NEW YORK - On September 21, 1972, then-president Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law.
Thousands were reportedly tortured and killed under the so-called conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and then-first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos.
Proclamation 1081 forever changed the lives of many Filipinos. Among them is Potri Ranka Manis, a survivor of the human rights abuses under the Marcoses.
A martial law detainee at the young age of thirteen, she said, she was a suspected youth messenger or courier between the Islamic rebel group, Moro National Liberation Front and the Communist Party’s New People’s Army.
She never admitted to any of the charges against her, but she says she was tortured during the interrogation process and was asked to identify the rebels.
“I was blindfolded, they made me sit on ice, and I was dipped into a pail of water, a drum of water and then bullets were pressed in between my right hand actually," she recounted.
"That’s why my right hand is still in pain, so that’s why I suffered the pain 24/7 now out of that fracture that was created when I was thirteen by that Ferdinand dictator Marcos' soldier,” she said.
Today, Manis is a member of the 1081 class lawsuit against the Marcoses filed in Hawaii with more than 7500 claimants.
She has received about $2,000 compensation for the alleged human rights abuses she experienced.
She said justice will never be served, especially now that President Rodrigo Duterte has allowed Marcos to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani on September 18, just a few days before the 44th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law.
“If you bury the dictator who killed those victims that are…that who are buried right now in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, what does that mean? You just erase history," Manis said.
With President Duterte’s new threats of declaring martial law this 'Bai Labi' or Muslim queen is praying for the wounds of martial law to heal, justice for all the victims of human rights abuses, and that the Philippines will never again be placed under tyranny and martial law.
Source: ABS-CBN
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