Mga Daso: Stories of Martial Lawin Bikol – A Book Review

Last September 20, Mga Daso: Stories of Martial Law in Bikol was launched at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani auditorium in Quezon City by the University of the Philippines Press. The authors – Soliman Santos Jr, Paz Verdades-Santos, and Greg S. Castilla – are respected writers who write with clarity and unwavering conviction when it comes to social justice issues.

As I wrote in my previous column in Bicol Mail, “The book, which took more than two years to complete, offers a selection of stories – some gripping, others are deeply-held personal accounts – by Bikolnon activists and victims who lived through and fought the Marcos dictatorship in many different forms during the martial law era from 1972 to 1986.”

Below is a book review of Mga Daso by Dr. Jonathan Foe who teaches at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

This is an important but unsettling book for me. Daso is a native torch from Bicol. The book is an anthology that gathers a collection of varied accounts from witnesses to Martial Law, spanning 1971 to 1986, in the Bikol Region. The stories shine a harsh light on a place far away from the National Capital Region (NCR), stories that reflect the national nightmare during the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

The book is a little bit traumatic for me. I’ve been to Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City, where the book launching was held, on three occasions. What scares me, personally, is that I was born in 1953. It seemed to me that the Grim Reaper claimed the lives of those born in that year. I’ve lived in Manila for thirty years now, and I know that there could have been a little picture and a short bio of me if not for an accident at birth. I was born American, and not Filipino. Had I been a Filipino, I would have volunteered to join the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.

The Grim Reaper, aka Ferdinand Marcos, targeted people my age and had them killed. It was a crime even more devastating than President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, for Marcos imprisoned and executed the brightest and most promising of the Filipino youth. The stories contained in the book are of idealists, dean’s listers, and nationalists – young people who were willing to lay down their lives for their beliefs, for the restoration of democracy, and for the return of progress in their country.

Most of the stories in the book are about those who survived Martial Law. In contrast, Maria Ira Bisuña’s piece offers a vivid portrayal of her parents’ participation in the movement. Not every story is filled with excitement, but each offers valuable insights. Especially interesting is Victor Velasco of Catanduanes, describing the never-ending lines for nearly everything, lines for rationed rice, lines for drinking water, lines for relief goods, and lining up to greet visiting politicians. Martial law helped mold a mendicant nation that we live with today.

This is an important book that seeks to correct the collective memory of a nation prone to misremember the time. I have been teaching for the last thirty years. As part of my class assignment, I asked students to interview someone who remembers Martial Law, many of whom are elderly residents of Metro Manila.

Surprisingly, these interviews do not follow the book’s presentation. Not scientifically I grant you, but over the years, I observed that the responses tended to divide evenly: one-third viewed Martial Law as the best of times, one-third recalled it as personally good yet marred by human rights violations and lack of democracy, and one-third described it as miserable period marked by abuses, low wages, and the absence of democracy.

I find it strange that some people recall Martial Law as a time of stability, even though the economy collapsed in 1984 as Marcos defaulted on the IMF loans. Unemployment was widespread, wages lay frozen, infrastructure halted, but somehow the eyewitnesses can recall the good times. For instance, in Tondo, one family remembered peace and quiet, while blocks away, there were “SONAS” where homes were raided and men subjected to strip searches. What was calm for some was terror for others.

Perhaps part of the explanation comes from Catanduanes again, quoting Velasco: “What the Marcos years did to us was not only to manufacture what we think, but to condition how we should think. We were trained to conform to the routines of checking the cleanliness of our fingernails, the length of our hair, the number of people allowed to gather in public places. We were told who was law abiding, and how to react when a public enemy is caught or killed by government agents. . . What if the past was believing that banning public meetings of more than ten people was for public safety and not for controlling the movements of the community? What if the past was being told to feel safe because the military jailed and killed subversives?”

Perhaps this was the reason many believed Martial Law was good – because people felt safe, and there were enforced rules made for the welfare of the nation. The media was censored, and the people were not given an alternative account. Yet even after the corruption of the Marcos family was exposed, Filipinos continued to see corruption in the subsequent line of presidents. So, they think nothing much has changed, ignoring the democratic space that has been carved out for them. There is a feeling that corruption is endemic to the system, and that there is no salvation since all politicians are corrupt.

Yet the book is written by those who are idealists, who witnessed atrocities, saw comrades killed, and friends jailed. These writers had no regrets. They can help us point the way out of the corruption that we still face today. The fight for ideals is alive and still being fought.

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Grab your copy of Mga Daso at the University of the Philippines Press, Phone: +632 8926 6642 or email at: press@up.edu.ph or shop online through Shopee or Lazada.