Kwentong Martial Law with Atty. Chel Diokno

Hello. Hello. Podcast Network Asia. So my dad came down and opened the door, the front door, and there was this colonel and other military officers greeted him and said they were quote-unquote inviting him to the military camp. My dad said, "Is this an invitation I can refuse?" And the colonel said, "I'm sorry sir, but you have to come with us." That was the last time I saw him as a free man for the next two years. Hello everyone, my name is Irwin. And I'm Mariah. In this show, we invite people to talk about their stories, experiences, lessons, and their small sparks of light during the darkest days in Philippine history. The special limited series is powered by Podmetrics and Podcast Network Asia. For this episode, we'll be sitting down with our favorite woke Lolo. He earned a degree in philosophy and studied Bachelor of Law in the UP College of Law. Many graduated Juris Doctor Magna Cum Laude in 1986 from the Northern Illinois University. A lawyer, educator, and human rights advocate, our woke Lolo, Attorney Chell Diokno. Hello, hi Chell. Hello, hi to everyone. You can just walk here. Oh my, because I don't think we're too far from age really. Not that far Chell. So it's self-incriminating if I say woke Lolo. Anyway, we go straight to the main question we ask every guest. What do you remember about September 21, 1972? Yes, I have very distinct memories. But I'm not sure if it's September 21 or September 22. It's like I remember September 22 when Marshal Lolo was really working. I remember staying up, I was supposed to be asleep already, but I was 11 years old at that time. But my sisters and brothers had friends over. So I was just tagging along with them in the house, listening to them making Nakekuentuhan. And one of them, one of my sisters, Barcada, said, "Ali's muna ako, bibili ako ng Yosi." But before he could, within less than a minute, he came back and his face was really different, parang namumos la siya. And he said, "Marami sundalo sa labas." So we looked out on the front of our house and we saw a lot of soldiers. I went up to my parents' bedroom with my sister. I think it was my dad and we knocked on their door. Apparently, my mom, who was then in their bathroom, had heard a lot of cars arriving and doors slamming. So she looked out the window and also saw the men. They were armed with long arms and all that. So my dad came down and opened the door, the front door, and there was this colonel and other military officers who greeted him and said they were "inviting him to the military camp." My dad answered, "Is this an invitation I can refuse?" And the colonel said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you have to come with us." And that was the last time I saw him as a free man for the next two years. It was really, our world really changed. He was a senator at that time. He was a respected lawyer. And we never thought ever, I mean I was an 11-year-old boy, that something like that would happen to him. Attorney Chell's father, Senator José Diocno, was never charged with a single crime. He spent two years at the maximum security compound of Fort Bonifacio and endured long periods of solitary confinement at Fort Magsaysay in La Ur, Nevada. Why was he arrested? We were never told any reason there was no case ever filed against him. So there was no warrant of arrest, no criminal case. There was no explanation for us why he was arrested. Up to now, we have never had a single word from that dictatorship explaining to us why my father was put in jail. Can you go back to that night, Ivers September 2022, so your father was taken away right there and then? Yeah, well he asked for a few minutes to put a bag of clothes together and he bailed him out. And then he came back and left the house. They boarded him in a military car. That's the last time we saw him as a free man for the next two years. Do you remember how you fell? Yeah, we were all in shock. I didn't know how to feel. Next thing I recall is my mom waking me up. I was on the floor near the front door entrance. And waking me up and telling me to dress up, we're going to try to visit your dad. So we got into our cars, we went to Fort Bonifacio. We were not allowed inside the fort. We were waiting outside. I think if I recall, there were families of other known opposition who were also there, who also arrived. And we were waiting for our arrested relatives to come by, hoping to visit them. We just got a glimpse of them. They were in one military bus. The last opposition politicians were all in that bus. They were taking care of us, and that's it. We were not allowed inside that bus. How did your mom explain it to the family? Or did she try? Well, by then, we all knew that Marshal Law had been declared. And by then, it was clear to us that it was the Marcos who had ordered him arrested. Even if I was only 11 years old at the time, the milieu then was that there was a lot of unrest. There were lots of demonstrations almost on a daily basis. You would see it on TV. Marcos was really being subjected to a lot of heavy criticism from different sectors of society. And I guess that was his way of making sure he would maintain power. Because that was his second term. He would not have been able to continue as president without declaring Marshal Law. What was it like growing up at the time during Marshal Law? The young people today would not like it. Because you could not criticize the government if you did. The cops, the soldiers would pick you up and who knows what would happen to you. You could not gather together outside publicly. If you were seen, if you were more than three or four or five people, they would disperse you. There were no student councils. They removed the right to strike for workers. You could not protest. They padlocked all the news media. They took over ADACBN, closed down the other media outlets, except those that were friendly to the Marcos. They padlocked Congress. They controlled the news. They had this Ministry of Information that censored everything. So before any news could be circulated, it had to be approved by that ministry. And all the basic rights and freedoms we now enjoy, for example, the right to liberty, even the right to privacy of our homes, was not respected at that time. Thousands of people were arrested and detained, like my dad. The houses of many people were entered without any legal basis. Because Marcos took on all the powers of government. He was the president. He also took on the power to legislate. And then he had the power to arrest. There were three versions of that during martial law. The first was known as an aso. It was not high up. Arrest, search, and seizure order. Then came PCO, Presidential Commitment Order. Then PDA, Preventive Detention Action. These were all essentially presidential or executive warrants. But there was like a curfew at that time. I've been told there was a siren to say that you had to go home. Is that true? They had curfewed from 12 to 4, if I remember right. They might have changed the times throughout the dictatorship. If you were caught, what I was told was they would shave your head, if you're a guy, and then make you work cutting grass or doing something like that for the next day. More or less, that's what happened. So what would happen if I was in high school at that time? Sometimes, there were parties. You would start early and all leave by 10, 30, 11 pm. You had to get home before 12. Did your dad ever really tell you what it was like to be in prison at that time? His experience? Yeah, well, he did talk about it on several occasions and even publicly. What was the toughest ordeal for him was when he was taken out. Most of the time, he was detained at the maximum security unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Fort Bonifacio. But there was a time when one evening, they took him out of his cell, blindfolded him, put him into a helicopter together with Nino Yaquino, who was also blindfolded. They were both handcuffed to the helicopter and then brought to a place they weren't told where they were brought to. They were each put in a separate cell. He called it a Bartolina, which is an incomunicado tiny cell. And the way he described it, it was a boarded up small room with windows that were all blocked out and a light switch that was not inside the room but outside. And it was middle of summer, so it was really, really hot at that time. And they were kept in solitary confinement for, I think, over a month, if I remember right. He lost, I don't know, 20, 25 pounds, something like that because of that. There was no physical torture that was inflicted, but it was more psychological torture. They weren't allowed to speak to anyone. They were not told where they were. They were essentially had to live in that tiny room, each of them for that whole amount of time. It was also a torture for us because I remember my mom waking me up one morning when that had happened and telling me to come down with her because there was a military truck and all of my dad's belongings. All of our belongings in the cell were returned by some soldiers. So my mom approached them and said, "What are you doing? Where is my husband? Why are you bringing back these things?" And obviously, they had been told not to respond. They did not utter a single word. They continued putting down his belongings. When the last item was on the ground, they just got into the truck and left. So my mom didn't know whether my dad was still alive or not, what had happened to him, where he was. What we did, what she did, she told me to dress up and we'll go see a lawyer. We visited the attorney Lorenzo Tanyada, the grandfather of Erin. He filed a petition for habeas corpus and eventually we were given permission to visit. But that in itself was also a very unique experience. So you went to Seattle, right? Yes. But you didn't know that? All we were told was you can visit. When we went to the Fort Bonifacio, if I remember right, they said, "Come with us. Follow that convoy." But they didn't tell us where we were going. So we thought we could just get there. We go through EDSA, which was then Highway 54. We go to NLEX, which was the North Diversion Road. We go into that road, go through hours and hours of traveling. We end up in Nueva Ecija in Fort Magsaysay. By that time, it was almost night. There was a military official who met us, both families, the Akinna family and the Diokna family, we were in separate cars. When we got there, he told us, "Okay, you can visit, but you only have 30 minutes each." When we got there to see him, we weren't even allowed to have physical contact. We couldn't touch him. There were two layers of barbed wire in between us. I remember the first thing we noticed, and my mom immediately said to him, "Why are you holding your back?" He said, "Did they hurt you?" He said, "No, they didn't hurt me physically, but it was so hot in the partulina that I was sitting constantly. If I let go of my pants, my pants will fall off." That's how much weight we had lost at that time. Coming from growing up with these experiences, it tells where you're coming from with what you're doing now in your career, what you've done with Flag. How did these experiences sort of compel you to do what you do now to advocate for human rights? They really shaped my life. When my dad was released from detention in 1974, he really turned his back on politics and began handling cases. That's when he set up Flag and began taking on cases, human rights cases. At that time, I was 13 years old and I was already determined to be a lawyer. Whenever he would dress up for court, if I was home, I would immediately ask him, "Can I go with you?" I would wear a polo baron and carry his bag proudly. I even was allowed on several occasions to sit at the council's table in the military commissions. But I learned so much from him and from the other lawyers. Those lawyers were some of the best, if not the best trial lawyers in the country. They were different kinds of lawyers. That really made me more determined to become a lawyer like him. Every summer, I would clerk in his law office, which was in our house, so it was convenient. I would wake up, go after breakfast, report to him, and he would give me assignments. I remember one funny experience I had. He said, "Go to the Manila City Jail. Look for this detainee and do something and get some documents." I had been to a lot of political detention centers, political prisons, but never to a common jail. So I just took a public ride. I eventually found my way to Manila City Jail. I remember entering and jailguards would stamp you. And he said, "Boy, if you don't have that stamp, you won't be able to get out of here, says to me." So every five minutes, I'm looking at him in the summer and I'm looking at my arm. No, I don't have that stamp. And then after that, he would give me, he would make me read cases, make me read case files. We would discuss it. If he would prepare witnesses, he would call me. Because he saw that I was really interested in learning the ropes. So that's where my legal education began with him, years before I even entered law school. If your dad turned away from politics, when did you decide that you wanted to go into it? I think our trajectories have been very opposite in that respect. Because he was a senator from 1965, if I remember right, or 1963, until Marshall House declared in 1972. And then he became a human rights lawyer. I became a human rights lawyer as soon as I was a lawyer. And I never ever wanted to enter politics until like five years ago. Chell Diocno serves as the chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group, or FLAAG, and the founding dean of the De La Salle University College of Law. Aside from graduating Juris Doctor Magda Cum Laude in the U.S., he also received an American Juris Crudence Award for excellence in the study of contract. It was not even within my universe to run for any public office. Because to me, I mean, I was content being a lawyer, a human rights lawyer, and an educator. But when this administration came around and the same thing, you know, that gut feeling when you have no freedom in your country is like no other gut feeling in the world. I will tell you that I felt that for 13, 14 years I felt that during the Marcos period. And I thought I would never ever experience that gut feeling again. It's indescribable. It's like all the fear and the frustration and anger all rolled into one. That you're so powerless against this behemoth of a dictatorship. And when 2016 came around and hundreds of people were being killed on a daily basis, that exact same feeling came back to me. And I said, "I cannot accept this. I cannot accept this." I think I was one of the first to ever post something about it. You can probably find that post somewhere on Facebook where I talked about how all these killings were just, you know, really beyond any kind of, there was no way that I would accept it. And that's when I started. At that time, I still had no thoughts about anti-politics. I just wanted to bring out the truth. So I began to speak out publicly even when people were telling me it was super dangerous to do so. And initially, my talks were very simple. You really want to solve the drug problem. You really want to solve the problems that you're complaining about, then fix the justice system. Shortcuts just aren't going to work. That's how it all started. Then as I, when 2019 came around, or 2018 before the elections in 2019, you know, we all complain about how politicians are and how terrible it is, the way our government's being run. But then I say, "What business do I have complaining if I'm not going to stick my neck out myself?" I always say that there should be other people who should run for office. If others don't want to go, just say, "Okay." I mean, let's try. And I said, "At least I can offer myself as an alternative." And someone has to stand up to what's happening. And that's how it all began. People always say, "Never forget, never again." It's a martial law, right? You're one of the people who've experienced first-hand the brutality during martial law. And then that's what the recognition that you had when you had that feeling in 2016. So, what went wrong? Now that you have a vantage point much longer, what went wrong? Because we should have never gone back here. One of the effects of martial law that was never really discussed much was what they did to the justice system and how they poisoned it. Just a week after martial law was declared, Marcos issued letter of instruction number 11, which said that everyone in government must submit letters of resignation, which he could accept at any time, including judges. So that immediately removed the independence of the judge. Because the judges knew if I make a ruling against the dictatorship, I won't be in the judiciary tomorrow. Four months later, he changed the constitution and put up the 1973 constitution. One of the transitory provisions in that constitution was stated that all members of the judiciary up to the Supreme Court continue in office until the age of 70 years old, unless removed by Marcos by decree. So with the stroke of a pen, he could remove any single justice or judge. And that gave him ultimate control over the judiciary. But imagine the effect on the legal profession. You're a lawyer, you want to get the best clients and to make money, you know that if you want to win cases, you have to be close to the powers that be. So there were some enterprising lawyers at that time who began to use their connections to really get close to the Marcoses. And the judges knew it. So if those lawyers appear in court, the judge knows if I make this guy lose, then I might not have a job tomorrow. Now those lawyers established networks of corruption that still operate today. And they created a different breed of lawyers. That still thrived today. So because of that, they managed to influence, not just influence, but taint and poison the whole justice system. Even the thing is, after EDSA, that was never addressed. We addressed our economy, we got back on our feet, put the back of democracy. But we never addressed what happened to the justice system. Yes, there were attempts, okay. In the early part of President Corriaquino's term, she was able to boot out a lot of judges. But the networks now don't live in her administration. And that's also why the Marcoses, the cases against them, many of them are still pending for a long time. Number two, some of them have not prospered because the records got lost, the witnesses didn't testify. Or for so many other reasons. So when you talk about Hawaii, how did we end up here again today? Especially when you talk about the lack of accountability. Of course, Angsusi Jan is having a justice system that works. Angsusi Jan is having an independent judiciary. And that was, how would you say, neutralized by the dictatorship. And although we have an independent judiciary more or less, at least before 2016, systemic ailments in the justice system were never addressed. All right, Attorney Chal, I may not have been alive during martial law. I may not have experienced it firsthand. But we're still reading from the after effects today. And I can relate to this feeling of doom you have there. I didn't have to live through martial law to see how the threat of a dictatorship was looming. And even how important human rights are. I wouldn't describe it as a feeling of doom. It's a feeling of extreme anger that not just it's not even anger. It's a feeling of this just isn't right. And somebody has got to do something about it. And if no one else wants to do something about it, then I have to do something about it. And what can the youth do? What's something immediate that the youth could do right now or in the coming months? Well, number one, speak the truth to power at every opportunity you have. Number two, get involved in the coming elections. The coming elections is not just going to be about political personalities. It's going to be about your future. And if you don't get involved, you are in effects surrendering your future to leaders whom you don't know or aren't sure really care for the people and care for the country. So if you want to have a future, then get involved and choose the right candidates, support them, and get other people involved as well. That's the golden opportunity because, you know, our voting population is getting younger and younger. In 2019, those who could vote between the ages of 18 to 39 were roughly 33 million. In 2022, that number is going to go up to 40 million, 4-0. So if they all get registered and if they all vote, they could really decide the outcome of the elections. That's why I call on young people to take advantage of this opportunity. Some of you complained to me and did not listen to your standards. This is your best way to express yourself and they have no choice but to listen to you because your vote is your voice and you want to be heard, then get involved and vote wisely. Attorney Chelt, because you have a lot of experience and frustration being a human rights lawyer and then a political candidate for the opposition. What do you advise young people or anyone when what they want, they fought so valiantly for it and they believed in it and thought it would happen and then it didn't happen. How do you continue? Do you continue? Where do you find the strength? It's in our DNA. You look at our history and our history, my dad once said that the history of the Philippines can be described as a continuous and continuing struggle to build a just and humane society. And we've been fighting for that ever since for centuries and we've never given up because to me it's already built into, it's hardwired into our brain and in our hearts. From the time not just of result but even those who fought the Spanish colonial masters before him in the centuries before him, that's it. And if you look at our history, it's really been young people who have been at the forefront of that movement. Rizaz was what? 23 years old when he wrote Nollime Tangere. One of the earliest to fight was 17. His Kodagohoi of Bohol was 20 years old. And throughout our history, during the Japanese occupation, other people became guerrillas, right? They knew ROTC in the past. They became real soldiers. These were young people. Arcus's dictatorship, we lost almost an entire generation of the best and brightest young people who fought for us and eventually succeeded in hosting that dictator. So, you want to get energy, you look at our history and you will realize that it's in every one of us. Thank you for that. Thank you for guesting on our podcast. Do you have any more questions Mariah? No, I'm just happy to hear from our woke people. Thank you, Chela. Sure, sure. Thank you Irwin and thank you Mariah. Okay, we know that your time is very limited. So, at least we were able to. Yeah, that was really inspiring. Even I know you, I don't remember your other stories. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening to Podcast 1081, Ma'a Cuento Marshalo. This special limited series is powered by Podmetrics and Podcast Network Asia. Before we close this episode, let us end with a quote from history from Salud Algabre. No uprising fails. Each one is a step in the right direction. Tune in to the next episode of Podcast 1081. The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone, or anything.