The story no one bothered to tell

I have a confession to make. I am not a hero. I did not fight Marcos during martial law so I did not experience pain and suffering like many others did. I was a young man just starting to notice girls. Actually I started noticing girls since I was in kindergarten. But it was about the time of martial law that I was old enough to start doing something about it. And what a wonderful time it was.

To be young is a wonderful time and I would not exchange it for anything. Not even martial law and its many restrictions succeeded in depriving us the time of our lives. It was simply a matter of adjusting and making do with what we can. Life is too big a canvass for even martial law to completely ruin. It may have succeeded in fraying part of the edges but I would like to believe my generation emerged from the experience better adapted to life.

I could be going out on a limb here. But what the heck. I have had enough of hearing only one side of the story about the martial law years, the one that says, almost without exception, that it was an awfully bad time. Well I am not going to dispute that. The evidences are many that it was indeed an awfully bad time for some. But it wasn't so for many other Filipinos. At least it wasn't so for me.

There is a need to provide a different narrative to what the martial law years were all about if we are to acquire an accurate and faithful account of what the times truly were. Tales of pain and suffering and struggle and heroism, as well documented and authenticated as they are, do not make up the whole story. And we cannot just go on forever pretending that no other world existed at the time just because stories from that world have remained untold.

I can, of course, understand the silence, or the reluctance that gave way to the silence. There is no denying those who suffered suffered bad and it is perhaps in keeping with this sentiment that makes it almost a crime and a crying shame to admit not having suffered as badly or not having suffered at all. But it is not the fault of those who had it easier than others that they had it easier.

Pain and suffering were not the worst that martial law inflicted upon people. It was the tendency of martial law, long after it was gone, to marginalize those who did not pay with pain and suffering. It is as if, in the recounting of that chapter in our history, those who didn't have a story of pain and suffering to tell did not exist at all, not even if, as a matter of fact, far more Filipinos had it easier than others. And believe it or not, it is not even their fault.

To me, even martial law did not deprive Filipinos of their freedom of choice. Those who chose to fight the dictatorship knew exactly what they were getting into, knew precisely the consequences of their actions, and I truly admire them for their bravery and sacrifice. My only regret is that, after making such an honorable choice, many didn't choose to keep to the dignified silence of real heroes. Most, if not all, advertised their exploits.

And that is sad because when you do, you change heroism into a commodity for which a price can be commanded. It is no longer enough that in your conscience you did what you had to do for your country. You had to wear your exploits, paid high with pain and suffering, like a badge on your sleeve. For what? So that those who do not have similar badges can be differentiated and made to feel inferior because they did not pay the same sacrifice for their country?

Again, not even martial law deprived Filipinos of their freedom of choice. To those who chose to fight Marcos, well and good. And if they suffered as a result, then they should bear with the consequences of the choices they made. You can blame Marcos for everything that martial law brought upon the Filipino people. But the choice to fight him was a personal decision people made. Having made their choices, there should be no room for regrets afterward.

On the other hand, there were many others who did not choose to fight. In fact there were far more Filipinos who elected to just go on with their lives. They did the best they could under the circumstances. Farmers tilled the fields, fishermen scoured the seas for fish. Engineers continued to build and teachers continued to teach. Businessmen kept commerce alive and parents did their best to raise their children as best they could.

In other words, everyone did what they had to do to keep the country running despite what the people in power were up to and what those who chose to fight did to stifle their designs. Had every Filipino chosen to take to the barricades or go to the hills, God knows if we would even have a country today. If the truth be told, it was not those who openly fought Marcos who eventually freed us but those who stayed back and then, at the last moment, exploded in those few days in February 1986.

God has a design for everybody. Not everyone was chosen to fight Marcos. That doesn't mean those who were not chosen were left out of the design. Indeed, the fact that more were chosen not to fight ensured that there would be far greater numbers with more positive outlooks who can regenerate the country and nourish it back to the health that it deserves.

The Philippine population in 1972 when martial law was declared was around 40 million. This grew to to a whooping 52 million by the time it was lifted in 1981. If you have a 40 million population that grew to 52 million in just nine years, that looks like a lot of baby-making to me. And I just couldn't think of a happier time than baby-making. Whether you take this piece seriously or not is up to you. All I am saying is there was another story to martial law that never got told.