A barbed wire fence reminiscent of Martial Law materialized at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani as a stark reminder of the dark period in our history that was the US-Marcos regime.
“Barbed-wire fences are part of our collective memory of Martial Law that separated the fascist and elitist government from the people who endured imprisonment, torture, salvaging, mass poverty, and corruption while government wallowed in unbridled extravagance, profligate lifestyle, and the fruits of ill-gotten wealth.
“Giving Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who was the architect and mastermind of all these a hero’s burial is not only an insult to the thousands and thousands of victims of human rights violations but a dishonor to the real heroes who emerged from the dark days of authoritarian rule,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, at the gathering of Martial Law survivors at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City.
Today, November 18, 2023, members and friends of the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA), Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA), First Quarter Storm Movement (FQSM), and Project Gunita gathered at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani to again register their strongest condemnation of the “hero’s burial” accorded the late dictator, seven years ago in November 2016 by another fascist and dictator, Rodrigo Duterte.
To underscore their protest, they erected a three-meter high barbed wire fence on the grounds of the Bantayog with the late dictator’s image and an enumeration of his crimes against the people and placards that said “Walang Bayaning Magnanakaw,” “Walang Bayaning Diktador,” and “Walang Bayaning Lumabag sa mga Karapatang Pantao.”
The protestors also sang the famous Martial Law jingle “Marcos Marcos Magnanakaw, Marcos Marcos ay Pasista, Marcos Marcos Nagpasasa,” and ending the incantation with “Marcos Marcos’ di bayani.”
Added Ilagan, “Marcos is no hero. The heroes are those whose names are immortalized on Bantayog’s Wall Of Remembrance, they who dared to struggle for freedom and democracy for our people. There are many more whose names are yet to be inscribed on the granite wall, and those who cannot be named. Today, we are here and will always come here to remember and honor them.”
Emblazoned on their streamer is a clenched fist and “A Hero Serves the People,” a poem by Prof. Jose Maria Sison that has been rendered to music, which the activists sang as they offered bouquets in memory of the peasants, workers, students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, priests, nuns, journalists, politicians, and all freedom fighters, the real martyrs and heroes in the continuing struggle against the Marcos dictatorship. ###