LEST WE FORGET

Activism & Political Discourse on the 48th Year since the Declaration of Martial Rule in the Philippines

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Activism & Political Discourse on the 48th Year since the Declaration of Martial Rule in the Philippines

Lest We Forget Activism and Political Discourse
is a platform for staging voices on the 48 years of remembering Martial Law in the Philippines. Find out more by visiting Insights and Updates in admupol.org website of the Department of Political Science,

where the authors’ active remembrance of the human rights violations during Martial Law in the Philippines is defined through the power of their words and stories.

No to historical revisionism

Catch Political Science Professor Benjamin Gerardo T. Tolosa, Jr., Ph.D in his interviews with former Communications Department Chair, Dr Sev Sarmienta and GMA News Anchor, Howie Severino. The video is a great example of “generational storytelling” and its role in collective remembering. Tolosa, in his interviews, recounts, in the context of the 2016 Philippine elections, the value of a Loyola Schools response to Bong Bong Marcos, son of the former dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos and his attempts at historical revisionism of Martial Rule.

Now in commemoration of the 48th Anniversary of Martial Law in the Ateneo, Tolosa says that politics and protest are key to guarding against the perils of forgetting.

Martial Law and EDSA discussion series SERIES 06 - 2020

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In response to the 34th year of commemoration of the Martial Rule in the Philippines in the Ateneo, the Department of Political Science launches Martial Law and EDSA discussion series SERIES 06-2020.

The Ebook is a relevant collection of perspectives on Martial Law in the Philippines in the context of 34 years of our democratization experience. As authors pitched in their take on the EDSA democratization project, these issues were unveiled.

Firstly the narrative that EDSA as “a call and challenge for social solidarity and political engagement” (Tolosa 2015) is also staging ground for parallel and intergenerational stories of democratic struggles (Tolosa 2015). EDSA’s “cultural and religious” underpinnings make it a unifying event that “… matched the culture of a people whose religion was part of it.” (Tolosa 2016)

At the same time these narratives confront chokepoints in:

The challenge to move beyond juridical democracy (Charentenay 2014); to address the tensions between “hybrities” and the “contradictory logics of personalism and particularism” and rationalism and public good on the one hand (Tolosa 2016) and to close or narrow the gap between executive residual unstated power and constitutionalism (Lim 2017).

Writers who think that oligarchy (Rivera 2020) has underpinned post EDSA society, 34 years after People Power, believe that sustained dynastic politics has altered the political structure, that ripened up to new patronage (Salvador 2016) and Duterteism (Abao 2018). Did not the inability of the state and society to “interiorize the criterias of democracy when making their choice” (Charentenay 2014) led many Filipinos to support Martial Law 30 years thereafter (Barretto 2017)?

In the end, authors provoke their readers: complacency amid EDSA’s “democratic gamble” (Rivera 2020) creates a damage that is “deep, multi-dimensional and far-reaching” (Abao 2018). Let not this thwart our “capacity” to revive our ideals of democratic change.

Protest and Human Rights Series 07 – 2020

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The Protest and Human Rights Series of the Department of Political Science is a collection of articles where authors explore the role of “protest politics”. In illustrating the semantics of protests, authors examine the underlying currents of dissent (Mendoza 2014;’Rivera, 2017)), indignation (Charentenay 2014), and mobilizations (Juliano 2016, 2019). They converge in defining the impact of these actions, where “people can create and maintain the constitution of individuals as a political community” (Rivera 2017) and “create, unmake or remake” the world.. into “something new” (Aguirre 2017).

A convergence of interacting stories of past and present, “the protests of yesteryears are remembered and rendered present”…, especially in the Philippines where the “fight against anti-democratic practices” takes place “in the light of our present situation” (Rivera 2017). It is a pursuit of vital second generation human rights such as those that the SDGs provide (Juliano 2016, 2019).

Like EDSA, Hong Kong’s protests are part of its continuing democratization project. A mobilization for “one man, one vote” the Hong Kong protest in 2017, augurs the effect of encroaching China’s intervention ( Mendoza 2014). For the Filipinos, this series remembers entangled narratives of Martial Law, Ninoy Aquino, EDSA and the Marcos burial. It attempts to explain why we Filipinos continue to protest.

In its evolution, protests occupy new spaces (Rivera 2017, Juliano 2019) and “re-engineer” new causes (Juliano 2016). Among the youth, it embodies a “spirit of cross-sectoral solidarity and taking to the streets” (Rivera 2017). It is a demand for a change of political culture of democracy (Mendoza 2014: Charentenay 2014). The “justice of a mobilization” is a “genuine expression of calls for indignity, solidarity, and conviction regarding any issue” (Juliano 2019).

Department of Political Science Martial Law Webinars

LEST WE FORGET: Activism & Political Discourse on the 48th Year since the Declaration of Martial Rule in the Philippines

  • 24 September 2020, Thursday
  • 25 September 2020, Friday
Thursday Webinar
Friday Webinar

Critical Perspectives On
The Martial Law Regime

24 September 2020, Thursday, 3:00-4:30 pm

Zoom Link

Discussants:

Millard O Lim

Martial Law and Coup d’Etat in 1972

Carmel V Abao, PhD

Is Duterte A Resurrected Marcos: Dictatorship and Authoritarian Populist Regimes

Jennifer S Oreta, PhD

The Military during Martial Law

Diana J Mendoza, PhD

A Movement within a Movement: Women’s social movements during Martial Law

Ma Lourdes V Rallonza, PhD

Martial Law from the Lens of Gender and Transitional Justice

Moderator: Alma Maria O Salvador, PhD

Intergenerational Narratives on the Martial Law Era

25 September 2020, Friday, 3:00-4:30 pm

Zoom Link

Discussants:

Benjamin Gerardo T Tolosa, PhD

Generational Storytelling

Anne Lan K Candelaria,PhD

Small town narratives on Martial Law

Maria Elissa Jayme Lao, PhD

Student Activism in Ateneo during Martial Law

Miguel Paolo P Rivera

Memory, Space and Patronage

Moderator: Pilar Preciousa Berse, PhD

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The road less traveled by we've taken- And that has made all the difference: The barefoot army of the wilderness We all should be in time. Awakened, the masses are Messiah. Here among workers and peasants our lost Generation has found its true, its only home.
Emmanuel "Eman" Lacaba
Poet-activist 1976
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