They Did Not Die or Disappear in Vain

By Senator Nene Pimentel
Minority Leader
Philippine Senate

I thank Mayor Lito Atienza and the organizers of this assemblage for kindly inviting me to speak before you this morning.

On this day, September 21, 34 years ago, our democratic institutions were devastated by the imposition of martial law all over the land.

Thousand killed or disappeared

Thousands were arrested without cause. Thousand were killed without legal reason. Thousands disappeared without trace under the brutal regime.

We are gathered here to honor those who died or disappeared in our struggle for the restoration of our freedoms in the dark days of martial rule.

Mayor Atienza does well to inscribe their names on this wall of stone. Otherwise, there will hardly be a public and concrete reminder of their selfless sacrifices on the altar of liberty.

Chameleons of history

Often as history records in many a country after victory is won in a people’s fight for their rights against oppression, some of the oppressors like chameleons change colors to enjoy with the victors the fruits of the struggle. Worse, hypocritically, they would now make the people believe that they had always been defenders of the rule of law, upholders of the civil liberties and protectors of human rights.

I appreciate that Mayor Atienza wants the fallen and the disappeared freedom fighters remembered regardless of their station in life. And so it is that you have the names of the unknown along with the famous; the socially unconnected with the socially pedigreed; the voiceless with the vocal written on this wall.

Common bond

Naturally, we read the names of Ninoy Aquino, Macliing Dulag, and Edgar Jopson in the Memorial Wall.

But, alongside these well known victims of martial rule, we also read the names of Salvador Santos, Roy Lorenzo Acebedo, and Enrique Romero, people whose identities hardly ring a bell in the public’s memory.

There is reason for the mixing of the great and the ordinary people who are named in the Wall. The reason is that the same bond bound them together in the people’s quest for the reinstitution of our rights and liberties. And that bond they have cemented by the common shedding of their blood so that others may live and the risking of their liberty so that others may have freedom.

Freedom over dictatorship

These are the heroes who chose democracy over dictatorship; constitutionalism over one-man rule; the rule of law over the rule of the gun.

It is time as Mayor Atienza urges all of us to recall those who fell in the struggle or who disappeared involuntarily in the search for the restoration of our people’s freedoms.

By following the mayor’s wise counsel, credit is given where credit is due.

By doing so, we give meaning to the struggle that they had waged against martial law.

By honoring the martial law dead and the disappeared, we are saying that they did not die in vain.

And by our collective presence here today we are sending a message for the world to hear: never again to dictatorial rule but, yes to the rule of law; never again to oppressive leaders but, yes to freedom, justice and peace for our people.

Thank you.

(Remarks of Sen. Nene Pimentel at the inauguration of the victims of martial law memorial wall on September 21, 2006 at the Mehan Gardens, Manila)

Victims of Martial Law Memorial Wall is a project of the City of Manila under the leadership of Mayor Jose L. Atienza, Jr.