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Black Friday: A fiesta of furious and funny placards

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Thousands of youth and students who grew up with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram stamped their mark on the Black Friday protest at Rizal Park with both enraged and funny placards that became one of the focal points of the event.

Tirelessly holding the placards aloft, the young protesters tried to outdo each other with the funniest and angriest quips they hoped would be read aloud by the emcees during the program.

The placards did not spare President Rodrigo Duterte, calling him the Marcoses’ puppet for ordering a hero’s burial for the late dictator.

Veteran activists who fought Martial Law expressed elation at the huge turnout of anti-Marcos youth at the Black Friday protest at Rizal Park last November 25. (Photos by Raymund B. Villanueva) Read more

Black Friday protests rage throughout the Philippines

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FOR THE thousands of participants at the “Black Friday” protest at Rizal Park last November 25, Ferdinand Marcos’s heroes burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is part of a plan to fully reinstate his family as the country’s most powerful political clan.

Braving rains brought by Typhoon Marce, the massive rally participated by thousands of activists, university and high school students, government employees and regular citizens went on until well into the night.

The rally also turned into the biggest protest action so far against President Rodrigo Duterte who the protesters said is acting as a puppet of the Marcos clan.

“Marcos’ burial was never the endgame for his clan. Their endgame has always been to return to Malacañang and they have been trying to twist and compromise history and politics to that end,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said.

“Duterte must choose between his declarations to work for genuine change for the Philippines or his alliance with the Marcoses,” Makabayan stalwart Satur Ocampo for his part said.

Rage throughout

Thirty-three other cities and provinces throughout the country also held protest actions marking the Left’s first nationally-coordinated mass action against a Duterte government policy.

“We declare this day a day of unity and rage,” Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (CARMMA) lead convenor Bonifacio Ilagan said in his opening speech at the main Quirino Grandstand rally.

“The return of Marcosian thought – that our country needs a strongman rule, whose ruler cannot be doubted or questioned because he has the best interests for the country – has become real. We who believe in democracy must fight that,” Ilagan said.

Neri Colmenares, one of the youngest torture victims under Marcos’ Martial Law, criticized the burial’s purported objective goal of from the division wrought on the people by the latter’s strongman rule.

“There can be no reconciliation when the Marcos clan does not even acknowledge the existence of human rights violations during their patriarch’s rule. There will be no reconciliation if the Marcoses refuse to return the billions of dollars they stole from the Filipino people,” Colmenares said.

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‘The future is secure’

Elderly protesters such as Mo. Mary John Mananzan, OSB and Edita Burgos expressed elation at the huge turnout of youth and students at Rizal Park.

“We are old—who knows we could be gone in a year or two—but we can go happy with the thought that you (the youth) would carry on the fight we have started,” Mananzan said.

For their part, various youths spoke on the importance of their generation joining the struggle.

“We feel Martial Law never really ended. We still suffer the effects – in our expensive education and social services, the fascism against activists. Our generation and the next generations will suffer as well if we do not act now,” League of Filipino Students (LFS) secretary-general JP Rosos said.

“We, the youth, accept the challenge to arouse, organize and mobilize, and explain the need for the struggle against fascist and oppressive leaders,” Anakbayan – De La Salle University Vince Simon said.

“It would be a sin for us to sit quietly and accept defeat as Marcos is buried as a hero,” Philippine Normal University’s The Torch editor in chief Timothy Romero said.

Just getting started

The Black Friday protest is the start of the series of activities against the restoration of Marcoses to the peak of power, the organizers said.

“This protest is the second Black Friday. It will be followed by a third, a fourth, and so on. We will ensure that the official rehabilitation of the Marcos and reversal of history never happen,” Ilagan said.

“That is what my generation had sworn to do that this current generation of youth will carry on. We shall never allow our youth to live in a society where history is reversed and dead tyrants’s reputations are rehabilitated,” Ilagan added.

Reyes challenged the participants at yesterday’s protest action to take to the streets to fight against revision of history.

“The courts and politicians have failed us. We the people are the only thing standing in the way of their undeserved return to power. Our fight is no longer in the courts. The fight is in the streets, classrooms, communities, churches, social media and mainstream media,” Reyes said. # (Abril Layad B. Ayroso)

Massive ‘Black Friday’ protest fight against revision of history, organizers say

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ACTIVISTS are asking the Filipino people to join the fight against the revision of history and the total political rehabilitation of the Marcos clan.

In a press conference last November 23, members of Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacanang (CARMMA) and other progressive organizations called on Filipinos to participate in the planned massive #BlackFriday protest at the Rizal Park grandstand on November 25.

“We shall not let this gross insult and historical distortion pass unchallenged,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) chairperson Dr. Carol Araullo said.

“This is the Filipinos’ fight now. Let us raise our voice and make our stand. Marcos was a thief, fascist and dictator. Marcos was no hero,” Araullo said.

The progressives said it is the most opportune time to prevent the Marcos’s plan to return to power and twist history in their favor.

“When we say ‘never again’, we say it with a greater sense of urgency because the restoration of the Marcoses has just become very real,” Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said.

“Like a thief in the night”

The progressives condemned Marcos’ rushed and secret burial as “cowardly” as they expressed frustration that the burial took place before they had the chance to file a motion for reconsideration (MR) to the Supreme Court decision favouring President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to have the late dictator interned at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery).

Petitioner Neri Colmenares said they will file a motion to have the Marcos family, the military and the police as well as others involved in the burial cited for contempt.

“The decision was not yet final and executory. What happened was disrespectful to our rights as petitioners and to due process,” Colmenares said.

“We still intend to file and MR even if the burial has already rendered it moot and unacademic. It may not win, but it is still important that we put it on the record that we do not accept the decision,” he said.

“The Marcoses have practically foreclosed the legal battle already, which is why we must struggle in one arena they cannot control: the streets,” Colmenares added.

Beyond Friday

The progressives emphasized that the fight does not end with the #BlackFriday protest.

“My hope is that this will not only awaken a desire to participate but make the people constantly aware that there is a threat over our heads,” press freedom hero Edith Burgos for her part said.

“If we do not act, the Marcos and their kind will return again and again.  After all, those motivated by greed will always try to find a way to power,” Burgos said.

Burgos also appealed to Filipinos who are unable to join mass protests.

“We call on those who cannot join the protests to go beyond prayers and act to educate the children on the importance of stopping another tyrant from happening to us,” Burgos said. (Abril Layad B. Ayroso)

 

Students and teachers slam hero’s burial for dictator Marcos

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Thousands of students from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo and Miriam College held a protest rally along Katipunan Ave. in Quezon City the day that Ferdinand Marcos was buried and given military honors at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

The students were joined by their professors and school administrators.

Motorists also blew their car horns in support of the protest.

Read more

STATEMENT: Treacherous burial mocks struggle for press freedom during Martial Law

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The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) shares the Filipino people’s outrage against the treacherous burial of the remains of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani.

The burial mocks the life-and-death resistance of the journalists and media workers in the struggle to expand the frontiers of press freedom during the dark days of Martial Law.

While it is true that the Libingan has long been desecrated as a sacred space for the national memory, the people still cling to its intended political and social symbolism, that is, to hold in high esteem the people whose deeds reflect the values we hold dear as a society.

Marcos’ filthy record of suppressing press freedom and attacking journalists at the onset of Martial Law, and then prostituting media practice through the operation of crony news organizations is anything but deplorable.

Press freedom was among the first casualties of Marcos’ vile adventurism with political power. Martial Law not only led to mass extrajudicial murders, it also attempted to kill the truth.

Marcos ordered the closure of newspapers. His government took control of radio and television stations.

Many media workers were imprisoned, tortured and died fighting the dictatorship. Others were forced to go underground or into exile to evade arrest.

To protect and maintain his monopoly on power, Marcos allowed the operation of crony-controlled newspapers, radio and television stations whose main purpose was to air and publish the “good and beautiful” about Martial Law or the so-called “Bagong Lipunan (New Society).”

Amid the tyrannical rule, Filipino media workers continued to fight for press freedom and exposed the truth through underground newspapers and alternative news media later called the “Mosquito Press.”

These papers were secretly distributed or passed from reader to reader by hand, detailing the massive human rights violations, plunder of our economy by the Marcos family and their cronies and calling for heightened resistance. These helped in galvanizing the resistance and unity against the dictatorship leading to Marcos’ ouster on Feb. 25, 1986.

The overthrow of the dictatorship also led to the restoration of democratic institutions including the independent press.

The burial of Marcos at the hero’s cemetery seeks to gloss over, erase or worse, reverse these historical facts. This is anathema to the very essence of our role as chroniclers of our country’s contemporary history.

We stand by the people in decrying this mockery. We are one with them in ensuring that this will not happen again.

After all, it is because of the people that we exist. And it is the interest of the people that we will tirelessly serve. #

POOLED EDITORIAL: We will never forget

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by the People’s Alternative Media Network

The furtive burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is a heinous addition to the long list of crimes of the Marcoses against the Filipino people. The Supreme Court decision dismissing the petition against the Marcos burial has yet to become final and executory, but the Marcos heirs nevertheless went ahead with the burial.

 We in the media have not forgotten the dark days of Martial Law, when Ferdinand Marcos closed down all mainstream news publications, the campus press, and radio and TV stations. We remember how Marcos allowed only his crony media mouthpieces to function so that news about the cruelty, greed and repression under his regime would never get aired or published.

 We have not forgotten the atrocities that Marcos committed against freedom of the press, speech, free expression and the right to information. Countless media practitioners who fought the Martial Law regime and struggled to expose the truth were hunted down, arrested, abducted, tortured or murdered. His burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is an outrage to journalists and media professionals who fought the despotic regime relentlessly alongside innumerable Filipinos and Martial Law victims. 

 We remember Antonio Zumel, Joe Burgos, Ester Resabal-Kintanar, Abraham Sarmiento, Jacinto Peña, Joaquin Roces, Francisco ‘Soc’ Rodrigo, Alex Orcullo, Eugenia Apostol, and  the many other  Filipino journalists who fought and upheld press freedom during Martial Law.

 More than laying Ferdinand Marcos to rest, the burial is an appalling attempt to distort history, absolve the tyrant of his sins, and herald the full return of the Marcoses to power. The act of burying and giving tribute to the late dictator is itself symbolic of the family’s bid to conceal the numerous crimes of the Marcos terror regime.

 Past administrations, through their inaction and political accommodation to the Marcos heirs, have thwarted the quest for historical justice. The Marcoses, Pres. Duterte, and the Supreme Court justices have added to this injustice by allowing the dictator’s burial. They should be held accountable, as should the military, which collaborated with the Marcoses in committing this outrage.

 The truth shall not be forgotten. We will continue to fight attempts to bury the truth just as we persist in fighting the dark legacies of the Marcos era: the corruption, the plunder of billions of public funds, the repression, militarization, illegal arrests, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and impunity that still persist today. We will continue to fight for real democracy,  the democracy we supposedly have today being clearly false, deceitful and serving only those in power.  

They may think that they have triumphed in their effort to revise history, restore tyranny, and prolong the climate of impunity. But they are mistaken. The people have not forgotten, and neither will we in the media ever forget. #

Activists vow to continue fight against the Marcoses

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In a forum at the College of Law of the University of the Philippines-Diliman a day after the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was sneakily buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, activists vow to fight efforts to what they say are obvious moves to revive “Marcosian ideology.”

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacanang (CARMMA) also announced a giant anti-Marcos rally on November 25, Friday, with the following themes: “National Day of Unity and Rage against the Marcos Burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,” “National Day of Unity and Rage against the Revision of History” and “National Day of Unity and Rage against Duterte’s Alliance with the Marcoses.” Read more

Thousands march and protest vs Marcos burial

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Martial Law victims and students from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, UP Integrated School, Miriam College and Ateneo de Manila University joined forces and held protest actions a few hours after the late President Ferdinand Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani last November 18.

Enraged by the sneaky manner in which the Marcos family interned the dictator, the rally along Katipunan Avenue was the biggest in years that the three schools staged.

Here are highlights of the protest action earlier tonight. Read more

Cowardly, protesters call sneaky Marcos burial

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by Abril Layad B. Ayroso

“COWARDLY and like a thief in the night,” is how enraged Martial Law victims and progressive organizations called the sneaky burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) last November 18.

Progressive groups launched several simultaneous protests all over Metro Manila in opposition to the noontime and secretive burial of the late dictator mere days after the Supreme Court struck down several petitions against Marcos’ internment at the LNMB.

Before the progressive groups began their “Black Friday” protests starting at 12 noon, they received word that Marcos’ corpse had been flown in from Batac, Ilocos Norte to the LNMB in what Marcos “loyalists” explained was a private burial of the dictator who died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.

They also learned that Marcos had been given military honors, including a 21-gun salute.

In addition to the secrecy, the protesters also spoke against how rushed the burial was, as it happened before any of the petitioners against the burial could file their planned motion for reconsideration.

“This is exactly the Marcoses’ style.  The things they do are all either exaggeratedly grand or secret,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, spokesperson for the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacanang (CARMMA).

Ilagan compared  the secrecy of the burial to Marcos’ declaration of martial law which took Filipinos by surprise.

“One night in 1972, Marcos declared martial law and stole whatever democracy existed in the Philippines. The media described the declaration the same way we do his burial: like a thief in the night,” Ilagan said.

Marcos rehabilitation

The protesters said they fear that the Marcos clan will take advantage of their patriarch’s burial at the LNMB to rehabilitate their name and the distortion of history in their favor.

“This betrayal is the realization of the Marcos clan’s plot to bury the dictator at the LNMB and give honor to a traitor. It is a step towards the perversion of history,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary-general Renato Reyes said.

“No matter how you look at it, this burial marks the official rehabilitation of their name. They can now say that the government itself recognizes the tyrant as a hero, thanks to the decision of the SC and the whims of President Rodrigo Duterte,” Ilagan said

Ilagan also said that the Marcoses would try to use the burial as political capital for the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Jr., to file his candidacy in the next presidential elections, which he feared would further deodorize martial law abuses.

The struggle continues

Progressive groups vowed to bring the fight to the streets.

“The rushing of the burial proves that the Marcoses and their cronies are insecure and afraid of the people and their struggle,” Ilagan said.

“The fight to bring the dictator, his family and all oppressors of the Philippines to justice is still very much alive,” Reyes added.

The youth also pronounced support for the struggle against the rehabilitation of the Marcoses.

“Today, we grieve for this act of historical revisionism. We shall continue to intensify our unity as a nation to end the culture of impunity,” said Jose Mari Callueng, national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP).

“We young people may not have been alive during Martial Law, but that does not mean we do not have the right to fight against the Marcoses. After all, we suffer many of the sins of martial law, such as education and health being peddled for profit,” Al Omaga, chairperson of Anakbayan UP – Manila, for his part, said.

“Our actions are proof enough that this historical revisionism will not be accepted. The participation of the youth in our protests is proof that the truth shall be not forgotten,” Reyes said.

Thousands of University of the Philippines-Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College staged a late afternoon protest along Katipunan Avenue before proceeding to the EDSA Shrine in the evening.

UP-Manila and St. Scholastica’s College-Manila also reportedly held protest actions in opposition to the burial. #

 

Martial Law victims decry surreptitious Marcos burial at LNMB

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While former President Ferdinand Marcos was being buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Martial Law victims massed up at the Philcoa in Quezon City to protest what they called a surreptitious internment last November 18.

The protesters said the burial was in keeping with the nature of the Marcos dictatorship which they claim may be contemptuous of the law as it the move did not event allow the petitioners against the burial the chance to file their motion for reconsideration.

The LNMB was kept secret by the Marcos family even from their supporters to keep it “private and solemn.” Read more