It’s a long and winding road to justice for Marcos victims

Most Filipinos may want to think that it was just a bad dream and the thousands of victims of the Marcos dictatorship that started 31 years ago today may wish it never really happened.

But forgetting is an unaffordable luxury for the thousands who became victims of atrocities perpetrated during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos and who still have to trek what they describe as "the long and winding road" to justice.

"How can we forget?" was the pained response of Hilda Narciso, now 58, who as a young activist in the 1980s was repeatedly raped and tortured for six months after she was arrested on charges of subversion.

"I don’t think any Filipino who lived during those dark days could ever forget martial law," she said on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 21, 1972 proclamation that gave Marcos absolute power for the next 14 years.

"Until now, we have not achieved justice for our sufferings during the martial law years," she said, noting that many of the Marcos regime’s victims have already died although "the road to justice is still long and winding for us."

Marcos announced the secret signing of Proclamation No. 1081 on Sept. 23, 1972 but the document that imposed martial law was actually signed two days earlier.

Even before the announcement, Marcos had already ordered the closure of Congress, shut down newspapers and broadcast stations and had real and imagined opponents of his regime arrested.

Narciso was arrested by the military in 1983 when she was 27 years old and active in a church movement in Davao.

"I could not forget the day the military took me and brought me (to a safehouse) in Davao. At that moment, I thought I would die," she said, noting that the bodies of many of the Marcos victims were never found.

But while she not summarily executed like so many others, Narciso said she was like a "living dead" during her days in captivity.

"I was in detention for six months but for two straight days, I was repeatedly beaten and raped by many soldiers. At first, I tried to count how many times they would take me but I later lost count," she said.

"They also burned me with cigarette butts and subjected me to water torture," she added, referring to the act of practically drowning a victim under interrogation.

"Whenever they would come to rape me, I begged them to just shoot me," Narciso said. "I wanted to die because I could no longer bear the pain and anguish, but they would just ignore me."

Narciso related the story with a sometimes teary, sometimes distant gaze that betrays the vivid memories of the experience.

Worse, she said, the memories become more painful whenever she hears of the legal twists and turns of the 17-year-old lawsuit they filed to get some compensation from Marcos and his heirs.

Narciso and the 9,538 other surviving victims scored a victory in 1995 when the Swiss federal supreme court ruled that the Marcos family owned several accounts in Swiss banks and much of the deposits of "illegal provenance."

The money was transferred to a Philippine National Bank (PNB) escrow account in 1998 but the government could not get hold of the deposits until a Philippine court declares that the deposits are indeed ill-gotten, that the Marcos family was given due process and that the victims will be properly compensated.

Last July 15, the Supreme Court forfeited the escrow account in favor of the Philippine government.

The victims also won in 1995 the class suit they filed before a Hawaii district court which awarded them $1.9 billion in total damages.

Btu since the decision of the Hawaii court could not be enforced in the Philippines, the victims entered into a $150-million compromise deal with the Marcoses, a deal that Philippine courts rejected.

Meantime, the Hawaii district court issued on Sept. 2 a "global injunction" that prevented the release of the funds to the Philippine government.

Philippine authorities have since argued that the ruling of Hawaii district court judge Manuel Real was not enforceable in the Philippines and other territories outside the US but further damage had already been done on the Marcos victims.

"Sometime, it looks like we are walking on a smooth path. Then suddenly, somebody trips us. Many people are blocking our road and I don’t know when we can reach our destination or if we’ll reach it all," Narciso said.

"We are still waiting for the day when the Marcoses apologize and pay for their crimes," she added.