personalities. Ontong participated
actively in the First Quarter Storm of 1970.
Before that, he had worked for two years as an artist-illustrator for the National Museum, having
graduated with a fine arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas in 1967. His work entailed
traveling to archaeological excavation sites as part of the team from the museum and executing
sketches for the documentation. His illustrations were later incorporated in the museums reports
and publications.
Ontong was disappointed when his nomination for a study grant to Australia in 1969 did not
push through; he thought it was because no one powerful was backing him up. The palakasan
system, his sister observed, was what started his politicalization.35 At the time, she explained, the
National Museums director had become critical of the Marcos administration, so that when the
latter resigned her position Ontong followed suit.
When Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus in 1971, Ontong was arrested and detained
with some other activists for one week. Because his mother had been so traumatized by this
incident, he got a job as artist-illustrator at the Philippine Council for Agricultural Research and
Resource Development in Los Baos, Laguna. He was already working there when martial law
was declared. But quietly, Manny Ontong continued to create posters and other art works that
expressed the peoples anger under the dictatorship.
On November 26, 1975 his family received an anonymous call informing them that Ontong had
been picked up by men in civilian clothes and taken away in an army jeep in front of the
Philippine General Hospital along Taft Avenue in Manila. His mother went from one detention
center to another looking for him, reaching as far as Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna and in
Pampanga. She never found him. Manuel Ontong was 29 years old when he disappeared.
ALEXANDER L. ORCULLO
BORN
October 19, 1946 in Talas, Davao del Sur
DIED
October 19, 1984 in Davao City
PARENTS
Hugo R. Orcullo Sr. and Restituta Lavisorez
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Nenita Roldan / 5
EDUCATION
Elementary: Padada Central Elementary School, Padada, Davao del Sur
Secondary: St. Michaels College, Padada, Davao del Sur
College: St. Michaels College, Padada, Davao del Sur
Postgraduate: La Salle and Notre Dame in Cotabato;
Ateneo de Davao
From the start, martial law kept Alex Orcullo busy, denouncing military abuses and defending
peoples rights.
Upon its declaration in September 1972, he led a group of young people in marching around the
small town of Padada singing Pilipinas Kong Mahal. Days afterward, they were arrested and
detained at the constabulary barracks.
He had been an outstanding student, and after graduating from college, he went on to pursue a
masters degree in economics. At age 24 he was asked to become the president of St. Michaels
College in his hometown, during which time he focused on the development of more young
leaders. He was a professional manager with a particular expertise in running housing projects.
He also opened and ran a private school.
Orcullo initiated the publication of Mindaweek, edited Mindanao Currents and wrote for the San
Pedro Express. His daily radio commentaries reached a wide audience. He was fearless in his
stance against repression and tyranny, calling on the people to realize their pathetic situation and
to struggle to be free.
His social and political involvement included chairing the LIHUK Mindanao and the Hukom
Demokrasya ng Liga ng Ekonomistang Aktibo sa Dabaw. He served as secretary general of the
Coalition for Restoration of Democracy in Mindanao and political officer of the Makabayang
Alyansa.
He was even barangay captain in his village, Mandug, situated at the outskirts of Davao City. It
was a highly militarized area, with armed men in masks roaming during the night. The military
and their assets, the residents reported, were soliciting information about Orcullo.
In September 1984, he was arrested and brought to Camp Panacan. A hundred male civilians
from Mandug gathered together and proceeded to the military camp. They refused to leave until
their barangay captain had been released.
On the day of his 38th birthday, October 19, 1984, while Orcullo was driving home with his wife
and youngest son, who was only two years old, they were accosted by armalite-wielding men in
uniform in barangay Tigatto. He was ordered to leave the car and subjected to a body search.
With arms raised, he was ordered to walk. He was then shot from behind, sustaining 13 gunshot
wounds. One Kapitan Inggo, known to head a paramilitary group calling itself Philippine
Liberation Organization, later claimed responsibility for the murder.
The last editorial Alex Orcullo wrote before he was killed was entitled Why Rage?
In it, he urged his countrymen to rage against oppression and tyranny and to fight injustice
without compromise. It was to be his parting message.
GASTON Z. ORTIGAS
BORN
January 31, 1931 in Manila
DIED
August 31, 1990 in Metro Manila
PARENTS
Crisostomo Ortigas and Teresa Zavalla
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Carmela Dayrit / 2
EDUCATION
Gaston Ortigas found his way out of the Philippines during martial law, sought refuge in
America, where he continued to work for the ouster of the Marcos conjugal dictatorship
together with other prominent political exiles.
A specialist in industrial and production management, and faculty member at the Asian Institute
of Management (AIM), Ortigas had joined Raul Manglapus Christian Social Movement in 1970
as election campaign manager in what would be a frustrated attempt to make a dent in the
Philippines traditional electoral system.
Ironically, President Ferdinand Marcos himself would dismantle that system by instituting one-
man rule in 1972. The only elections allowed were those that would give his regime an
appearance of legitimacy, and the only candidates allowed to win were those chosen by his party,
the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.
When martial law was declared, Ortigas became involved in 1974 with Manglapus Movement
for a Free Philippines (MFP) and the Bishops-Businessmens Conference, both critical of martial
law.
He also became associated with the Light-A-Fire Movement, an urban guerrilla group that
carried out small-scale attacks against Marcos crony establishments. After barely eleven months
of operation, by December 1979 all but two members of the network had been arrested. Ortigas
then decided to leave for abroad, taking a circuitous route through the Philippines southern
backdoor.
Arriving in the United States in May 1980, he continued his work with the MFP and, especially
after the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, liaisoning with the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines.
In April 1986, he was able to fly home, and returned to AIM where he served as dean for the
next four years, and propounding the then-new concept of development management, he brought
the school closer to the people. Local officials, lawmakers, bureaucrats and foreign service
officers were given a chance to learn broader perspectives and appreciate better systems, while
developing greater sensitivity and compassion to peoples needs. Under him, AIM opened new
programs catering to social issues, such as women in development, agrarian reform and
environmental protection.
In those few short years, Ortigas also committed himself to the advocacy of agrarian reform and
the pursuit of a peace process with antidictatorship movements that remained in the underground
after February 1986. Gasty died on August 31, 1990 after a lingering illness.
Ateneo de Manila University established the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute six months after
his death.
PACIFICO A. ORTIZ
BORN
September 25, 1913 in Cantilan, Surigao
DIED
PARENTS
Juan Ortiz and Tomasa Arreza
EDUCATION
Elementary: Cantilan Central School, Surigao
Secondary: San Jose Seminary, Manila
College: San Jose Seminary;
Woodstock College, Maryland, USA
Postgraduate: Fordham University, New York, USA
Just weeks after President Marcos had imposed martial law, on December 1, 1972 the Jesuit
priest Pacifico Ortiz stood before the assembly that had put together a new Constitution. In
voting No to the document, Ortiz firmly warned:
I believe no nation...can survive that would surrender her freedom and her future to the wisdom
or mercy of one man, whoever that man may be, however great that man may be. [...] Through
this Constitution, we are establishing for many years to come nothing less than a dictatorial
government, a government through diktat or decree, by a one-man Executive who is likewise
vested with full legislative powers (since his proclamations, orders and decrees shall have the
validity of law even after martial law is lifted) and, who through his unlimited power of
appointment and removal can control the judiciary, including the members of the Supreme
Court.
Elected in 1969 as the first Filipino president of Ateneo de Manila University, Ortiz resigned the
post in 1971 after being elected delegate of Rizal province to the Constitutional Convention.
Here he was frustrated in trying to put in safeguards that would prevent Marcos from
perpetuating himself in power. It was also he who supported fellow delegate Eduardo Quintero
in exposing the massive bribery that took place to ensure that Marcos would get the Constitution
he wanted.
On January 26, 1970, Ortiz was asked to deliver the invocation at the opening of the joint session
of Congress. In it, he described a situation where the people had lost their political innocence
and now knew that salvation can only come from below, from the people themselves.... The
country, he went on, stood on the trembling edge of revolution.
Only hours later, violence would erupt as security forces beat back tens of thousands of students
and workers rallying in front of that same building. That historic demonstration ushered in the
period of massive protests known as the First Quarter Storm.
With the martial law regime consolidating its monopoly of power, as he had foreseen, Ortiz
continued to resist. As secretary of both the Episcopal Commission on Justice and Peace and the
Church-Military Liaison Committee, he exerted himself to mitigate oppression and the violation
of human rights.
Pacifico Ortiz was born to a landed family in Surigao province in Mindanao. Before World War
II broke out, he had been appointed personal chaplain to President Manuel Quezon. With the
escalation of hostilities, the president went into exile in Australia and then the United States.
Ortiz was a member of his entourage.
After the war, Ortiz pursued his studies in America. Upon his return, he became Catholic
chaplain of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, at the same time as secretary of the
Bishops Commission on Social Action.
In 1961, he moved back to the Ateneo de Manila to teach political science. There he remained
for the next 11 years, except for a one-year teaching stint at the Ateneo de Zamboanga. He also
held other positions in Ateneo such as dean of the graduate school, regent of the school of law,
and executive vice-president.
He died after a stroke in 1983, at the age of 70.

MAGNIFICO L. OSORIO
BORN
December 15, 1934 in Manapla, Negros Occidental
DIED
March 29, 1985 in Bataraza, Palawan
PARENTS
Teodosio Q. Osorio and Generosa Libre
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Florenda Herradura / 3
EDUCATION
Elementary: Davao City Elementary School
Secondary: Silliman University High School, Dumaguete City
College: University of the Philippines Los Baos;
Union Theological Seminary, Cavite
Magnifico Osorio had no political affiliations nor leanings, and he did not join rallies or openly
defy the dictatorship. He only wanted to help the people he was serving the indigenous
communities of Palawan. Yet in being killed for his social justice advocacy against those in
powerful positions to oppress and exploit the weak, he became a martyr of the struggle against
the martial law regime.
He had aspired for the religious life even as a young boy. He achieved this dream, serving as a
pastor of the United Methodist Church, first in Masbate and then in Palawan.
Arriving in Palawan in the mid-1960s, he first settled in Bugsuk, a small island with a mixed
community of native Palawans and settlers. The sea was so bountiful that fish would leap into
the fishermens boats. This garden of Eden was destroyed when the residents were driven out
to make way for a vast coconut plantation owned by Marcos crony, Eduardo Cojuangco.40
Osorio helped the people fight the eviction but they lost, and the pastor himself had to leave
Bugsuk.
Osorio continued his ministry in another Palawan town, Bataraza. There he started a special
ministry for the indigenous tribes because he saw that they were losing their ancestral lands to
big corporations. Some were actually being jailed for cultivating lands that had already been
abandoned. Osorio opened literacy classes, where people learned reading, writing and farming
techniques. He believed that this was the best way for them to protect their interests and to
defend themselves from the rampant land grabbing and other abuses to which the native
communities fell victim.
As a pastor, Osorio was basically self-supporting. For his familys needs, he tilled a tract of land
(14 hectares), putting to good use the knowledge he had gained as an agriculture graduate of the
University of the Philippines in Los Baos. But the land was later grabbed by another Marcos
crony, his presidential assistant for national minorities, who believed that valuable minerals
could be found in it.
Osorio became a dedicated campaigner for indigenous peoples rights. He gave his all to this
advocacy, at his own expense often shuttling to and from the capital, Puerto Princesa, to
accompany villagers facing court cases regarding land disputes or guiding them through
government red tape.
On March 10, 1985, he accompanied a group of villagers to meet with then Palawan governor,
Salvador Socrates, who promised that their land rights would be respected as long as he was
governor. The villagers were so thankful for Osorios help, saying they wanted him as their
adviser in all negotiations with government agencies as well as the big corporations that wanted
to use their ancestral lands. Osorio himself was happy about this event, writing to his brother that
with God, we can accomplish something worthwhile.
On the day he was killed, March 29, Osorio was in high spirits. He was still euphoric from the
successful dialogue with the governor. A case against two Muslim men he had been helping had
just been dismissed. He went to his farm to burn a clump of bamboos in order to expand his rice
paddies.
It was late when his wife Florenda went out to call him for supper, she found him lying on the
ground; he had been clubbed on the head and then shot dead. No witnesses came forward to tell
what they knew and no search was ordered to find out who killed him. However, many believe
that Osorio was eliminated to deprive the native communities of an effective defender. To this
day the murder has not been solved.
ROMULO D. PALABAY
BORN
December 27, 1951 in San Fernando, La Union
DIED
December 14, 1974 in Hungduan, Ifugao
PARENTS
Francisco F. Palabay and Felicidad F. Ducusin
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Emilia Balanon / 2
EDUCATION
Elementary: San Fernando Community School, La Union
Secondary: La Union High School
Usually the brightest in class, Romulo Palabay was called the walking dictionary by his high
school classmates. Teachers liked him because he always came prepared for the days lessons.
Though he was a shy boy, he also excelled in extracurricular activities. In his senior year, he was
editor-in-chief of the school paper.
Entering college as a scholar at the University of the Philippines in 1968, he also took a job as
student assistant to support himself.
In UP Diliman Palabays awareness of the many ills besetting the country became more focused
as he was drawn into student activism. He joined the Student Cultural Association of the
University of the Philippines and later the UP chapter of Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and its
cultural arm, Panday Sining. He organized the Progresibong Samahan sa Pangangalakal, an
organization of business administration students in his home college. He also kept in touch with
friends in his hometown, organizing the Youth and Student Cultural Association of La Union. He
also served as La Union coordinator of the UP Special Committee on the Constitutional
Convention.
Eventually he became chairman of the KM chapter in La Union. His mother recalls meetings and
discussion groups being held in their house in San Fernando. She would hear their stories about
government soldiers and their abusive behavior: how they took the villagers goats, pigs, dogs
and chickens without paying and ordered these to be cooked (this was before martial law).
Palabay and his friends organized rallies, marches, strikes and demonstrations. They staged plays
in public plazas depicting the injustices and atrocities of those in power.
When President Marcos imposed martial law in 1972, Romulo was arrested in La Union together
with his brother Crisanto and other activists. A third brother, Armando, was arrested later and
joined his two brothers in detention in Camp Olivas. All three underwent torture. They were
released a year later under a presidential amnesty.
Romulo and Armando went back to UP to continue their studies. After his graduation in 1974,
Romy, armed with letters of recommendation from the dean of the UP College of Business
Administration, went job-hunting. But without a security clearance, which the military refused to
give, prospective employers had to turn him down.
In July 1974, the authorities were looking for Romulo again. Failing to find him at home, they
invited his mother and siblings for interrogation at the PC headquarters in La Union.
Meanwhile, the siblings studying in Manila were held in Camp Olivas, Pampanga, for three days
of questioning.
Romulo and his wife, a nursing student, moved to the Cordilleras where they helped organize the
Cordillerans to fight against the dictatorship. It helped that they both had some medical
knowledge; Romulo, in particular, knew how to administer acupuncture treatments and herbal
medicine. With this, they were able to successfully treat some cases, which assured a warm
welcome in the mountain villages for the group. Soon, the people were calling him duktor.
Romulo Palabay was killed in Hungduan, Ifugao, two weeks before his 23rd birthday. During a
surprise attack by a team of local CHDF members, he was hit in the back of the head by a shot
fired from a grenade launcher. His mother narrated how they were able to get Romys body. She
said, we were able to get Romys body after paying P500 to some PC soldiers and supplying
food for three days, although it took them only one day to get it and bring it to Kiangan, Ifugao.
The remains were transported to Baguio, then to his hometown in La Union, and from there to
the UP Chapel in Diliman where friends held necrological rites in his honor. But the Palabay
family has not yet been to retrieve the body of his brother Armando, who died in Abra.
BENEDICTO M. PASETES
BORN
July 28, 1950 in Mandaluyong, Rizal
DIED
January 26, 1976 in San Idelfonso, Bulacan
PARENTS
Flaviano Pasetes and Ester Matawaran
EDUCATION
Elementary: Mandaluyong Elementary School, Rizal
Secondary: Plaridel High School, Arellano University, Manila
Benedicto Pasetes was the eldest of seven children of a soldier couple, a US Army veteran of
World War II who survived the Death March, and a nurse in the Philippine Army. After the war,
Pasetes father worked at the Bureau of Animal Industry while his mother went into the real
estate business. The family lived in a middle-class subdivision in Mandaluyong.
Valedictorian in both grade school and high school, Pasetes enrolled for a degree in veterinary
medicine at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. It was here where student activism
stirred up his love of country, sympathy for the poor and oppressed, and his desire to contribute
to social change.
He was in third year when he joined the UP Nationalist Corps and the Samahang Demokratiko
ng Kabataan. He and his friends started conducting teach-ins and discussion groups in UP and
top-ranked private schools such as Ateneo, La Salle, Maryknoll and St. Scholasticas College.
They bolstered the picket lines of striking workers and went on extended visits to poor farming
communities. During the First Quarter Storm of 1970, Benny Pasetes was a mainstay of the radio
committee of the Movement for a Democratic Philippines, with the program Radyo Pakikibaka
running from 1012 p.m. every evening. They attended every rally and demonstration.
Two particular incidents highlighted this period of his life. During one rally, his family recalls,
he proudly related to [us] that he was the one who brought down the American flag which used
to fly side by side with the Philippine flag in Luneta. The other incident was during a strike at a
paint factory in Caloocan, when he saw the companys hired goons fire their guns at the picket
line, hitting one worker. Benny brought the wounded man to the hospital, a turning point for
him, after which he became more deeply involved.
Towards the end of 1970, Pasetes quit school to join other student activists in Central Luzon.
They helped farmers in Zambales and Nueva Ecija deal with land issues such as tenancy, usury,
and carabao rustling, and farm workers who had no lands to till. Some of them were captured
and detained by the military. Nevertheless, he continued his organizing work, notably among the
workers in several textile mills in Bulacan and even in small factories manufacturing bihon and
sotanghon noodles.
In time Pasetes, as Ka Willy, became part of a unit of the New Peoples Army that operated in
the area of San Ildefonso, San Miguel, Angat and Norzagaray in Bulacan. On January 26, 1976,
he was captured and killed in a military raid in the sitio called Buhol na Mangga in the barrio of
Sta. Catalina in San Ildefonso town.
Led by a civilian informer, combined constabulary and police forces had surrounded the house
where Pasetes group was staying, and called on them to come out and surrender. The guerrillas
responded by saying that the farmer and his family must be allowed to leave the house first.
When they had done so, the guerrillas tried to jump out of the window but were captured and
immediately executed. Also killed with Pasetes was Salvador Policarpio, a Protestant minister.
Their bodies were laid out in front of the municipal hall of San Ildefonso. Pasetes was buried in
the towns Catholic cemetery (and exhumed some years later for burial in the familys own plot)
while Policarpios remains were brought to his hometown in Capas, Tarlac.
FERNANDO T. PASTOR SR.
BORN
May 25, 1935 in Tayug, Pangasinan
DIED
February 8, 1986 in Cabarroguis, Quirino
PARENTS
Maximo Pastor and Maria Tamayo
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Cristeta Ceazar / 6
EDUCATION
College: Luna Colleges, Tayug, Pangasinan;
Philippine Bible College, Baguio City
Northern Luzon under the Marcos dictatorship was regarded as Marcos country, where local
officials and institutions were held in the grip of individuals who exercised authority through
terrorism, control of resources and of course the impunity they enjoyed.
The province of Quirino was part of this region, and it was ruled by Orlando Dulay, once the
constabulary commander of the province, then its governor and later, assemblyman or
representative in the Batasang Pambansa. Dulay was the provincial coordinator of the Marcos
political party, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), and his residence was the KBL provincial
headquarters.
Dulay treated the province as his personal kingdom. He had his own private army composed of
militiamen and discharged soldiers. He used them to take over land and other properties, to
intimidate his enemies and to sow fear and terror among the people. No wonder, there was
peace and order in the area.
Fernando T. Pastor was one of those community leaders who were forced to keep silent about the
abuses that were going on. When President Marcos declared martial law in 1972, he had been
serving for four years as barangay captain of Rizal, in Diffun municipality. He was a popular
leader who managed to produce good results: a barangay hall was built and roads were repaired.
Everyone was encouraged to participate in barangay activities. He always sympathized with the
common folk, probably because he was born to a poor family in Tayug, Pangasinan, and it was
as a working student that he was able to earn his degree in sacred literature at the Philippine
Bible College in Baguio City.
Being a preacher of the US-based Church of Christ, Pastor devoted himself to conducting
services, teaching religious classes in high school, and reading the Bible and a wide range of
materials. He loved to preach and to debate about religious precepts.
In 1982, Pastor started a fish farm in Cabarroguis, Quirino where the family came to live. He was
a good provider, his wife Cristeta said, going out to fish all night long when needed, in order to
put food on the table for his children. He pioneered the organization of the Fishpond Operators
Association of Quirino, and was later elected its president.
But when snap presidential polls were called in 1985, Pastor decided it was no longer time to
keep quiet. He actively campaigned for Corazon Aquino. He became municipal coordinator of
the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (Unido) and its provincial vice-chair. He went
around campaigning, urging people to vote for Aquino because Marcos is old and has been in
power for so long... lets try a young and fresh administration.
That was not what Dulay liked to hear. Pastor began receiving threats to his life. Someone he
knew, who worked for the governor, told him: Better stop campaigning for Cory. The boss is
not pleased. Apparently, the last straw was when Pastor ignored Dulays summons to come and
talk with him.
On February 6, 1986, eve of the snap presidential elections, Pastor, his oldest son Fernando
Pastor Jr. and colleague Francisco Laurella were walking on their way home to Cabarroguis
when they were abducted by Dulay himself and two of his men. The three Unido campaigners
were taken to Dulays residence and kept inside a van for three days. As Pastor and Laurella
pleaded to be spared for the sake of their children, Dulay was said to have shrugged and
commented: This is your last night.
The ravaged bodies of the younger Pastor and Francisco Laurella were found near a ravine three
days later, and that of the elder Pastor five days after. They had been tortured and mutilated.
The Pastor family hurriedly left the province in fear and despair, their livelihood in shambles.
Dulay was eventually charged with the deaths of the three men and, in 1990, sentenced to life
imprisonment by the Quezon City regional trial court. He was also ordered to indemnify their
families.
PURIFICACION A. PEDRO
BORN
September 22, 1948 in Laoag City
DIED
January 23, 1977 at the Bataan Provincial Hospital
PARENTS
Genaro Pedro and Maria Abarro
EDUCATION
Elementary: Shamrock Elementary School, Laoag City
Secondary: Holy Spirit Academy, Laoag City
To be of service to ones brother is to live meaningfully, she said. Purificacion Pedro, a social
worker, did live a meaningful life of service, but it was cut short, as she lay wounded in a
hospital, by a brutal engagement with one of the Marcos dictatorships most notorious torturers.
She was a social work graduate of the University of the Philippines, and had distinguished
herself by obtaining 10th place in the 1969 national board examination for social workers. Her
first job was at the National Rehabilitation Training Center, a government facility providing
services for the physical handicapped.
In 1970, Pedro, called Puri by her friends, began to work at the Immaculate Conception Parish in
Cubao, Quezon City. She helped run a parish day nursery, a sewing group for urban poor women
and handled the educational program of two cooperatives. She worked with the urban poor and
the out-of-school youth by holding summer camps and leadership seminars. During the floods in
1972, she volunteered her services, bringing medicine and relief goods to many affected areas
around Quezon City. She also worked at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Mandaluyong, Rizal, with
emphasis on Christian community-building and leaders formation.
She left her parish job in 1975 and worked as a volunteer for the organizations supporting the
anti-Chico Dam movement in Northern Luzon. She knew that it would be more dangerous than
the work she had been doing in Quezon City. In a letter to her parents, she said: I am aware of
the difficulties and risks, but I have learned a lot by now.... I am glad that I am finding fulfilment
in the career that I have chosen; surely not because of the monetary benefits professionals are
after, but rather because this allows me to be among the people, both poor and the middle
class...who aspire and are working for true human development.
In 1976, she was due to join the staff of the Catholic churchs Luzon Secretariat for Social
Action (LUSSA).
Before starting on her new job, however, Pedro went on a trip to Bataan where she visited
friends in a New Peoples Army (NPA) guerrilla camp. It was a bad time to go visiting, because
a military operation was in progress at the area. She was caught in an armed encounter, with a
bullet wound in her shoulder.
Pedros family found her at the Bataan Provincial Hospital, recovering from her wound and
under military guard. Relatives took turns watching her, as she feared for her life. On the sixth
day of her confinement, however, a team of interrogators came from Manila and forced their way
into the hospital room. They were led by Col. Rolando Abadilla, a constabulary officer who had
already been implicated in numerous accounts of torture and abuse of political detainees.
Abadilla and his men ordered Puris sister to leave the room then locked themselves in with their
captive for about an hour. After they had left, their victim was found dead inside the bathroom,
strangled by a piece of wire; in her hand was a medal of the Virgin Mary.
DANTE D. PEREZ
BORN
DIED
November 3, 1972 in Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
PARENTS
Amador M. Perez and Remedios Dizon
SPOUSE
Teresita Lioanag
EDUCATION
Elementary: Ateneo de Manila, Quezon City
Secondary: Ateneo de Manila University;
De La Salle High School, Lipa City
College: De La Salle College, Manila;
University of the East
He wanted a life spent in the service of others so that his death would be meaningful, the young
Dante Perez told his brother Romeo. He had just experienced the fulfilment of helping the
victims of the Ruby Tower disaster, when a multi-story building in a busy part of Manila
collapsed due to an earthquake, burying numerous people.
Helping others was something Perez liked to do. Before spending days and nights at the site of
the ruined Ruby Tower, he had also raised funds to support relief operations when Taal Volcano
erupted. It was a personality trait strongly influenced by his mother, who always found time to
help the unfortunate despite her own busy schedule (she managed her own chemical company).
Mrs. Perez helped care for child patients in a government hospital, initiated rehabilitation
projects for jail inmates, and brought material assistance to victims of natural disasters. She used
to bring her son along to help feed sick children, distribute relief goods and go caroling during
the Christmas season to raise funds for charity.
Perez was in his first year of college when the First Quarter Storm swept the country. He was
then a member of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, advocating peaceful
reforms, clean and honest elections, and so on. The two brothers, Dante and Romeo, started
living with jeepney drivers, writing manifestos, and preparing food and giving medical aid to
striking drivers. Working closely with his friend, Reynante Andal from Mindoro, founder and
president of the Samahan ng mga Kabataan Para sa Ikauunlad ng mga Tsuper, Dante worked
until the wee hours of the morning preparing study modules for students and drivers.
When martial law was declared in 1972, Perez abandoned his reformist ideas and turned to the
guerrilla underground in order to fight the dictatorship. Together with old friends from Kasapi
and the Kilusang Kristiyano ng Kabataang Pilipino, he joined Andal in moving to Mindoro
Oriental where they started organizing for the anti-dictatorship struggle.
Just a few weeks later, on November 3, 1972, Perez was killed by the military. He was with a
group inside a hut one evening when they heard a voice outside telling them to surrender. Andal
thought it was a joke and shouted back to stop the fooling. Gunshots followed. Andal was hit in
the abdomen and Perez in both legs; his wife, Teresita Lioanag, (a student from Maryknoll
College), rushed outside and called on the attackers to stop firing. The soldiers then entered the
hut and pumped more bullets into Perez, who was still alive. Later, the National Bureau of
Investigation would find Dante negative for powder burns and his body riddled with 32 gunshot
wounds.
All the survivors were taken to jail. Perezs parents came and took his remains back to Manila.
Lioanag was kept in jail for more than a year but the others were released after several weeks in
detention.
FLORENCIO S. PESQUESA
BORN
September 21, 1931 in Canlubang, Laguna
DISAPPEARED
January 3, 1979 in Metro Manila
PARENTS
Teodoro Pesquesa and Salome Salvador
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Florencia Patapat / 6
EDUCATION
Elementary: Balagbag Elementary School, Canlubang, Laguna
Secondary: Tanauan High School, Batangas
The case of Florencio Pesquesa, a workers union leader who disappeared in 1979, illustrates
how under martial law, powerful forces colluded with each other in suppressing peoples rights
and covering up abuses against the defenseless people.
Pesquesa was born in Canlubang, Laguna, where thousands of workers toiled on huge tracts of
land to produce the sugar that was the Philippines no. 1 export commodity for most of the 20th
century. His father worked there as a train machinist, and the young Florencio was also
employed for a time as warehouse checker. But employment at the plantation barely assured the
survival of the farmworkers and employes. The Pesquesa family remained poor.
Seeking more stable pay, in the 1960s Florencio Pesquesa enlisted with the Philippine
Constabulary. By 1969 he had been promoted to master sergeant, stationed in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.
After learning that he was due for deployment in Mindanao, he resigned from the service. He
then began tilling a piece of land owned by his father-in-law, but not long after, the farm had to
be sold.
The family was then forced to move to Inchican, Silang, Cavite, where relatives took them in.
Most of the people there worked for Hacienda Inchican, owned by Jose Campos, a crony of
President Marcos. (He also owned a giant pharmaceutical and drugstore chain among other
businesses.)
To defend their rights against increasingly oppressive management policies, the workers
affiliated with the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers (NFSW) in December 1974.
Florencio Pesquesa, Ka Pisyong, was designated organizer of the local NFSW chapter. He
devoted his time to the workers welfare. He was sincerely committed to us, attested his friend,
the vice president of the Inchican labor union.
When Pesquesa and more than 80 other workers were fired for their union activities, they fought
back by filing a case with the National Labor Relations Commission for union busting and unfair
labor practices of the hacienda management. After more than a year, the workers won their case.
But management still refused to accept the decision. More reprisals against the workers
followed. Two union members were killed under suspicious circumstances.
Pesquesa continued to serve the union. He was openly threatened by the haciendas chief cane
guard, who claimed that management had paid him to kill Ka Pisyong. The threat was
apparently carried out one year later.
On January 3, 1979, Pesquesa and a nephew were accosted by two armed men accompanied by
two local barangay captains. Introducing themselves as agents of the Philippine Constabulary,
they told him that he would be taken to Bicutan in Taguig, Metro Manila, for interrogation.
Learning about the incident from their nephew who had been sent away by the two men, Ka
Pisyongs wife immediately went to look for him. But no authorities would cooperate or even
admit they knew anything about the abduction.
After the dictatorship was ousted in 1986, some properties belonging to Marcos or his cronies
came under the control of the new government. Thus, the workers of Hacienda Inchican
petitioned for its transfer to the tillers, and lots were eventually awarded. They also asked for an
investigation into the disappearance of Florencio Pesquesa, but the missing union leader was
never seen again.
RODRIGO PONCE
DIED
February 1986 in Mambusao, Capiz
SPOUSE
Elma Ponce
In November 1985, with mass protests against his regime breaking out all over the country,
President Marcos was pressured to call for elections that, he hoped, would allow him to claim
renewed legitimacy for his dictatorial rule.
He had lifted martial law and gotten himself a six-year presidential term in 1981, but as far as
the Filipino people were concerned, nothing had changed. They had enough. So strong and so
loud was their call for Marcos to be ousted that the United States government, his chief
international backer, at last considered letting him go because he had become a big liability.
President Ronald Reagan sent a personal representative to Manila to conduct secret negotiations,
after which Marcos announced on American television that he was calling for special elections to
be held in about three months time.
Although many believed that the snap presidential elections would be another manipulation of
the peoples will and called for a boycott, many others thought that this was a chance to show
and further solidify their opposition to the Marcos regime. They supported Corazon Aquino,
widow of the assassinated senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who reluctantly agreed to run for
president, with Salvador Laurel as her vice-president. They were pitted against Marcos and his
vice-presidential candidate Arturo Tolentino.
Headed by church and business leaders, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections
(NAMFREL) had first participated in the regimes elections in 1984, accredited as the citizens
arm of the Commission on Elections or Comelec. For the 1986 snap presidential elections, over
500,000 volunteers participated in its effort to safeguard against the expected massive electoral
fraud.
Rodrigo Ponce was a NAMFREL volunteer in Capiz who was killed by unidentified persons
during the canvassing of the results in Bating Elementary School. According to the scant
information available, three armed men and a young woman arrived and seized the ballot boxes
and other election paraphernalia. They had apparently come from another school where they had
also taken the ballots away.
Apparently, Ponce was killed because he recognized one in the group. He was then told to step
out of the room, ordered to lie face down on the floor, and simply shot dead. The autopsy report
showed six bullet holes fired from two different guns.
In many parts of the country, especially in rural areas where tyrannical local politicians enforced
obedience through guns, goons and gold, election volunteers were being killed because they
were perceived to be either independent or against the ruling authorities. Thus, there was
widespread consensus, even internationally, that the snap presidential elections had been
conducted fraudulently.
Two days after the February 7 elections, computer programmers of the Comelec walked out of
the vote canvassing, denouncing the ongoing falsification of election returns. But the Batasang
Pambansa issued a resolution proclaiming Marcos and Tolentino to be the winners. Aquino and
Laurel refused to accept this decision, and they were supported by the majority of the people.
On February 2225, four days of tumultuous people power at EDSA culminated in the final
ouster of Marcos. He was forced to leave Malacanang, with his family and cronies, aboard
military helicopters sent by the US government. On March 24, the Batasang Pambansa passed a
resolution nullifying the results of the snap presidential elections, and proclaimed Aquino and
Laurel as the winners.
ISHMAEL F. QUIMPO JR.
BORN
April 8, 1957 in Quezon City
DIED
December 14, 1981 in Muoz, Nueva Ecija
PARENTS
Ishmael Quimpo and Esperanza Ferrer
SPOUSE
Maria Cristina (Tina) Pargas
EDUCATION
Elementary: San Beda College, Manila
Friends of Ishmael Quimpo Jr. remember him as the talented college dropout who chose to work
for the poor and devote his life to the cause of the downtrodden.
Jun Quimpo was exposed early to the student demonstrations that characterized the turbulent
days of the early 1970s. His family lived inside Manilas university belt and he himself went to
school at San Beda, a stones throw away from the seat of the presidency, Malacaang Palace.
Only 13 when the First Quarter Storm erupted, he was caught in the spirit of his time. He wanted
to participate, and started by getting involved in community organizing. His first experience of
an urban poor community was at Constitution Hill in Quezon City (then a squatters relocation
area, now the site of the Batasang Pambansa).
When martial law was imposed and student councils were banned, students thought of other
means to assert their right to self-organization. At the University of the Philippines, they put up a
Consultative Committee on Student Affairs, and Quimpo, then a freshman, joined its youth
committee. Yet community work seemed to be more attractive to him.
Tatalon was another huge slum community in Quezon City and Quimpo became a member of the
Alyansa ng Maralita sa Tatalon. With a small allowance from the Share and Care Apostolate for
Poor Settlers, he went about his organizing work, discussing politics with the local residents,
prodding them to turn away from the hopelessness and idleness of their daily lives, at least cut
down on their beer-drinking sprees, and to take responsibility for their future.
Often it was through song that he expressed his views and dreams. With a guitar, he would sing
the hours away, inspiring people and making them feel strong.
After being arrested and detained for 10 days in 1976, Quimpo decided to give up college and
join the anti-martial law underground. For the next five years, he lived in the rural areas of
Luzon where he organized farmers as a cadre of the New Peoples Army.
In December 1981, in the village of Kalisitan in Muoz, Nueva Ecija, Quimpo was killed
treacherously shot from the back several times by someone he had trusted, a member of his
unit. He was unaware that this person was already working with the military. (Hailed as a hero
by the military, the killer was said to have committed suicide sometime later.)
Jun Quimpo was then 24 years old. His family put together a collection of his songs titled Ang
Awit ni Jun, in his honor and memory.
EDUARDO T. QUINTERO
BORN
May 29, 1900 in Tacloban, Leyte
DIED
December 17, 1984 in San Francisco, California (USA)
PARENTS
Eduardo Quintero Sr. and Baldomera Torcelo
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Tarcila Paria / 3
EDUCATION
Elementary: Leyte Intermediate School
Secondary: Leyte High School
College: University of the Philippines, Philippine Law School
In 1971, a Constitutional Convention was called to draft a new basic charter to replace the 1935
Constitution. President Marcos was then nearing the end of his second term in office, and the law
expressly prohibited him to run for reelection. He saw an opportunity to perpetuate himself in
power if the new Constitution allowed him to do so. He tried to ensure that as many of the
delegates elected to the Convention would support him.
But there was also strong opposition to Marcos continuing monopolization of power. Many
delegates were prepared to block Marcos plan to shift to a parliamentary form of government in
which he could be prime minister, and where an opening could be made for his wifes own
ambitions. Meanwhile, a set of transitory provisions would prevent legal objections to the
planned changeover.
Eduardo T. Quintero was a retired ambassador who had been one of the first to be recruited into
the countrys diplomatic service. A native of Tacloban and distantly related to Imelda
Romualdez Marcos, he was said to have been elected to the Constitutional Convention as
delegate of Leyte provinces first district with the familys support. At 70, he was older than
most of the other delegates.
In May 1972, before all the assembled members of the Convention, Quintero unexpectedly made
a public disclosure that the media called a bombshell. He had been receiving, he said, money
in envelops, amounting to over P11,000 which almost certainly came from Marcoswife. He set
all the envelops aside, waiting for the right time for him to speak out. I want to do the correct
thing, he said.
Later exposes revealed that other Con-Con delegates were similarly bribed by the Marcoses, or
acted as their agents, in order to get their votes. Public opinion believed Quintero, the whistle
blower.
Marcos launched personal attacks against him, and Imelda Marcos tried to gain sympathy by
claiming she had suffered a miscarriage due to the scandal. The National Bureau of Investigation
(NBI) raided Quinteros home and seized bills amounting to P390,000. Charges of peijury,
bribery, and graft and corruption were slapped on Quintero. But many came to his defense, and
he did not waver in his testimonies against the presidential couple.
Several months later, Marcos imposed martial law as he had threatened to do many times before.
In ill health, Quintero was allowed to return to Leyte quietly, and in 1977, he was able to leave
for the United States with his family. There he kept in touch with the American-based anti-
Marcos opposition, and wrote, The Envelops of Imelda Marcos. Today, the manuscript
remains unpublished and certain chapters are said to be mysteriously missing.
After the Marcos dictatorship was ousted, Quintero was vindicated by the Supreme Court in
1988, when finally it ruled that the NBI raid on his house was orchestrated from beginning to
end to destroy him.
Eduardo T. Quintero died poor at the age of 84 in San Francisco, USA.

BORN
November 23, 1931 in Naga City, Camarines Sur
DIED
August 21, 1985 in Oas, Albay
PARENTS
Gil Ragragio and Alejandra Patricio
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Arsenia Rayco / 8
EDUCATION
Elementary: Oas South Central School, Oas, Albay
Secondary: Ateneo de Naga
College: Ateneo de Naga;
Bicol College, Albay
For 30 years, Clemente Ragragio had been a good and faithful public servant. He was the
municipal sanitation inspector of Ligao and later, the small town of Oas, one of the poorest in
Albay province.
Roads were bad. Doctors visits or hospital care was out of the question for most local residents.
Malnutrition was common, especially among children.
Ragragio did not just sit in his office and wait to be called. He organized the health services in
the barangays of Oas, paying attention to the construction of toilets, ensuring the supply of safe
water to the community and putting up a system of distribution. He visited even the remote
villages, making sure he brought along some medicines for distribution.
Thus, people trusted and respected him. In 1983, he was named Best Sanitary Inspector for the
whole province, and he was being considered for a promotion as head of the provincial office.
But because he knew first-hand about the situation at the grassroots, Ragragio was not happy. He
believed that the governments wrong priorities and disregard for the peoples rights were the
reason why Oas and its people were poor and deprived of services. Although the Bicol region
was heavily militarized, he openly criticized the governments neglect of his province.
He was kindhearted and easy to get along with, but also independent-minded and principled.
After the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, he joined the Bicol chapter of the
militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and became an active member of its municipal steering
committee.
It was a time when peoples organizations farmers, tricycle drivers, human-rights advocates
had found the courage to publicly resist the dictatorship. Voicing out their grievances and
demands, they sent delegations to various protest actions in the big cities of Bicol such as
Legazpi, Sorsogon and Naga. There was also much talk of guerrilla successes in the countryside.
Pro-Marcos local officials gave full cooperation to the military in trying to suppress the
opposition.
Somehow, Ragragio found himself a target of speculation by some authorities: they said that
because he could freely move about in the barrios, he must be a secret supporter of the rebels. In
1985 the sleepy town of Oas was hit by a series of political killings.
On the day that Ragragio was shot dead, he had attended a protest rally in the town of Daraga
marking the second anniversary of Ninoy Aquinos death. There had been a hukumang bayan
(peoples tribunal) that found the regime guilty of crimes against the people.
That evening he was relaxing at home, taking in the breeze in his front yard, when a gunman
walked up and shot him three times with a handgun, before escaping. No investigation was made
by either the civilian, police or military authorities.
Despite the shock and fear that followed, many people flocked to pay Ragragio their last
respects. Above his coffin hung a banner which read: Happy are those who pay the price to
make their dreams come true.
Just six months after he was silenced, the dictatorship was finally ousted.
ARNULFO A. RESUS
BORN
November 18, 1951 in Fernando Air Base, Lipa City
DIED
February 1977 in Isabela
PARENTS
Ruben Resus and Corazon Altamirano
SPOUSE
Aida Carlos
EDUCATION
Elementary: Eulogio Rodriguez Elementery School, Mandaluyong
Secondary: Manila Science High School
College: University of the Philippines Diliman;
Philippine Christian University;
Philippine College of Commerce
Influenced by his parents, Arnulfo Resus was a regular churchgoer, attended Sunday school and
mastered the Bible even as a child. Later he himself served as Sunday school teacher and was
active in the Christian Youth Fellowship program.
He was the second of four children of a typically middle-class family. His father was a former
member of the Philippine Air Force. Arnulfo, called Noli, had a well-ordered childhood. He got
excellent grades in school, and was also good at drawing, painting and declamation.
He entered the University of the Philippines in Diliman as a full scholar in geodetic engineering
in 1969. There he joined the Kabataang Makabayan and the Student Christian Movement of the
Philippines. During the floods that hit Metro Manila and Central Luzon in the early 1970s, he
was among the volunteer workers who brought medicines and relief goods to flood victims in
Tatalon, Quezon City which was a stones throw away from their house.
Resus stayed active with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, giving talks and
organizing youths. He became well known among his church members as a sharp critic of the
Marcos governments increasingly repressive rule. Eventually he transferred to the Philippine
Christian University where he started to attract the attention of military intelligence. When
martial law was declared in 1972, he went underground and continued to organize for the anti-
dictatorship movement. He also became a member of the banned Christians for National
Liberation.
In 1974 he was arrested in Quiapo and was badly tortured. For a while he was held
incommunicado inside a dungeon where, as he recounted to his father, he could neither stand,
nor sit, nor lie down in the space that was purposely built for such confinement. With the
incessant pleadings by his father with friends in the military, Resus was released after eight
months; no charges were filed against him.
In late 1975, shortly after his release, Resus married Aida Carlos, a fellow church member who
was also an activist. Soon after, the couple left for Northern Luzon as community organizers for
the underground. Then in February 1977, his family received the news that he had been killed by
government forces in Isabela province.
The body of Arnulfo Resus was never recovered. On December 27, 1985, he was given
posthumous honors by the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines.
JOSE B.L. REYES
BORN
August 19, 1902 in Manila
DIED
PARENTS
Ricardo A. Reyes and Maria C. Luna
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Rosario L. Reyes / 3
EDUCATION
Postgraduate: University of Santo Tomas
By the time martial law was declared in September 1972, Justice J. B. L. Reyes had stepped
down from the judiciary, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 on August 19 the
previous month. But his admirers said, only half-jokingly, that President Marcos really waited
one month more to sign the decree because he did not want Reyes in the Supreme Court when he
imposed his despotic rule.
Such was the moral and legal authority of Jose Benedicto Luis Reyes, better known as JBL
Reyes, conferred upon him by a long and distinguished career that began after he passed the bar
in 1922 up to the 18 years (1954 to 1972) that he served in the highest court of the land.
He made an invaluable contribution to legal thought in the Philippines, particularly through his
work in the Supreme Court, where he wrote many landmark decisions that continued to guide
jurisprudence for many years.
Moreover, there was never any stain on Reyes personal integrity. As a jurist, his decisions were
accepted by all without any doubt about his motive or subjective considerations.
Under the dictatorship, it was clear to everyone where Justice Reyes stood on the side of
human rights and the peoples aspirations for democracy. (In 1937, he was one of the founding
members of the Civil Liberties Union of the Philippines and was imprisoned in Fort Santiago for
activities in the anti-Japanese resistance during World War II.)
He gave wise counsel to the leaders of the anti-dictatorship opposition, and lent his name to the
legal battles they were fighting. He engaged in constructive criticism of the Supreme Court,45
which at the time was not much help against Marcos so-called constitutional authoritarianism.
He served as the first elected president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), leading the
countrys lawyers at a time when the rule of law had been twisted upside-down by the dictatorial
regime.
After the ouster of Marcos, Reyes accepted an appointment from President Corazon Aquino to
serve as acting chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, replacing Jose W.
Diokno who had resigned in protest against the massacre of peasants at Mendiola in January
1987. Reyes headed the PCHR from February to May 1987.
He died on December 12, 1994 at the age of 92.

REYNALDO L. ROBLES
BORN
DIED
September 6, 1977 in Gloria, Oriental Mindoro
PARENTS
Toribio Robles Sr. and Sixta Laminaria
EDUCATION
Elementary: Kamuning Elementary School, Quezon City
Secondary: Quezon City High School
College: Mapua Institute of Technology
Postgraduate: Ateneo Graduate School
Reynaldo Robles had a good singing voice. As a teenaged boy of 18, he participated in the talent
search Student Canteen, and was declared champion of that week. That same year, he joined
Sing-out Philippines, a well-known musical group as a guitarist and singer. He played in
combos, as youth bands were called at the time (Bob Dylan was his favorite artist), and he
enjoyed partying with his sisters and friends.
But Rey also had a serious side. In high school, he helped in drug education campaigns;
beautification drives in his community in Kamuning, Quezon City saw him cleaning up and
sprucing up the neighborhood together with the other young people.
In college, Robles was not an activist he was somewhat turned off by their strong language
but he could sympathize with them on the issues they raised. He wanted explanations for the
gross inequalities in Philippine society. He wanted the government to be responsible to the
citizens.
After earning his license as a chemical engineer in 1970, he was about to take a job at a
multinational corporation. But he decided instead to volunteer for a program under the
archdiocese of Manila, called Action Leaven, which involved organizing poor communities,
establishing cooperatives, and conducting discussions among the residents to talk about their
problems. In the crowded district of Tondo he soon learned that poverty and crime were not one
and the same, and that the poor were far from being lazy and stupid. His first organizational
attempt resulted in the Progresibong Kilusang Binhi, a livelihood movement for poor families.
Then he joined the Kilusang Kristiyano ng Kabataang Pilipino (KKKP), where he came to learn
about liberation theology, which showed him that religious faith could be a powerful motivation
in activism for social change. Here he met priests and nuns, pastors and church intellectuals,
organizing protests and joining politically-oriented rallies against the growing authoritarianism
of the Marcos administration. Once he went with a group of priests to Negros where he
experienced working in the sugarcane fields alongside the sacada migrant workers, nearly
collapsing from the heat of the sun and his hands bleeding from the toil.
Robles became a leader in the KKKP, and a founding member of the Christians for National
Liberation when it was organized on the eve of martial law. Despite the restrictions, they
continued to meet and organize; Robles was tasked to build a network of students and church
members in the Quezon City-Marikina area. In 1973, he was arrested and imprisoned for six
months. After his release, he worked in a youth program of the National Council of Churches in
the Philippines.
But he felt that his calling was to take up the hard life and sacrifice of a community organizer in
the rural areas. Thus he left for Oriental Mindoro and bought a small farm there, establishing
himself in the remote town of Gloria. Although Robles had no roots in the area, his natural
warmth soon won the hearts and trust of the peasants among whom he chose to live. That, of
course, was enough to make the military suspicious of him.
One morning in September 1977, Rey Robles was boiling some bananas for breakfast when
government troops made a surprise attack. He was killed instantly by a bullet to the head. His
neighbors gave him a proper burial in town. After the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, the Robles
family were finally able to exhume his remains for reburial in Manila.
JOAQUIN P. ROCES
BORN
DIED
September 30, 1988 in Metro Manila
PARENTS
Alejandro Roces and Antonia Pardo
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Pacita Carvajal / 3
EDUCATION
Post-secondary: England, U.K.
Joaquin P. Roces was known to most street parliamentarians as Chino Roces, Tatang, a
casually dressed, kindly gentleman with white hair and mustache.
He may not have looked it, but he was one of the most influential personalities in the country
before martial law was declared by President Marcos, being the owner and publisher of the most
widely-circulated and respected publications in the Philippines at the time. These included the
Manila Times, Daily Mirror, Taliba, and the Weekly Womens Magazine. He also owned a radio
station and a television station.
Although he was born into wealth and social prominence, Roces disdained the privileges and
comforts of power. He had a soft spot for the underprivileged, and used his media organization to
organize successful efforts to mobilize citizen assistance for those in need. During the killer
floods that devastated Central Luzon in June and August 1972, he had food supplies airdropped
to the survivors. When a big earthquake totally destroyed the Ruby Tower building in Manila,
Roces was among the first to arrive at the scene to offer help. Earlier, during the 1965 eruption of
Taal Volcano, he spearheaded a relief drive for the stricken victims.
When Marcos declared martial law in 1972, Roces was among the first he ordered arrested and
detained. He would be jailed two more times after that, but he refused to give up. Despite his
advanced age and failing health, he was in the forefront of many protest rallies, facing water
cannons, truncheons and tear gas bombs.
During the snap presidential elections in 1986, the widow of assassinated Senator Benigno
Aquino Jr. was reluctant to run against the dictator. Roces took it upon himself to convince Cory
Aquino to run for president by pledging to collect one million signatures for her candidacy.
After a civilian-military revolt in 1986 finally deposed Marcos and installed a new democratic
government, Roces went back to publishing, but the old Manila Times was gone and he himself
was not in good health any more. Whats more, the new government had shortcomings that to
him were glaringly obvious.
When President Corazon Aquino conferred on him the medal of the Philippine Legion of Honor
in 1988, Chino Roces decided it would be better to be frank with her and offer his sincere
appraisal of what was needed to be corrected in government. It was an act of good citizenship.
Roces died of cancer in September of that year. He was 75.

FRANCISCO A. RODRIGO
BORN
January 29, 1914 in Bulacan, Bulacan
DIED
January 4, 1998 in Quezon City
PARENTS
Melecio Rodrigo and Marcela Aldana
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Remedios Enriquez / 6
EDUCATION
Elementary: Bulacan Elementary School
Secondary: University of the Philippines High School
Francisco Rodrigo was a proud son of Bulacan province, counting as relatives such heroes as the
brothers Gregorio and Marcelo H. del Pilar, and masterfully composing prose and poetry in his
native Tagalog language.
Widely known as Soc the nickname, from the Greek philosopher Socrates, came from a teacher
impressed by the young mans keen mind Rodrigo was a lawyer, an orator and champion
debater.
He was a senator for 12 years, from 1955 to 1967. He was also a prominent civic leader, notably
serving as president of the Catholic Action of the Philippines, Catholic Educational Association
of the Philippines and the Civil Liberties Union.
Unusually for someone of his generation, Rodrigo gained a wide following in all the three
traditional mass media: print, radio and television. During the period of martial law, he was a
mainstay of the so-called alternative press, We Forum and Malaya, where he wrote political
commentaries in Filipino verse, articulating themes of nationalism, protest and reform.
He was imprisoned three times under martial law first in Fort Bonifacio for ten weeks, in the
company of other political figures; the second time in Bicutan in 1978 for eight weeks; and in
Fort Bonifacio in 1982 for one week, after which he was released under house arrest.
Rodrigo campaigned against the ratification of the 1973 martial law constitution and supported
an action before the Supreme Court challenging its unconstitutional ratification through citizens
assemblies.
In 1978, despite the overwhelming force of martial law, he joined the political opposition and ran
as candidate for the Interim Batasang Pambansa under the Lakas ng Bayan (Laban) party. In
1981, he supported the boycott call against the presidential elections, believing that it was merely
meant to legitimize the continuation of Marcos regime.
In 1985, Rodrigo chaired the oppositions National Unification Committee, helping build unity
during the 1986 snap presidential elections.
When Corazon Aquino became president, she appointed him member of the Commission that
drafted the 1987 Constitution.
Soc Rodrigo died of natural causes in 1998.

ROSALEO B. ROMANO
BORN
DISAPPEARED
July 11, 1985 in Labangon, Cebu City
PARENTS
Gaudencio Romano and Adelaida Boller
EDUCATION
Secondary: Villareal West Coast Academy, Samar
College: Redemptorist Preparatory Seminary, Iloilo;
Redemptorist Novitiate, Cebu;
Redemptorist House of Studies, India;
Redemptorist Major Seminary, Cebu
The abduction and disappearance of Redemptorist priest Rudy Romano in 1985 was one of the
best known such cases under the Marcos dictatorship. It drew numerous appeals for his release
both here and abroad, and even from Pope John Paul II.
Romano was an activist priest who was at the forefront of the anti-dictatorship movement in the
Visayas. He was executive secretary of the Coalition against Peoples Persecution, based in
Cebu, and national vice-president for the Visayas of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.
He was on board his motorcycle, returning to Cebu City, when he was stopped by a group of
armed men in Tisa, Labangon, a city suburb. Local residents had seen the group apparently
waiting for him for hours. There were several strong indications that the military was involved in
the crime. Later, two men were tried by a military court for their role in the abduction and
kidnapping, but were eventually cleared.
The authorities made a show of finding out what happened to Romano, but his family and
supporters were to be disappointed. The brother of one witness was killed while the investigation
was going on, and Alfonso Surigao, a lawyer for the Redemptorist priests, was also shot dead in
his own backyard.
Romano, 44 years old at the time of his disappearance, was the eldest of nine children of a
devout Catholic couple. He spent his boyhood in the familys hometown of Villareal, Samar.
After high school, he began studying to be a Redemptorist missionary in India and Cebu. He was
ordained a priest in 1964.
His first assignments were in Samar and Leyte and later to other areas in the Visayas and
Mindanao. Appointed regional vocation director for Visayas and Mindanao, he travelled to
different provinces seeking out candidates for the priesthood and brotherhood. In 1982 he went
to Ireland for further studies in theology.
Romano returned to the Philippines in 1983 just as the social and political movement was
growing tremendously in the wake of the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. He
enthusiastically stepped into his tasks for the Redemptorist Social Apostolate for the Urban Poor
in Cebu.
Laborers in Cebu wanted to rise up after years of oppression and exploitation. Romano took their
struggles to heart. He helped put up the AMA-Sugbu, a militant workers alliance in Cebu. He
was also spokesman for three city-wide transport strikes in 1984 and 1985.
As the country grew increasingly militarized, he joined Task Force Detainees of the Philippines,
helping give shelter and refuge to victims of military harassment. He was himself arrested twice
and briefly detained.
But he knew that his safety was in danger. On his last visit home, his father tried to turn him
away from his activities in behalf of the poor. I know they will torture you, they will punish
you, the old man pleaded. You will die early... And he said, Tatay, dont you worry... if I die, I
have no family and you will know who have killed me. Those were the last words I heard from
my son.
SOFRONIO P. ROXAS
BORN
April 12, 1938 in Ormoc, Leyte
DIED
August 29, 1984 in Matalam, North Cotabato
PARENTS
Eulalio Roxas and Basilia Pongos
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Visitacion Cano / 8
Sofronio Roxas was born in Leyte. His family, like many landless peasants in the Visayas,
moved to Mindanao after the end of the Japanese Occupation in World War II. They were able to
find some land to till, and Roxas developed a deep love for the soil even preferring to stop
formal schooling after three years and devoting his time instead to producing crops and seeking
better methods of farming.
He developed the idea of cooperative farming, in which groups of 10 to 15 farmers agreed to set
aside a common piece of land and to take turns cultivating it, so that the proceeds from the crop
could be pooled and set aside as a kind of mutual fund for use in emergencies and common
projects such as a community fishpond. Because he was a natural leader and organizer, Roxas
was able to set up 25 such groups in his area, Lampayan village, in the town of Matalam, North
Cotabato. He worked with Visayan settlers and Manobo communities alike.
In 1978 the Roman Catholic diocese of Kidapawan in North Cotabato asked Roxas to join its
social action center. As a community organizer under the Basic Christian Community program,
his job involved visiting many barrios, conducting Bible study sessions, helping the farmers
solve local problems. He continued to work on his farm, with his growing sons now providing
much of the needed manpower.
But the North Cotabato area was heavily militarized. The authorities soon suspected Roxas of
having links to the rebel guerrilla units operating there. Maybe it was because he refused to be
submissive, and insisted on carrying out the programs that he thought would help the people
become more self-reliant and aware of their rights. He was arrested twice. The first time, he was
charged with rebellion and subversion but was released and never tried. No charges were filed
against him the second time, which lasted two months.
The harassment and the risks intensified as he pursued his work. Many times, threats were
publicly made by the local militia, the CHDF. Friends suggested that Roxas abandon his work in
the diocese, but he continued. He attended protest actions. He criticized corrupt officials. He
tried to prepare his family for what he had accepted was inevitable: his own death. In April 1984,
his son Diomedes was badly beaten up by soldiers conducting a military operation; one month
later the young man died of the injuries to his liver.
One hot noontime, on August 29, 1984, Roxas was heading home from town when he was
intercepted by a gunman hiding in the sugarcane field beside the road. A single M16 bullet was
fired, knocking him off his horse. Witnesses pointed to a paramilitary man as the likely suspect.
Some 500 placard-bearing mourners joined the funeral march, including priests and other
religious and lay people from the dioceses 15 parishes. They called him a true Christian.
Kidapawan bishop Orlando Quevedo paid tribute to him during the funeral mass, saying: He is
one of the people who impressed me. Most of us have had more education...more technical
knowledge than he. But he was a wise man...dedicated, zealous and humble. He served his
people and community in Lampayan in a way all of us would wish deep in our hearts but
oftentimes fear to do.
The prelate continued, I dont hesitate to call Sofronio a martyr. It is for speaking and defending
justice and truth that his life was sacrificed.
SOLEDAD N. SALVADOR
BORN
March 8, 1957 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte
DIED
PARENTS
Guillermo Salvador and Pacita Nacional
EDUCATION
Secondary: Araullo Vocational School
College: Mariano Marcos
State University, Ilocos Norte
Soledad Salvador came from a family that had been tenant farmers in Ilocos Norte for many
generations. By working as a housemaid then as a parish worker, she pinned her hopes for a
better life on getting an education. Sympathetic church people helped her along, and she was
able to graduate from college with a bachelors degree in industrial education. But then she had
to work again as a maid in Manila because she could not get a job as a teacher, having failed the
licensure exam.
Eventually Salvador decided to return to Ilocos Norte to teach catechism at the Badoc parish
church. It was there that she became acquainted with the spiritual and social foundations of the
Basic Christian Community program. Having grown up in poverty, it was easy for her to see how
landlessness, militarization and the historical struggle of the Ilokano peasants were all tied up
together.
In 1983, Salvador joined a guerrilla network that was coordinating anti-dictatorship activities.
She was assigned the dangerous task of passing messages back and forth between the town
centers and the villages. Then she began to go deeper into guerrilla territory, moving around with
teams that were organizing in the rural areas of Ilocos and the Cordillera region. Despite the
hardships and a few close encounters with hostile fire, she was always cheerful and ready to go.
She got along well with the people, especially the women and children; it was a surprise for them
to learn that she was a college graduate, for she had no airs, they said.
Salvador was with a group of armed guerrillas when she was killed in a raid by military troopers
in sitio Beyeng, Bakun, Benguet in 1985. The others who died were Fr. Nilo Valerio and Resteta
Fernandez. The three were decapitated, their heads stuck on poles and displayed in some sitios of
Benguet. Relatives tried to locate where they were buried, but their bodies have never been
found.
ABRAHAM P. SARMIENTO JR.
BORN
DIED
November 11, 1977 in Quezon City
PARENTS
Abraham F. Sarmiento and Irene Pascual
SPOUSE / CHILD
Marsha Regala Santos / 1
EDUCATION
Kung di tayo kikibo, sino ang kikibo? Kung di tayo kikilos, sino ang kikilos? Kung hindi
ngayon, kailan pa? (Who will speak up if we dont? Who will act if we dont? If not now,
when?)
This passionate cry, defying the Marcos dictatorship at the height of its reign of terror, was
echoed by young people across the land, and soon taken up even by their elders who drew their
own inspiration and courage from it.
It was Abraham Sarmiento Jr., the editor of the Philippine Collegian, student paper of the
University of the Philippines, who threw down that challenge. They were not mere words for
him either, and he paid with his life for his daring leadership of the campus press in 19751976,
when the martial law regime jailed him for his many critical articles and editorial policies.
At a time when the major media outlets commercial newspapers and magazines, radio and
television stations were firmly controlled by the Marcos regime, the Collegian upheld its proud
tradition of press freedom and independent thinking. Under Ditto Sarmiento, the UP student
newspaper refused to be timid and safe. It tackled the issue of presidential succession, for
example, protested the waves of illegal arrests, and demanded the release of political prisoners. It
took a strong stand on campus questions, and Sarmiento and his staff led rallies in support of
their positions.
Only the Collegian dared to report on the publication by the Civil Liberties Union of a critical
pamphlet, Three Years of Martial Law. It published the article For Those Who Care, signed by
500 opposition leaders, notably Diosdado Macapagal, Gerardo Roxas and Jovito Salonga. It also
published the letter of Macapagal to the Philippine Constitutional Association advocating the
convening of an interim national assembly as mandated by the 1973 Constitution in order to end
martial law.
In December 1975 Sarmiento wrote an editorial that offended the minister of national defense,
Juan Ponce Enrile. He was invited for interrogation and then sent home. A month later, he was
picked up from the house of his father, Abraham F. Sarmiento, who had been vice-president of
the 1971 Constitutional Convention (and who later served, in 19871991, as associate justice of
the Supreme Court).
Ditto Sarmiento was detained for over seven months in Fort Bonifacio and later in Camp Crame,
where he was placed in isolation for two months. He had always been in poor health, being
asthmatic, and the harsh conditions caused him to grow weaker. He died of a heart attack at age
27.
The UP College of Business Administration and Accountancy honored Sarmiento with a

posthumous bachelors degree in 1978, as he was never able to finish his academic program. It
was the first time the college did this. In 1986, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines gave
him a posthumous Plaridel Award.
MICHAEL J. SUMILANG
BORN
September 29, 1954 in Tayabas, Quezon
DIED
February 10, 1986 in Tayabas, Quezon
PARENTS
Mario Sumilang and Romana Jardiniano
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Myrna Mojica / 4
EDUCATION
Elementary: Tayabas East Central School
Secondary: St. John Bosco Academy, Tayabas
College: Adamson University, Manila
Michael Hiram Sumilang was studying mechanical engineering in Manila when demonstrations,
rallies, boycotts of classes and other forms of protests erupted. Sumilang interrupted his
schooling in 1972 (he was in third year) and returned to his hometown in Tayabas in Southern
Tagalog.
He went into business exporting handicrafts, and got married. He was in his mid-20s when he ran
for municipal councilor in 1980, and won. He headed various committees to improve the
business and trade sectors as well as the agricultural sector in Tayabas. But the Marcos
dictatorship was still in effect, and the young politician was aware of the many abuses of martial
rule that had been going on for years.
Sumilang increasingly became identified with the provinces militant opposition especially after
the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983. He helped found the Quezon chapter of
the Concerned Citizens for Justice and Peace (CCJP) in 1984. Under the CCJP, he organized
marches and rallies seeking justice for victims of militarization and calling for the release of
political prisoners. He joined fact-finding missions organized by the Task Force Detainees of the
Philippines to document military abuses in Quezon.
Chosen to be the municipal chair of the Unido party in Tayabas in 1985, he joined opposition
stalwarts in touring the province to campaign for Corazon Aquino for the snap presidential
elections. Bobong Sumilang was an effective campaigner. He had a movie actors good looks, a
deep booming voice, the ability to make audiences laugh, and strong convictions. He was the
youngest in the group of veteran politicians, and was soon being referred to as the rising star of
Quezon politics.
Only a few days after the snap presidential elections, late in the evening of February 10, 1986,
Sumilang was driving a friends jeep on the way home from attending a meeting with other
political leaders. Just past the boundary between Tayabas and Lucena City, a car blocked his
way. Sumilang told his four companions to get off and run. The ambushers aimed their guns and
shot him dead. His remains were brought to the municipal hall. Thousands came to express their
sorrow and recall the good deeds of Bobong Sumilang.
ANTONIO S. TAGAMOLILA
BORN
January 17, 1950 in La Paz, Iloilo City
DIED
February 18, 1974 in Taroytoy, Libacao, Aklan
PARENTS
Manuel Tagamolila and Casiana Sandoval
SPOUSE / CHILD
Victoria Segui / 1
EDUCATION
Elementary: La Paz Elementary School, Iloilo City
Secondary: University of the Philippines High School, Quezon City
Antonio Tagamolila was an intense, quiet young man who detested the system of corruption and
exploitation that kept the country underdeveloped and the masses in age-old poverty. He also
realized that to be true to himself, he had to act on these ideas.
Thus, he shifted from engineering (for which he had a government scholarship) to economics,
thinking that the course would be more relevant to the nations needs. He did graduate in 1971
with a bachelors degree in economics, in effect banishing hopes of any substantial contribution
to the familys finances.
Early on, Tagamolila whose older brother Crispin, an Army lieutenant, defected to the New
Peoples Army had already made a name for himself as editor of the Philippine Collegian
where week after week he wrote about politics, foreign affairs, and social questions. Then,
elected national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, he exercised leadership
over other student writers in carrying forward the kind of committed journalism that he was
already practising.
Membership in radical organizations at the time molded Tagamolilas thinking; he joined

Kabataang Makabayan in 1966, and then the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. But he would
never forget that he came from a poor family; his father did not have stable jobs, and
scholarships enabled the Tagamolila siblings to get higher education.
Never forget where you came from, he would tell his wife Vicky. College sweethearts, they
married in May 1972. After that he worked for a time on the staff of Romeo Capulong, Nueva
Ecija delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention.
When martial law was declared in September 1972, Tagamolila did not hesitate to take his
convictions to a higher level. He left for Panay in November. He wanted to go back to his
roots, his wife said. He was going to give back everything that he had learned... it was his
obsession.
Over a year later, Tagamolila was killed in a remote village situated on the common border
between Aklan and Capiz provinces. Others who died in the same incident, when government
troops attacked a small hut where they were staying, included Antonio Hilario and Rolando
Luarca who had both been students in Manila.
A widowed mother at 23, Vicky Tagamolila chose to return to the area where Tony died, to
pursue our ideals.
The people were so poor, she found, they only ate kamote and palawan (tubers and roots); no
rice could be grown because the land was so full of rocks and stones.
They sewed their own clothes from handwoven biray. When we were there, we set up a literacy
program... the regular schoolteachers came only once every two weeks.
During the late 1940s, the Hukbalahap movement had already been established there, as the
location was advantageous for guerrilla warfare. Tagamolilas group was sent there to begin
again, and in the years afterward, before the situation got better, the place was a kind of black
hole, where many lost their lives.
LORENZO M. TAADA
BORN
August 10, 1898 in Gumaca, Quezon
DIED
May 28, 1992 in Quezon City
PARENTS
Vicente Lopez Taada and Anastacia Martinez
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Expedita Z. Ebarle / 9
EDUCATION
University of the Philippines, Harvard University (USA), University of Santo Tomas
Already well into his 80s, the silver-haired grandfather needed to use a cane, but he was more
than willing to join the protest rally against the Marcos dictatorship.
He had only one condition: Ayaw ko na tatakbo tayo pag dumating ang pulis, he told the
organizers who had come to see him. We will stand our ground! Lorenzo M. Taada chose to
fight very big battles, and he never ran away.
In his younger days, he was much admired for his fight against top government officials whom
he accused of graft and corruption. He went on to defy big-money politics in his 24 years as an
independent senator, serving only the people and not the interests of any major political bloc.
The struggle against the Marcos dictatorship called on his entire being as a Filipino, a nationalist,
a lawyer, a politician.
When martial law was declared, Taada was vacationing abroad only months earlier, he had
retired from public office, saying that younger people should also have a chance to serve but
chose to return to the Philippines and fight what he declared was an illegal act, a usurpation of
power by Marcos.
He represented political prisoners being tried before military tribunals (foremost among them
Benigno Aquino Jr.), counselled and defended the rights of the many who were being detained,
gave comfort to their families, encouraged everyone to resist the dictatorship, gave speeches,
signed petitions, endured tear gas and water cannons as he walked the streets at the forefront of
the many mass protests that erupted after Aquino was assassinated.
Because he identified so completely with the peoples movement, the one occasion when he got
arrested and detained for one week was a high point of his involvement. He leaned out of the
police van that was carrying him away, raised a clenched fist, and shouted, Laban! Laban!
Laban! (Laban, or Peoples Power Party, was the name of the political party he organized in
1978 to campaign for Aquino.)
But Taada by this time fondly known by all as Ka Tanny was also deeply aware that
without the support of the US government, the Marcos dictatorship would not have happened nor
be able to continue oppressing the Filipino people. He campaigned against the continued
presence of American military facilities in the Philippines through the Anti-Bases Coalition
which he headed. He was also adamantly opposed to the Bataan nuclear power plant, with its
destructive effect on the environment, potential harm to the people and linkage to corrupt
dealings by Marcos and his cronies.
The Marcos dictatorship fell in 1986, Marcos died in exile in 1989. In September 1991 the
Senate voted to reject the Philippines-US military bases treaty. Before he passed away in 1992 at
the age of 93, Ka Tanny witnessed both historic events in which he played a key role.
His son Wigberto (Bobby) observed: (He) outlived the dictatorship and the dictator and saw the
last American soldier leave Philippine soil. In many ways, his life exemplified how the
impossible could be made possible through determination, strength of conviction and love of
country.
ROMRAFLO R. TAOJO
BORN
February 4, 1955 in Daang Bantayan, Cebu
DIED
April 2, 1985 in Tagum, Davao del Norte
PARENTS
Romeo Taojo and Isidra Rosaroso
EDUCATION
Elementary: Maco, Davao del Norte
Secondary: Maco, Davao del Norte
College: University of Mindanao, Davao del Norte;
University of the Visayas, Cebu
Son of a poor Cebuano couple who migrated to Mindanao from the Visayas, Romraflo Taojo
knew poverty first-hand. He went through college and law school by sheer hard work and
perseverance.
After passing the bar in 1980, he started his career almost immediately as a human rights lawyer,
becoming known for providing free legal services to the poor. He not only refused to accept legal
fees from his indigent clients, mostly farmers or laborers, or victims of human rights abuses, but
he would even provide them money for transportation. Of special concern to him were the
tribespeople victimized by landgrabbers. These communities also bore the brunt of military
atrocities under martial law.
Specializing in labor law, Taojo served as legal counsel of the Solidarity of Workers of Davao,
an umbrella organization of labor groups, and notably represented striking workers of a large
banana plantation in their negotiations with management.
As a young lawyer in 1981, Dodong Taojo was the first chair of the human rights committee of
the local chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines; he held the position for three years.
He was elected chair of the Lumadnong Alyansa alang sa Demokrasya in 1984, and a member of
the Concerned Lawyers Union of Mindanao, Multisectoral Alliance for Democracy, the Hukom
Demokrasya-Davao, Mindanao Tribal Resource Center, Tagum Cooperative Incorporated (TCI).
He was also active in the Nationalist Alliance for Justice, Freedom and Democracy, Coalition for
the Restoration of Democracy, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, Free Legal Assistance
Group, the Jaycees, and the Young Mens Christian Association of which he was a national
board member. He was a faculty member of the University of Mindanao in Tagum.
In the so-called parliament of the streets, he was often seen boldly criticizing the policies of the
Marcos government.
One year before his death, Taojo was told by a relative in the military that he was being watched
because he was being too vocal. On his trips to Manila to attend meetings of the Free Legal
Assistance Group and other cause-oriented organizations, he complained of being tailed by
military agents.
Two days before he was killed, Dodong Taojo told a friend that he did not expect to be around
for long. He was then preparing to prosecute a case of torture against two Scout Rangers
involved in gold-mining activities. On April 2, 1985, gunmen entered his apartment and shot him
five times. He was 30. No one has been charged for his murder.
CARLOS N. TAYAG
BORN
August 24, 1942 in Angeles City
DISAPPEARED
August 17, 1976 in Manila
PARENTS
Fidel Tayag and Irenea Nuqui
EDUCATION
Elementary: Holy Family Academy, Angeles City
College: San Beda College, Manila
Postgraduate: University of the Philippines Diliman
In 1970, several months before his scheduled ordination as a priest, Carlos Tayag asked for this
important rite to be suspended. Instead he entered the University of the Philippines, where he
immersed himself in political-social organizing while pursuing a masters degree in Philippine
Literature.
Tayag had spent ten years studying for the priesthood as a member of the Order of St. Benedict,
where he took the name Carlos Maria (his baptismal name was Bartolome).51 The emerging
Theology of Liberation in the 1970s posed a challenge to him, as he embraced a definition of his
Christian faith that addressed itself directly to the liberation of, in his words, those who are
losing hope, the poor and powerless, those being held captive.
Such faith, he continued, was rooted in promoting human freedom within the political,
economic and cultural context: this is a human duty brought forth by the spirituality and the
experiences of a suffering humanity.
He joined the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, and became a leader of the
Kilusang Kristiyano ng Kabataang Pilipino (KKKP) whose newsletter Breakthrough he edited
from 1967 to 1972.
The Benedictine deacon was one of the organizers of the Christians for National Liberation,
which (with KKKP) was declared illegal when martial law was imposed in 1972. Tayag went
underground to continue his organizing work among church people, with the added dimension of
mobilizing support for the popular resistance to the Marcos dictatorship.
Tayag disappeared without a trace sometime in August 1976. His family, whom he would
contact from time to time while he was in the underground, believes it was the military who
abducted him.
After years of searching for him, Tayags younger sister says: We have stopped looking for
Caloy, the physical Caloy. After all, he spent most of his years away from home. We are used to
his physical absence. Instead we have now focused our search for that part of Caloy which is
more real, indestructible and eternal: who he was, what he was fighting for, and why?
CLAUDIO TEEHANKEE
BORN
April 18, 1918 in Manila
DIED
November 27, 1989 in New York City, USA
PARENTS
Jose Teehankee and Julia Ong
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Pilar D. Javier / 9
EDUCATION
College: Ateneo de Manila
When President Marcos appointed his friend Claudio Teehankee to the Supreme Court in 1968,
some critics warned that the President may have done this in anticipation of Teehankees
cooperation in the event of a presidential election contest the following year.52
But Teehankee proved to be a devoted defender of the rule of law, courageously upholding
constitutional democracy against the dictatorial regime imposed in 1972.
He affirmed the right of citizens, even under martial law, to be tried by civilian courts rather than
military tribunals. He challenged the validity of various amendments to the 1973 Constitution
that extended Marcos term and gave him even more powers. He defended civilian supremacy
over the military, and the right of citizens to liberty and due process, against the abuse of power
through such instruments as the Presidential Detention Action. These were dissenting opinions
that failed to sway the majority of the justices, and when vacancies occurred at the top, Marcos
showed his displeasure by not appointing Teehankee to be chief justice, twice, despite his
seniority in the court.
With the declaration of her victory over the dictator in the February 1986 snap election, President
Corazon Aquino asked Teehankee to swear her into office, which he did in the morning of
February 25 at the Club Filipino. She appointed him chief justice shortly after.
During the short period that he headed the court, Teehankee ordered a retrial of the Aquino-
Galman murder case, declaring that the Supreme Court cannot permit a sham trial and verdict
and travesty of justice to stand unrectified. He retired in 1988 upon reaching the age of 70.
Before serving in government he was named justice undersecretary in 1966, secretary of justice
in 1968, and associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1979 Teehankee was a distinguished
lawyer and civil libertarian. He co-founded the Nationalist Citizens Party with senators Claro
M. Recto and Lorenzo Taada.
Teehankee is remembered as a competent and honest administrator at the justice department, and
mostly as a courageous justice of the Supreme Court, especially during martial law.
No one, least of all Marcos, expected him to defy tyranny and cast doubt on the regimes validity
and to question the justness of its cause. His erudite dissenting opinions stripped away the shroud
of legality that Marcos sought to drape over his abuses. He wrote bold dissents against the
majority position, and spoke at public forums on the importance of upholding the rule of law,
and the independence of the judiciary.
Under his leadership, he fought to keep the judiciary worthy of the peoples respect and
confidence.
Teehankee died of lung cancer in 1989 while serving as Philippine ambassador and permanent
representative to the United Nations.
NOEL C. TIERRA
BORN
January 31, 1953 in Lucena City
DIED
February 9, 1974 in Guinayangan, Quezon
PARENTS
Norberto Tierra and Angeles Cerrudo
EDUCATION
Elementary: Atimonan Elementary School, Quezon
Secondary: Don Bosco Institute of Technology, Makati, Metro Manila
When Noel Tierra died at the age of 21, some people shook their heads and wondered why he
had to become a rebel when he came from a well-off family: his parents had good jobs and they
owned some land in Quezon, planted to rice and coconuts.
In fact, Tierra was a typical teenager who got good grades especially in mathematics and science,
loved the Beatles, played the piano and guitar. What was notable about him, however, was his
concern for others in need. He liked to give away things from empty bottles and old
newspapers to a piece of land which he thought could be of better use to other people. I
learned from him, his mother said. I realized that he was showing more compassion than me.
It was in college at the University of the Philippines in Diliman that he encountered the ideas that
explained why people were poor and exploited and what must be done to help them. He joined
the Nationalist Corps and later the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. Soon, he was joining
rallies and exposure trips to different rural communities. They would engage the community
members in dialogue, learning and teaching at the same time.
During the summer of 1970, Tierra and two of his friends went on their own to Atimonan,
Quezon to organize the young people there. They were able to hold a protest rally at the town
plaza, but only with a handful of participants bearing a few placards.
Soon he dropped out of college to go full time into community organizing in Quezon City. Now
he looked like the activist of cartoons, not caring much about looking smart, always hungry.
When I heard that Noel had become an activist, I said...we should be thankful that we have
young people like that, his former scoutmaster said. If all of us thought only of ourselves, how
can there be change? We must be thankful for young people who offer their lives for the sake of
social change. If they did not wake us up, we would still have our eyes closed. Noel became an
activist not because he was poor but because he used his intellect and he studied the situation.53
Shortly after martial law was declared, Tierra was arrested in Quezon and detained for some
months at Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna. He was arrested again by the military in a zoning
operation54 in the town of Tagkawayan in January 1974. This time he was heavily tortured; for
the next two weeks, with hands tied behind his back and starving, he was paraded around the
barrios and put on display as a captured rebel. Apparently he refused to give any information to
his interrogators. Later he was taken back to the constabulary camp in Bagong Silang II,
Guinayangan, and shot dead. His body was then left on a basketball court in the town center. His
parents, only then informed, came at once to claim his body.
Noel Tierra said goodbye to his parents in a letter written in February 1972. As long as
exploitation of man by man, of one nation by another nation persists on this earth, there will be
many sons and daughters who will leave their homes. Thats why I leave now. I, my comrades,
and all the oppressed peoples of the world will rise like a mighty storm to end exploitation
forever. In this way there will be no more sons and daughters who will leave their homes. There
will be no more mothers to cry. In the new day...the spirit of serving the people will pervade the
earth.
AMANTEFLOR A. TORRES
BORN
September 23, 1941 in Lallo, Cagayan
DIED
February 4, 1986 in Centro Lallo, Cagayan
PARENTS
Lauriano Torres and Corazon Argonza
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Maria Luisa Marano / 8
EDUCATION
Elementary: Lallo Central School, Cagayan
Secondary: Lallo High School, Cagayan
Amanteflor Torres came from a farming family. Having been an honor student in grade school
and high school, as well as a student leader, he wanted very much to become a lawyer. Thus he
went to Manila to study law at the Lyceum of the Philippines, thinking to support himself by
taking a series of part-time jobs.
The plan did not work out and he had to drop out before finishing his degree; he had gotten
married in 1964 and needed to work full time. So he approached a congressman from his
province, who was able to find employment for him. Eventually, in 1976 Torres was hired to
manage the politicians business of exporting handicrafts and later, his logging company.
Under martial law, Cagayan province was particularly notorious for the widespread human rights
violations by soldiers and members of the local militias or Civilian Home Defense Force.
Although at first Torres kept silent about the abuses of the regime and its supporters, it came to a
point where he was openly saying, sobra na sila this is going too far.
In 1984 he and other human rights advocates put up the Cagayan Valley Human Rights
Organization. They organized dialogues, marches and rallies to call attention to the plight of the
victims of military abuses and to seek justice for them. As an active participant in seminars,
symposiums and rallies, he denounced the corruption in government and military atrocities,
urged people to organize and to take a stand. He was a popular public speaker, whose humorous
comments masked his firm commitment to principles.
His daughter tells an amusing story about the time he was brought in for questioning by the
authorities. It was during the 1984 local election campaign, when many oppositionists were
being arrested and severely tortured. Torres prepared for his encounter with the military by
dressing well and putting on some jewelry. He answered his interrogators in English and insisted
on the presence of his lawyer. After a military informer failed to confirm his identity as a rebel
commander, he confidently advised his captors to release him without further ado. And they did,
to the applause of his supporters who had waited for him outside the camp.
Because he had a wide following, in 1985 he was asked to join the Marcos political party, the
Kilusang Bagong Lipunan. Maning Torres declined the offer and instead joined the call for a
boycott of the snap election called by the dictator. He knew the risks of this decision. Writing his
daughter in Manila in January 1986, he gave instructions on what should be done in case he was
arrested or killed. Still he continued to join and lead in activities to prepare for possible
manipulation by the KBL of the electoral results. He also helped organize a local chapter of
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.
On the night of February 4, 1986, two days before the snap presidential elections, Torres and
another activist friend were walking home late in the evening when they were accosted on the
street and sprayed with bullets. People who heard the shots were too frightened to come out. The
bodies were recovered only the next morning.
Witnesses pointed to four policemen and a paramilitary man as suspects but there were never any
apprehensions. A local town official, also a possible suspect, left the country immediately after
the killing.
Overcoming their fear, thousands came to the wake and joined the funeral march. Along the
highway, coins were dropped by the passengers of commuter buses in offerings of sympathy and
support.
Soon after the new government came into power, the eldest daughter of Maning Torres, Irma,
wrote President Corazon Aquino asking for an investigation into her fathers death. No official
investigation took place.
ISMAEL G. UMALI
BORN
DIED
March 1984; found dead in Silang, Cavite
PARENTS
Felipe Umali and Felicidad Gonzales
EDUCATION
Elementary: St. Bridgets College, Batangas
Secondary: St. Bridgets College;
Western Philippine Colleges, Batangas
College: Western Philippine Colleges;
Philippine Union College, Silang, Cavite
Ismael Umali was a familiar figure at the Western Philippine Colleges in Batangas City, not only
because he was visibly a polio survivor, or that he was a friendly and happy person but also
because he was a well-known student leader for student rights.
He was a senior political science major when he started to become involved in school activism.
At first, the students were calling for the restoration of their student council. Then when tuition
fees were raised by 15 per cent, the students demanded that the increase be lowered to 5 per cent.
Ismael and two of his friends, Noel Clarete and Aurelio Magpantay, formed the Makisama Party
that led the successful opposition to the tuition fee increase.
The assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. had a big impact on the three. They joined the Batangas
chapter of the Justice for Aquino Justice for All movement. In 1984, the military briefly detained
them when they tried to organize a rally in Batangas calling on people to boycott the Batasang
Pambansa elections.
He became a member of the League of Filipino Students, the Youth Citizens of Student
Committee, and the Batangas City Student Forum. He was also an officer of the Omega Epsilon
fraternity.
Umali disappeared in March 1984, together with Clarete and Magpantay, after they joined the
Lakbayan, a massive peoples march that ended in a big rally in Manila. Their battered bodies
were found in Cavite after days of searching by their families. Umalis remains were easily
identified from the slight deformation of his leg caused by polio. But the handicap did not affect
the patriotic spirit of this young man, who was willing to walk many kilometers in support of
justice and freedom.
DANILO C. VALCOS JR.
BORN
February 17, 1966 in Baliwag, Bulacan
DIED
PARENTS
Danilo Valcos and Gloria Collantes
EDUCATION
Elementary: Baliwag South Elementary School, Baliwag, Bulacan
Secondary: Mariano Ponce High School, Baliwag, Bulacan
College: Manila Central University, Metro Manila
When Danilo Valcos Jr. was born, Ferdinand Marcos was already president of the Philippines,
and so he hardly remembered a time when the country had not been under martial law. He was
the youngest of four boys, and his parents were able to indulge him; he and his friends were
typical teenagers, playing pranks and trying to act smart. At home, he was a helpful boy in a
close-knit family.
Political issues did not interest him, not until the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983.
Then he began to pay attention. He joined the League of Filipino Students (LFS) chapter in his
town, and started joining rallies and marches. His leadership qualities started to emerge, and in
1984 he was elected vice-chair of the local LFS chapter. He also became an active campaigner
for student rights and welfare, successfully leading a student boycott to protest the National
Service Law which required students to undergo military training. At the time he was a senior in
business administration.
His involvement in the political struggle against the dictatorship was a serious matter for him. In
a letter to his parents in September 1985, which he signed ang inyong aktibistang supling (your
activist son), he expressed the wish that their family would still be there on the day of Paglayang
Bayan (national liberation). In that same letter, he set down a truth that he had found out for
himself, what he called Prinsipyo ni Danjun:
Ang paglilingkod at paghahandog kung walang nakaugat na pag-ibig ay walang kabuluhan at
dakong huli ito ay kasakiman!! (To serve and to offer, without love, is worthless and it can only
be called greed.)
Only weeks after writing this letter, Valcos was killed when Manila police broke through the
ranks of a march-rally commemorating Agrarian Reform Week. Organized by the newly-formed
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, thousands of farmers and their supporters demanded price
support for their produce, lower prices for farm inputs, an end to militarization, and genuine land
reform.
The marchers were crossing Taft Avenue when five patrol cars rammed their ranks. Valcos had
been with the Bulacan contingent, but rushed towards the commotion when he saw that some of
the protestors had been hurt. The police fired their guns and the rallyists retaliated by throwing
stones. At this point, Valcos was hit in the head by a bullet. Another marcher, Emmanuel Lazo,
died right there on the pavement.
Valcos was rushed to the nearby Philippine General Hospital where he lay comatose for five
days, until he died on October 26. He was only 19 years old.
NILO C. VALERIO
BORN
February 20, 1950 in Manila
DIED
PARENTS
Epigenio Valerio and Candida Castillejos
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Erlinda Timbreza / 2
EDUCATION
Secondary: Christ the King Minor Seminary, Quezon City
College: Divine Word Major Seminary, Tagaytay City
Nilo Valerio wanted to be a priest, probably because he was inspired by two uncles who were
priests (one of them a bishop), and his own father, who was a former seminarian and who raised
his six children in piety. He had the disposition for it, being a quiet and serious boy, happy to
spend his time reading, even by candlelight.
Entering the minor seminary of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in 1962, for the next 13
years he lived and studied to become a priest. The First Quarter Storm saw him a college student
at the major seminary in Tagaytay. Talk about theology of liberation had seeped into his
consciousness. He started to spend his free time with the rural folk around the seminary and his
summer vacations in distant parishes in Mindoro with the Mangyans, in Batangas, Tarlac and the
mountain province of Abra.
After his ordination in 1975, Valerios first assignment was as assistant parish priest in upland
Abra. He knew that trouble was brewing in the area. People were gearing to resist a takeover of
their ancestral lands by the Cellophil Resources Corporation. His mission would not be easy:
Cellophil was owned by a crony of President Marcos. It had been granted 250,000 hectares of
land to use in producing cellulose from tree plantations and the Presidential Security Command
was even said to have escorted its personnel in the beginning.
Valerios work included running a grade school and a high school, helping in community
projects such as a rural cooperative and a ricemill. He visited far-flung villages, trekking up and
down rugged mountains, sometimes on horseback or on foot.
By 1978, a full-blown rebellion had erupted in the province. Villagers were arming themselves to
protect their land and their way of life. Valerio, now the parish priest, urged them to exhaust the
legal means of defending themselves, but also he chose to support them openly in their struggle
against the powerful corporation.
It was not long before the military suspected him not only of being a sympathizer but an actual
leader of the rebellious villagers. Government spies tailed him and monitored his activities. His
safety had come into serious risk.
On the advice of his friends, Valerio took temporary refuge in Manila. There he spent long hours
in soul-searching and in talking with fellow priests and friends, his priesthood in a crisis. Finally
he decided that it would be suicidal to return as parish priest. He left the SVD and continued
working to serve the peoples interests, this time in the underground guerrilla movement. This
commitment took him back to Abra and other Cordillera provinces.
Valerio was killed in 1985, with Resteta Fernandez and Soledad Salvador, during a raid by
soldiers in sitio Beyeng, Bakun, Benguet. Their bodies were reportedly dumped in a single grave
after having been beheaded. Government troops took their heads, attached them to poles and
paraded these around several villages. Despite all efforts by the victims families, none of the
bodies have been found.
JOSE MARI U. VELEZ
BORN
DIED
June 3, 1991 in New York City, USA
PARENTS
Fernando Velez and Juana Uhler
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Marilu Syjuco / 4
EDUCATION
Secondary: University of Santo Tomas
College: University of the Philippines Diliman;
Center for Research and Communication, Pasig City
Jose Mari Velez was not yet 30 when he was elected to represent the 1st district of Rizal in the
1971 Constitutional Convention, where most of the delegates were seasoned politicians and
prominent professionals. As a delegate, he proved himself to be an uncompromising defender of
constitutional democracy. He opposed the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by Marcos
and the establishment of political dynasties in the country.
His sense of what was good or bad for the nation was probably sharpened by the years he spent
as a broadcast journalist. In 1966, he broke into Philippine television when he was chosen to be
the sole anchor for the news program The Big News. Nightly he delivered information that
was credible, committed to the truth, and professionally presented, earning a series of awards for
the program. He also hosted a talk show, interviewing personalities about the hot issues of the
day.
Velez began his career in mass media as a disk jockey in radio station DZHP, while he was still
studying for a political science degree at the University of the Philippines. It was a graveyard
shift, from 12 midnight to 5 am, but he needed to support himself and his young family. After
graduation, he went on to study law, which he finished in 1970.
When martial law was declared in September 1972, Velez was ordered arrested along with
several other delegates to the Constitutional Convention. He and journalist Napoleon Rama, also
a detained Con-Con delegate, were allowed to vote on the ersatz Marcos Constitution, as Velez
called it. A yes vote would have meant release from detention and membership in the martial
law legislative assembly. With every fiber in (his) body, he voted no.
By early 1973, Velez was released from detention and placed under house arrest for another two
years. After this, no one wanted to employ him for fear of the Marcos regime. He himself vowed
never to return to broadcasting until the dictator was ousted from power.
In the meantime, he reviewed for the bar, which he passed, and pursued a masters degree in
economics, after which a friend asked him to work in one of his business firms. After that he
became vice-president of Associated Bank.
But Velez continued to be active in the opposition to the regime. He helped found and chaired
SELDA, an organization of former political detainees. He refused to accept the Marcos
Constitution and assailed the corruption of the dictatorship. He called for a boycott of the 1984
elections and joined the opposition party, Laban, in the 1986 snap presidential elections.
In February 1986, Velez was among the first to go on air, announcing the flight of Marcos and
his family from the country. The countrys number one TV newscaster was at last free to
return to broadcast journalism. His first post-Marcos stint in mass media was on Channel 7 with
Tina Monzon Palma. President Corazon Aquino also appointed him director of the Development
Bank of the Philippines.
It was Velez and American lawyer Robert Swift who together filed the first class suit against
Marcos before a court in Hawaii, USA. He was lead plaintiff in the case of thousands of victims
whose human rights were violated under the dictatorial regime.
In 1989, Velez became the first awardee for service by a journalist given by the Ninoy Aquino
Fellowships for Professional Development. In presenting this award, US Ambassador to the
Philippines Nicholas Platt read the following: It is most appropriate that this honor should go to
a man who was imprisoned with Ninoy when freedom of the press was under the harshest attack
in the Philippines.
He died of lung cancer at a hospital in New York City in 1991, at the age of 50.
EMMANUEL R. YAP
BORN
November 5, 1951 in Cebu City
DISAPPEARED
PARENTS
Pedro L. Yap and Flora del Rosario
EDUCATION
Elementary: Public school, New York City, USA
Secondary: Ateneo de Manila University
College: Ateneo de Manila
Postgraduate: University of the Philippines Diliman
As a teenager returning to the Philippines with his family, Emmanuel Yap was unprepared for
the contrast between the comfortable life that he had experienced in America and the under
development and poverty that he found in his native country.
Manny Yaps childhood had been spent in New York City, where his father served for 12 years
on the United Nations Human Rights Commission. (Pedro Yap would be appointed to the
Supreme Court, after the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, and named chief justice by
President Corazon Aquino in 1988, although he served for only two and a half months before
retiring upon reaching the age of 70.)
A well-mannered, likable boy with a mature intelligence, Yap worked hard to overcome the
handicap of being a newcomer and not being fluent in Filipino. At the Ateneo high school, he
excelled in academics (graduating salutatorian) as well as in extracurricular activities.
As a student in economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, Yaps record showed the same
pattern of high marks graduating magna cum laude accompanied by meaningful involvement
in activities outside the classroom. This time he was drawn into organizing for social reform. In
1969, he joined a school project doing community work in the slums of Sapang Palay, bringing
food and used clothing, and starting discussion groups among the residents. He wanted to
understand their life situation by actually trying to live with them. It was a logical development
stemming from his parents social concern and political awareness, as well as a missionary spirit
imbibed from mentors in the Jesuit school.
With the establishment of the student-activist organization Lakasdiwa, Yap became active in its
education department. He familiarized himself with political theory, organized study groups, at
the same time conducting relief operations in assisting victims of the strong typhoon that hit
Central Luzon in 1970. In the process deeper study of politics and ideology, side by side with
interaction with poor communities and activists of a more radical stripe Yap realized the
limitations of his reform orientation. A rift developed within Lakasdiwa, which was to see the
emergence of a more radical group with Yap as its secretary-general.
When the country fell under martial law, Yap continued his schooling by pursuing a masters
program at the University of the Philippines School of Economics. While leading a seemingly
normal life, however, Yap had joined an underground anti-dictatorship network. He would see
his family from time to time, but mostly kept away from their residence in order to evade
military surveillance.
On February 14, 1976, Valentines Day, the Yap family marked the occasion by having lunch
together in a restaurant as they had been doing in the past. After lunch, Manny was dropped off
at a street corner where he would wait for 10 minutes for the bunch of flowers that his family
would buy for him and give away to his friends.
When the family car returned with the roses 10 minutes later, Manny was not there. His family
did not worry too much about it, until they received an anonymous telephone call a few days
later, informing them that he had been picked up by the military and that he had been brought to
Camp Crame.
His family did everything to look for him but he was never found.
QUINTIN G. YUYITUNG
BORN
DIED
March 7, 1990 in San Francisco, USA
FATHER
Yu Yi Tung
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Yu Lengsuy / 6
EDUCATION
College: Far Eastern University, Manila
Born and educated in the Philippines, Quintin Yuyitung was the eldest son of Yu Yi Tung, who
founded the Chinese Commercial News in 1919. He was in his senior year as a student in
commerce at the Far Eastern University when World War II broke out in the Pacific. The
Philippines was invaded and occupied by the Japanese military. The elder Yu closed his
newspaper and refused to allow it to be used by the invaders. For this he was court-martialed and
executed in 1942.
At the end of the war, Quintin Yuyitung decided to continue the work for which his father had
given up his life. He reopened the Chinese Commercial News in 1945, and built it up to become
the most widely circulated Chinese-language newspaper in the Philippines, respected for its
independent positions and coverage of the news.
Quintin and his younger brother Rizal, who was editor of the newspaper, were advocates of
closer integration of the local Chinese community into mainstream Philippine society. At the
time, (The Peoples Republic of China had been established in 1949), this was considered a
subversive idea by the Philippine authorities and the conservative leadership of Chinese-
Filipino businesses in the country. In 1962 the brothers were arrested, detained and threatened
with deportation but eventually released.
Still they were fearless in reporting the news as it was happening, covering the accounts of fraud
that marked President Marcos reelection in 1969, and the series of protest actions of the First
Quarter Storm. Together with other leaders of the Philippine media, they defended press freedom
and warned against the looming possibility of martial law.
Late one night in May 1970, Quintin and Rizal Yuyitung were picked up by immigration
personnel and sent off to Taiwan on a military plane. Now we have an undeclared state of
martial law, Senator Jovito R. Salonga said of their abduction.
Although the brothers had renounced their Chinese citizenship and had never set foot in Taiwan
before, the Kuomintang regime in Taipei subjected them to a military trial. Quintin was
sentenced to imprisonment of two years, and Rizal, three years. In Manila, their friends took over
the newspapers operation.
Shortly before the declaration of martial law in the Philippines, Quintin Yuyitung had been
released and allowed to leave Taiwan after serving his sentence. He proceeded directly to
Jerusalem where an annual convention of the International Press Institute was being held. There
he denounced the Marcos dictatorship and its suppression of press freedom.
He spent his exile in San Francisco, California, participating in many activities alongside other
anti-dictatorship activists based in the United States. His brother went to Canada.
After the Marcos regime fell in 1986, the Yuyitung brothers returned to the Philippines and
revived the Chinese Commercial News. In 1990, Quintin Yuyitung died in San Francisco after a
stroke. Rizal Yuyitung died in Canada in 2007.
In his life, Quintin was also noted for his dedication to the welfare of Manilas urban poor who
had been resettled in Sapang Palay, San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. For many years, he spent
weekends helping them, contributing substantial personal funds and soliciting donations from
friends and the public through his newspaper.
CALIXTO O. ZALDIVAR
BORN
September 13, 1904 in Pandan, Antique
DIED
October 13, 1979
PARENTS
Pedro Zaldivar and Manuela Ledesma
SPOUSE / CHILDREN
Elena Ang / 5
EDUCATION
Secondary: Manila South (Araullo) High School
College: University of the Philippines
Calixto O. Zaldivar is remembered for his courageous solo refusal, in the early months of martial
law, to let President Marcos get away with a claim of legitimacy for his 1973 Constitution.
An associate justice of the Supreme Court since 1964, Zaldivar declared that the 1935
Constitution was still in force and that therefore the new basic law had not been validly ratified
through the prescribed procedure. But the other justices chose to accept Marcos argument that
his Proclamation 1102 had the force of law when it announced such ratification by the citizens
assemblies.
Held under the rule of the gun, a series of barangay assemblies were allegedly conducted all over
the country from January 10 to 15, 1973. It supposedly involved gathering the residents of each
barangay, and asking them to raise their hands if they approved the new Constitution. Of course
the fake plebiscite produced overwhelmingly positive results.
Again in March 1973, Zaldivar issued a second dissenting opinion, this time with Chief Justice
Roberto Concepcion, categorically declaring that the new Constitution had not been validly
ratified and therefore could not be enforced. But they were not able to convince the other
justices.
Zaldivar was one of those rare public officials who served in the three (legislative, executive and
finally the judicial) branches of government.
In 1934 he served as elected representative for Antique and 1938 as his provinces representative
in the First National Assembly. During World War II, he served as deputy chair of the Civilian
Emergency Administration in Antique. Later he served with the Judge Advocate Service of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines holding a lieutenant colonels rank.
He was elected Antique governor in 1951.
Later he was appointed member of the Reparations Commission, which tested his integrity as a
public official. Gaining the presidents confidence, he was then appointed acting assistant
executive secretary, concurrently as reparations commissioner in 1963. One year later, he was
appointed acting executive secretary to President Diosdado Macapagal.
Appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court by Macapagal in 1964, Zaldivar distinguished
himself further as a man of courage, integrity and independence, someone whom money could
not buy. He is remembered for his landmark decisions and opinions upholding the freedom to
form associations, religious freedom over contract rights, equal protection of the law, social
justice, and the reserved power of the state to safeguard the peoples vital interests.
After his retirement from the court, at the height of the Marcos dictatorship, Zaldivar served as
president of the Philippine Organization for Human Rights in 19761979.
Chief Justice Concepcion called Zaldivar a great man, who had the courage to act in accordance
with the dictates of his conscience, who was firm in his defense of his conviction and the rule
of law. President Macapagal said Zaldivar did not join in delivering a free people to the
slaughter house of totalitarianism and was a gigantic figure in the libertarian straggle of his
people.
ENDNOTES
1. Sol Judia, Ina, Bilanggo, Biktima, Sunday May 26, 1986
2. Trifonio Andres, Biblical Preaching. Feb. 16, 1981, typescript. Bantayog archives.
3. Fr. Antonio S. Mayo, Memorabilla, undated manuscript. Bantayog archives.
4. Sergio N. Andres Jr., Bantayog Heros Profile (updated), February 2014.
5. Interview with Florentino Santos, Feb. 10, 1989 Mandaluyong City
6. Interview with Lourdita Cruz, Board of Womens Work, United Methodist Church.
Manila, May 3,1990.
7. Filomena G. Asuncion, Simbayan, National Council of Churches in the Philippines,
3:1984.
8. See Maita Gomez, Gentle Warrior, in Asuncion David Madamba, Six Young Martyrs
(Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing Co., Inc., 1997).
9. Bebito R. Aniscal, Kasaysayan: Gingoogs Struggle for Identity, Gingoog City, 1985.
10. Pilipinas, Yuta Kong Natawhan, in Bill Christenssen, He is not alone, Mr.&Ms., April
27, 1984.
11. Interview with Alex Cauguiran, Angeles City, March 2,1987.
12. Interview with Elvira Belisario Castro, Angeles City, March 2, 1987.
13. See Corazon L. Paras, Roberto Concepcion in The History of the Supreme Court
(Manila: The Philippine Judiciary Foundation, 2011), pp. 298315.
14. Jessica May Cadelia, in Filipinos in History,
<www.geocitiessites.com/sinupan.pinoy.html>.
15. Interview with Sr. Rose Ababao, RGS, Tagaytay City, May 19, 1989.
16. Teodoro Y. Montelibano, The killing of Edward de la Fuente, Business Day, Oct. 26,
1984.
17. Jose W. Diokno, To Sing Our Own Song, BBC Video Documentary, 1983.
18. The testimonies qouted here are from Alex Dacanay, Testimony of a Rebel, Who,
June 15, 1983, p.3.
19. Heroes welcome, Ang Pahayagang Malaya, April 10, 1984.
20. Mga Tagapatutoong Kadakilaan ng Pag-ibig, unpublished liturgical text, undated,
courtesy of Promotion of Church Peoples Response.
21. Interview with Alice Hilao-Gualberto, Makati City, April 1987.
22. What is truth? Ang Banahaw, Oct 5, 1970, p. 12.
23. See Bert Suansing, Introduction of Mr. Evelio Javier, bantayog archives.
24. Testimony of Rafael Misa Paredes, Quezon City, Oct 11, 2000, Bantayog archives.
25. From a poem, Alay kay Kasamang Sis, Mary Bernard, unsigned and undated
typescript, Bantayog archives.
26. See Maria Isabel Ongpin, Estelita G. Juco: Day to Day Heroine, in Asuncion David
Madamba, ed., Six Modern Filipino Heroes (Mandaluyong City:Anvil Publishing Co., Inc.,
1993).
27. Ibid.
28. Letter of Hermon Lagman to Cecilia Lagman, Dec. 17, 1977, Bantayog archives.
29. Cecilia C. Lagman, Sons of light remembered, Ang Pahayagang Malaya, Sep. 21, 1985,
p. 5.
30. See Ricardo Lee, Ang Mahabang Martsa ni Emmanuel Lazo, (Quezon City: Bagong
Likha Publications, 1988, 1st ed.; Quezon City: Writers Studio Philippines, 2009, 2nd ed.).
31. Fact sheet on the Murder of Rizaldy Jesus M. Maglantay, Ichthys, Sept. 10, 1985, p.
10.
32. Renda at maskarang kabayong pangkaretela?, UPLB Perspective, December 1979, pp.
2, 4.
33. Ernesto Anasarias, Former P Staffer Missing. UPLB Perspective, Sept. 10, 1984, p. 4.
34. Bro. Leo Pinto, in Colombo District Circular, De La Salle Brothers-Sri Lanka, December
1984.
35. Interview with Teresita Ontong, Quezon City, Feb. 10, 1987.
36. Nenita R. Orcullos narrative, Bantayog archives.
37. Ibid.
38. Two biographies of Gaston Z. Ortigas have been published: Michael A. Hamblin,
Remembering Gasty: A man of peace, a man for others (Makati City: Asian Institute of
Management, 1991); and Sylvia Mayuga, A Revolutionary Odyssey: The Life and Times of
Gaston Ortigas (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 1994).
39. Quoted in Eulogio V. Eleazar, Notes on Surigao Culture and Personalities. (Manila: New
Day Publishers, 1990, p. 19).
40. Interview with Emmanuel L. Osorio, Quezon City, July 1988.
41. Interview with Samuel Santos, Quezon City, July 1988.
42. Handwritten narration by Felicidad Palabay, 1986, Bantayog archives.
43. Biodata, handwritten narration by his mother, brothers and sisters, undated,
Bantayog archives.
44. Pedro was cited as one of 50 young martyrs of Christendom in an exhibit organized in
February 2015 by Ars Latina in Paris, France. Her Portrait, along with the 49 others, were
shown in an exhibit titled La fleur de lge at the Sacr-Cur Basilica in Montmarte,
Paris.
45. Fortunato Gupit Jr., Reflections...with JBL Reyes. Quezon City: Legal Resources Center,
U.P. Law Complex, 1989. See p. iii.
46. Interview with Toribio Robles, Quezon City, June 1987
47. Photo of Joaquin P. Roces is taken from http://www.geni.com/people/Joaquin-Chino-
Roces/6000000001049920330
48. Personal Profile and Data Sheet on Fr. Rudy Romano, CSsR, The Redemptorists,
Cebu City, July 17, 1985. Bantayog archives.
49. Richard P. Hardy has written a book about Sofronio Roxas Holiness for Today: A
Filipino Martyrs Story (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1989).
50. Interview with Victoria Segui-Tagamolila, October 1986, by Bing Galang
51. Mga Tagapatutoo na Sumapi sa mga Armadong Kilusan, unpublished liturgical text,
undated, courtesy of Promotion for Church Peoples Response.
52. Presidential Cronies and the Judiciary, editorial of The Lawyers Journal, Jan. 31,1969,
quoted in Irene R. Guevarra, Claudio Teehankee, The History of the Supreme Court
(Manila: The Philippine Judiciary Foundation, 2011), p. 484.
53. Interview with Francisco Laude in Atimonan, Quezon, Nov. 19, 1990.
54. A sona usually meant that all male residents of a locality were ordered to leave their
respective houses and to gather outdoors; a military informer, usually masked, would
then point out individuals for the military to take away.
55. Interview with Irma Torres, Manila, Sept. 21,1991.
56. Pennie S. Azarcon, In Memory of Fr. Nilo, Midweek, Nov. 6, 1985, pp. 2022.
57. See Cristina Jayme Montiel, Living and Dying: In Memory of 11 Ateneo de Manila Martial
Law Activists (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009).
58. Yvonne T. Chua, The Father and Sons Yuyitung, PJR Reports, May 2007, pp.811.
About Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Heroes Memorial)
Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit organization in the

Philippines founded in 1986 to build a memorial for those who unselfishly and courageously
participated in the struggle against the regime of terror and repression of president-turned-
dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and to support efforts aimed at guarding against the recurrence of
repressive regimes in the Philippines.
In line with its objectives, Bantayog runs programs that include research and documentation
which also include the taking down of oral histories, museum operations which include tours and
exhibits, commemorative events, cultural activities and discussion forums, publications,
membership-building, network-building and fund generation projects.
The Foundation operates the Bantayog center, located along Quezon Avenue near EDSA in
Quezon City. There today stands the Bantayog museum, library and archives, a Hall of
Remembrance, an auditorium, and an open-air ampitheater fronted by the granite Wall of
Remembrance. The center serves as frequent venue for meetings, forums and other activities in
line with the Foundations objectives. It also hosts distinctive Filipino art, which include
photographs, protest paintings and posters from this historical period.
Bantayogs 20152016 Board of Trustees include Alfonso T. Yuchengco (chair), Jovito R.

Salonga (chair emeritus), Jose P. de Jesus (vice-chair), Felipe L. Gozon (treasurer), Bernadette
Aquino, Mary Rose G. Bautista, Edicio E. dela Torre, Jose Manuel Diokno, Melanie Grace G.
Doromal, Carolina S. Malay, Alan T. Ortiz, Rafael M. Paredes, Marie Jopson Plopinio, Rebecca
N. Taada, and Solomon Y. Yuyitung.
As of mid-2015, Bantayog had over 150 members, mostly family members and relatives of its
heroes and martyrs.
Contact details:
bantayogbayani@gmail.com
www.bantayog.org
Bantayog Bayani (Facebook)

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Table of Contents

NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF THE PHILIPPINES

WRITER AND CHIEF EDITOR

WRITER AND MANAGING EDITOR

COVER AND BOOK DESIGN

Read their stories and understand what it means to make history.

Maria Serena I. Diokno

Ambassador Alfonso T. Yuchengco

He underwent training as an acupuncturist and paramedic under physician-activist Juan

He knew a lot about revolutions.

Kung akoy mahuhuli o mapapatay ng kaaway, huwag kayong lubhang mangamba o

In a Biblical preaching in 1981, he expressed solidarity with dispossessed farmers and

When Roland became an active member of Concerned Citizens of Pampanga, a cause-oriented

Clarete was suspended for his participation in these school protests.

Despite the widespread indignation, however, the murder remains unsolved.

But they never found him.

Carlos del Rosario was 27 years old when he disappeared.

Appointed to President Diosdado Macapagals cabinet as justice secretary in 1962, Diokno

The parents of Albert Enriquez died without seeing him again.

Resteta Fernandez was a passionate girl, articulate and fond of debates.

Voltaire Garcia died on March 2, 1973 at the age of 30.

Whatever she decided to do, Rizalina Ilagan excelled at it.

She died in 1997 at the age of 81, after a long illness.

Introduced to political activism as an engineering sophomore in UP Diliman, Lopez listened and

As a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Raul Manglapus sponsored a resolution

He died in Manila in 1999, at the age of 80.

He died after a stroke in 1983, at the age of 70.

Eduardo T. Quintero died poor at the age of 84 in San Francisco, USA.

He died on December 12, 1994 at the age of 92.

Roces died of cancer in September of that year. He was 75.

Soc Rodrigo died of natural causes in 1998.

The UP College of Business Administration and Accountancy honored Sarmiento with a

Membership in radical organizations at the time molded Tagamolilas thinking; he joined

He was elected Antique governor in 1951.

Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit organization in the

Bantayogs 20152016 Board of Trustees include Alfonso T. Yuchengco (chair), Jovito R.

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