Start of Martial Law (September 1972)

From a personal account of the late Raul M. Gonzalez:

"Before the declaration of Martial was made public in the early evening of 23 September 1972, there were rumors of arrests of prominent anti-Marcos elements, student and labor leaders, political oppositionists, journalists and newspapermen, owners of media outlets, and persons known to be anti-administration.  Then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos came on the air in what was obviously a taped broadcast.  The decree declaring martial law for the whole country was ante-dated 21 September 1972.

 
"In one single stroke, Marcos cancelled the Constitution, abolished both houses of Congress, and placed the Armed Forces and the police under his direct command like his own toy to play around with.  He usurped the powers of duly constituted authorities and installed himself as the only authority in the land. 
 
"I felt disgusted with this turn of events.  I resigned all my positions in government and even my teaching position in the Philippine College of Commerce, a public educational institution.  From then on, I helped human rights victims by providing legal counsel and services for free. 

"I still continued with my legal office, which sustained me throughout my freelance days.  Among my clients were the Yangs of Manila who were the owners of downtown theaters Roxan, Odeon, Maxim and Miramar, among others.  The Yangs figured in the Carmelo-Bauermann real estate case.  The Bauermanns owned the lot in C.M. Recto Avenue where Maxim and Miramar stood, under a lease contract with the Yangs with an option-to-buy clause.  The Bauermanns sold the lot to another party instead.  The Yangs went to court in which I was their counsel, and we won the case up to the Supreme Court. 
 
"I was aware that Marcos was twisting the precepts of the law in order to show the country and the whole world that martial law was legitimate.  While he closed down the legislature, he maintained the Judiciary to make it appear that there was some form of due process still in effect.  There was no place to go but the Supreme Court, to lodge complaints and hope to be heard.    

"I petitioned the High Court to declare the Marcos decree imposing martial law as unconstitutional and was one of the first private citizens to do so.  I was in my law office together with a friend, Napoleon Dilag, who in the post-Marcos years became a judge in Cavite.  I composed a petition questioning martial law which was later given the file title: 'Dilag vs the Executive Secretary.'  I filed other petitions with the Supreme Court, one after the other, in my capacity as chapter president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

"I waited for results with confidence in the law of averages that soon one of my petitions would inevitably surface and be tabled by the High Court.  I wanted to put on record the fact that several petitions were filed in opposition to martial and questioning its legality, yet most of those petitions were unceremoniously rejected by the High Court.  I took comfort in the hope that the Justices would realize that history would also judge them." 

 

Work with Chief Executives and Legislators (1962-1972)

From a personal account of the late Raul M. Gonzalez:

 

"Antonio 'Yeba' Villegas, the vice mayor who took over after Mayor Lacson’s death, asked me to stay on and continue with my work as prosecutor of graft cases, the unofficial Manila city Ombudsman.  Young, tall for a Filipino and quite talented, he copied the gait and macho ways of the late mayor.  A brilliant lawyer, Villegas indiscriminately stepped on a lot of toes in his desire to eradicate graft and corruption in the city government, much like Lacson.           

"While still with Mayor Villegas, I was temporarily 'lent' to Sen. Rodolfo “Roding” Ganzon from Iloilo, as a legal adviser.  Roding and I shared a political heritage.  While my father served as the last mayor of the town of Jaro before it was made a district of Iloilo City, Roding’s father served as the first mayor of the expanded City.  Ganzon was a man driven by his ambitions.  Although his family was not rich, he persisted in his studies and worked his way through law school, as a laborer and a jeepney driver.  Graduating with honors, he topped the bar exams in 1953.  This made him a kind of folk hero and catapulted him to various political positions in the city and finally as a senator of the Republic. 

 
"Not long after that, I was again lent to Sen. Genaro Magsaysay of Zambales for the same position and likewise taken in as counsel of the Liberal Party while I was also doing part-time work in the office of Senate Minority Floor Leader Gerardo Roxas of Capiz.  In between these jobs, I was named executive secretary of the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures, another part-time job under the Office of President Diosdado Macapagal.  When President Marcos succeeded Macapagal in 1965,  I was appointed as an Executive Member of the Board of Censors with voting privileges.
 
"After Villegas, Atty. Ramon 'Bombay' Bagatsing took over the mayorship of Manila with wounds still fresh as a result of the bombing of the Liberal Party’s miting de avance at the Plaza Miranda in Quiapo in 1971.   Bagatsing was from Sagay, Negros Occidental, an Ilonggo like Lacson and me.  The friendship we established was instant, as we were both lawyers and he appreciated what I did, for he also pursued an anti-corruption campaign during his second term as a Congressman of Manila in 1961-1965." 

 

Aquino Petition after November 25 Conviction

At 10:25 in the evening of 25 November 1977, Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino was pronounced guilty of subversion, murder & illegal possession of firearms by Military Commission No. 2, which was headed by Brig. Gen. Jose Syjuco, during the Martial Law regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Ninoy was sentenced to death by firing squad.

On December 2, Attorneys Raul M. Gonzalez & Sedfrey A. Ordonez, representing Ninoy’s mother, Aurora Aquino, filed with the Supreme Court a petition for Habeas Corpus for the release of Ninoy from military custody & unlawful restraint. On this basis, the Supreme Court issued a restraining order against his execution.

The petition emphasized that Ninoy was denied equal protection of the laws & that the trial & conviction under Military Commission No. 2 were void for the following reasons.
1. The judgment of conviction was rushed in an immoral way. (Imagine concluding a criminal trial at night and at such a late hour.) The military counsel assigned to Ninoy failed in providing him effective legal assistance & he was denied the chance to give a closing argument.
2. Jurisdiction over his cases properly belonged to a civilian court, & the Military Commission discriminated against him by denying his motion for the transfer of his cases to the proper civilian court, even though more than 3,000 cases under military tribunals already had been transferred.
3. Ninoy was prosecuted for illegal possession of firearms & other crimes on the basis of presidential orders that were issued only after his arrest. Thus the “legal” basis was laid down after the occurrence of the alleged “illegal” acts.
4. “Leaders & followers [of the Moro National Liberation Front] who have risen in arms against the government & who have killed a big number of government troops in open combat have been pampered, benefited & rewarded while Benigno Aquino Jr is singled out for indictment & public humiliation.”

The petition is reproduced as Appendix C in the book, “Testament from a Prison Cell,” by Benigno Aquino Jr. The second edition of the book was published in 2000 in Makati City by the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation. My copy at hand contains a handwritten dedication to “dear Pat & Raul (Gonzalez)” by Cory Aquino dated 09 October 2003.

Suicide as Enigma

Anybody who wants to wrestle with the baffling suicide of a former high official with a "strong" personality ought to look for and read the book, "Jaime Ongpin The Enigma: A Profile of the Filipino as Manager," by the late National Artist Nick Joaquin, & published in 1990 (ISBN 971-91184-1-5) by the Jaime V. Ongpin Institute of Business and Government of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. The Jaime Ongpin Institute later became the Ateneo School of Government.

Before he committed suicide on 07 December 1987, Jimmy Ongpin was the first Finance Secretary of Pres. Corazon Aquino. When he was the first Filipino president of the multinational mining company, Benguet Corporation, Jimmy Ongpin dared to publicly criticize the cronyism of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos from 1981 onwards. He was part of the core campaign team, if not the primary campaign finance manager, of Cory Aquino when she decided to challenge Marcos during the 1986 snap election. He was an alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he studied from high school to college, and became Chairman of the University's Board of Trustees.

What drove the 49-year-old achiever & a father of 5 children (of which the youngest was 15) to shoot himself? The apparently disrespectful way in which he was removed from the Cabinet in mid-September 1987? The grilling he got from four Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings in August and September in which he was accused of dishonesty in the sale of assets of a governmment corporation? The persistent media criticism that he was unpatriotic & over-accommodating to the international bankers and creditors of the massive State debt that the Marcos dictatorship left behind? All of the above & some more?

The book is such a good read.