Proclamation 1081 and the room where it happened
In this room are the Agrarian Reform decree handwritten by Ferdinand Marcos, the Provisional Constitution of Cory Aquino, the Amnesty Proclamation of Manuel Roxas. But none changed the history of the country more than 1081.
Right off the entrance of the Executive Building on Malacañang Palace grounds, what used to be the Old Governor’s Office now holds copies of the most important proclamations and executive orders made by Philippine presidents.
These include the Agrarian Reform decree handwritten by Ferdinand Marcos, the Provisional Constitution of Cory Aquino, Proclamation 51 of Diosdado Macapagal changing the date of Philippine Independence Day from July 4 to June 12, and the Amnesty Proclamation of Manuel Roxas granting amnesty to collaborators in the Japanese Occupation.
The centerpiece here is Proclamation 1081 because no other decree in recent history has changed this country’s course and its collective psyche more than when Marcos put the Philippines under the state of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972.
With apologies to Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda, this is the room where it happened. The desk and chair he used on that TV broadcast two days later are there. And enclosed in glass is a copy of the 20-page Proclamation 1081.
Just what, exactly, is martial law? It’s the substitution of civilian authority for a military government and the suspension of civil laws and liberties. When a civilian government ceases to function, the military steps in to take direct control, like they did in Thailand in 2006 following a coup d’état and countless countries experiencing civil unrest that's caused by politicians in the first place.
Except with Marcos’ martial law, the power remained in Malacañang Palace and gave him and his military collaborators total control. The military didn’t remove him from power, he removed the law by dissolving Congress and suspending the Constitution. Later he declared a parliamentary government to extend his term.
His reasons? In a Groundhog Day kind of repetition over 20 pages of 1081, he cited that lawlessness ruled the land backed by foreign power, student uprising, rebellion, etc.
We’ve all read about it, how he confiscated businesses, how he and his cohorts including Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile used martial law to settle scores against old rivals, how student activists and opposition leaders were arrested without a warrant, tortured and killed, how he sunk this country into debt for generations yet to come.
How countless activists disappeared. Never to be seen again.
Martial law was our parents and grandparents’ fight, but the effects it had on our culture and psyche run so deep we see it in today’s politics — the leaning on and shutting down of media outlets, a rubber-stamp Congress, a lack of respect for people’s rights and the laws that make us human.
For those whose children disappeared during the Marcos years, and for those whose children are killed in Duterte’s drug war, you cannot simply tell this grief to go away.