Religious sector resistance against the Marcos dictatorship
Religious sector opposition against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos included leaders and workers belonging to different beliefs and denominations.
Christian
Many of these leaders and workers belonged to the Catholic Church in the Philippines, to which belonged the majority of the Philippine population at the time. But various opposition efforts were also notable in both the mainline and the evangelical protestant traditions.In the Catholic Church
In the early years of the Marcos administration before the declaration of Martial Law, the poverty and inequality in Philippine society had already begun sparking debates among Catholic theologians about how the church ought to respond. The Second Vatican Council had just concluded in December 1965 and Liberation theology was becoming increasingly influential. Some priests wanted to be more directly involved in activism and with activist organizations resisting the Marcos dictatorship, while those who were more conservative preferred that the pursuit of "the prophetic challenge of the gospel" be "without any ideological affiliation."After the declaration of Martial law, the Marcos dictatorship's [Human rights Human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship|abuses of the Marcos dictatorship|abuses] - particularly extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances - convinced a small but very vocal number of the church workers to fight the dictatorship by actively joining underground resistance movements, while the majority resisted within the ordinary means available to then through their office, such as those who formed the human rights monitoring organization Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, or of Manila Cardinal Jaime Sin and Infanta Bishop Julio Labayen, who described their high level engagement with Marcos as "critical collaboration."
After the ouster and exile of the Marcoses in 1986, there began to be less space for activists in the Church, and engagements between church workers and activist organizations went into decline.
In a 2021 international conference held in Taiwan, Daniel Franklin E. Pilario of the Congregation of the Mission presented a paper on a Philippine experience, noting among others that the implementation of the politics of fear and terror present in populist regimes is the same style of governance found in the country; later, because of his mentions of extrajudicial killings during the Marcos dictatorship and the Rodrigo Duterte presidency, he was called an anti-EJK priest.
Among the Protestant denominations
While protestants represented a much smaller portion of the Philippine population in relation to Catholics during the 1970s, there were significant opposition movements within the various Protestant denominations, whether mainline or evangelical.Among the mainline protestant denominations, there were significant opposition movements within the Philippine Independent Church, the Church of Christ in the Philippines, and the Methodist Church in the Philippines.
Because evangelical denominations tend towards locally independent congregations and are thus less centralized, the most prominent evangelical opposition was in organizations like the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture and individual congregations like the Diliman Bible Church, and among the evangelical Pentecostal churches, the Foursquare Church in Romblon. The Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture and the Diliman Bible Church played a key role in the formation of the Konsensiya ng Febrero Siete coalition which mobilized evangelicals during the 1986 People Power revolution.
Muslim
Muslim Filipinos had been targeted by repressive policies of the Marcos Administration since even before the imposition of Martial Law in 1972, with the Jabidah Massacre of 18 March 1968 being a watershed moment for discontent. The Muslim Independence Movement was formed two months later on 1 May 1968, although it was sidelined only five months later when its leader, former Cotabato governor Datu Udtog Matalam, joined the Marcos Administration as Adviser on Muslim Affairs. Although the MIM failed to gain the support of the Muslim masses, President Marcos used its existence as one of the reasons for proclaiming Martial Law on 23 September 1972. In December 1972 the MIM ceased to exist when Matalam surrendered to Marcos, although a splinter group, the Moro National Liberation Front, had earlier formed in October 1972.Indigenous faiths
Religious beliefs of indigenous Filipinos also factored into their opposition against the Marcos dictatorship, the most popular example being the Kalinga and Bontoc peoples' resistance against Marcos' Chico River Dam Project in Luzon, in no small part because ancestral lands are sacred in their belief systems. The subsequent assassination of the Kalinga Butbut tribe Pangat Macli-ing Dulag on 24 April 1980 led to the first major news story coverage critical of Marcos administration policies during Martial Law, dealing a severe blow to the public relations efforts of the Marcos regime.Religious publications
Upon the declaration of martial law, the government closed down or took over newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television stations. Only news organizations owned or taken over by relatives or cronies of Ferdinand Marcos were allowed to reopen.However, underground publications were established and a few independent publications were later able to operate. The Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines came out with a weekly mimeographed publication called Various Reports, which printed stories on military atrocities and other human rights violations. It printed limited copies distributed among the religious community. In 1975, AMRSP began publishing Signs of the Times, which printed stories on the La Tondeña strike in October 1975, the first big strike to defy martial law. Circulation of Signs grew from a handful to thousands of copies. Its last issue was published on November 26, 1976, before its offices were raided by the military.
Major events
Before the declaration of Martial Law
- December 30, 1965 - Ferdinand Marcos is sworn in as the tenth president of the Philippines, under the Third Republic.
- May 21, 1967 - A demonstration conducted by Lapiang Malaya sect ends in a violent dispersal attempt by the Philippine Constabulary, killing 33.
- March 18, 1968 - The Jabidah Massacre, where 68 Muslim members of a secret commando unit recruited by the Armed Forces of the Philippines are killed when they refuse further training.
After the declaration of Martial Law
- August 24, 1974 - The Sacred Heart Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Novaliches is raided by the military, who were allegedly searching for Communist Party of the Philippines leader Jose Maria Sison. Jesuit priest Jose Blanco is arrested as a suspected rebel.
- May 12–13, 1975 - The Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines helped organize bodong involving 150 Bontoc and Kalinga leaders and Catholic Church-based support groups, at St. Bridget's School in eastern Quezon City. The Quezon City bodong resulted in an agreement which united the Bontoc and Kalinga people in opposition against the Chico River Dam Project, which would have submerged sacred tribal lands, and the Marcos Administration, which was pushing for the project to push through.
- April 24, 1980 - Macli-ing Dulag, Pangat of the Butbut tribe of Kalinga, is assassinated for his resistance efforts against the Chico River Dam Project
- January 17, 1981 - As a public relations move – partly in light of the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Philippines, and partly in light of the upcoming inauguration of United States President Ronald Reagan – Ferdinand Marcos issues Proclamation No. 2405, formally lifting the state of Martial Law nationwide. He nonetheless retained most of his powers as dictator, including "the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for crimes related to subversion, insurrection, rebellion, and also conspiracy to commit such crimes."
- February 17–22, 1981 - Pope John Paul II makes his first apostolic visit to the Philippines. He declares in a speech that "Even in exceptional situations that may at times arise, one can never justify any violation of the fundamental dignity of the human person or of the basic rights that safeguard this dignity."
- February 22, 1986 - Speaking on Catholic Church-owned Radio Veritas, Cardinal Jaime Sin, the reigning Archbishop of Manila, broadcasts an appeal urging Filipinos to peacefully gather on EDSA to protect forces that had defected from the Marcos government.February 26, 1986 - From Clark Air Base, the Marcos family and a select group of close followers, leave the country for exile in Hawaii.
Martyrs and Heroes honored at the ''Bantayog ng mga Bayani''
Religious leaders and workers represent a significant portion of the names inscribed on the memorial wall of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani along Quezon Avenue, which honors the "Martyrs and Heroes" who resisted the Marcos dictatorship.Zacarias Agatep
Nicknamed "Apo Kari", Zacarias Agatep '' was the parish priest of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur. Agatep helped organize cooperatives, taught interested farmers about land reform, and spoke against foreign and local monopolies in the tobacco industry, which formed the backbone of Ilocos Sur's economy at the time. He was arrested for supposed "subversion" in 1980 and was incarcerated for four months until he was released as part of Marcos public relations efforts in preparation for a visit by Pope John Paul II. Upon his release, he famously wrote a letter to the President, decrying what he described as a "frame-up" and lamenting the miscarriage of justice typical under the Marcos administration. He kept speaking out against the abuses of the Marcos administration until he was shot four times in the back by unidentified gunmen in October 1982.Godofredo Alingal
Nicknamed "Father Ling" by his parishioners, Godofredo Alingal was a Jesuit priest and journalist who spoke out against repression and militarization under Marcos' Martial Law on the prelature's radio station, DXBB, and its newsletter, An Bandilyo. He was also instrumental in the formation of a credit union and grains marketing cooperative for farmers, and helped organize the Kibawe, Bukidnon chapter of the Federation of Free Farmers. When the government shut down DXBB, he kept his parishioners informed through a "blackboard news service" — one of the more inventive forms that the Philippines' "Mosquito Press" took while traditional media outlets were shut down under martial law. He was shot by an unidentified gunman on 13 April 1981.Amada Alvarez
Amada "Madge" Alvarez began her career as a staff writer of Cor Manila, the newsletter of the Catholic Archdiocese of Manila. She then served as a community organizer at the Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Highway Hills in Mandaluyong City, under the parish's Basic Christian Communities program. Because her interactions with the urban poor communities made her more aware of the social ills under Marcos' Martial Law regime, she eventually joined the Christians for National Liberation, a group which was aligned with the National Democratic Front. She was killed in Infanta, Pangasinan with five local residents in 1989, after peace talks between the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Government of the Philippines had broken down two years earlier in the wake of the Mendiola Massacre.Trifonio N. Andres
"Ponyong" Andres was a Roman Catholic seminarian at the St. Francis Xavier Seminary in Davao who volunteered to document human rights violations in Davao for Task Force Detainees of the Philippines and the Citizen's Council for Justice and Peace. He was abducted in Libungan, Cotabato and brought to the Davao Metropolitan District Command Center in Digos, Davao del Sur, where he was tortured and later executed on 17 August 1983.Jeremias Ancheta Aquino
A priest of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, Jerry Aquino was a member of the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines and of Christians for National Liberation. In 1977-1978 he was director of the Ecumenical Center for Development, and missionary priest of the Philippine Independent Church's Diocese of Greater Manila. In 1978, he became the program coordinator and youth director of the Philippine Independent Church's Laoag diocese, and concurrent associate rector of Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. It was during this posting that was arrested in September 1979, in Sadanga, Mountain Province. He and several companions were held at the Philippine Constabulary stockade in Bontoc, then transferred to the Bicutan jail in Metro Manila. After prolonged fasting and hunger strikes to protest prison conditions, he was released on 24 December 1980, part of a series of prisoner releases meant to generate positive press in light of the arrival of Pope John Paul II in Manila two months later. Upon release, he helped found the Freedom Shop, a carpentry shop for unemployed former political prisoners. He died in a "suspicious" vehicular accident on 14 December 1981.Filomena Asuncion
A deaconess of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines, Liway Asuncion was a graduate of BA in Christian Education at Harris Memorial College, before returning to her home congregation in Isabela to serve as Christian education and music director, teaching Sunday school, conducting Bible studies, leading the church choir, and becoming president of the district-wide United Methodist Youth Fellowship. In 1979, Asuncion joined an ecumenical movement of Catholics and Protestants called Timpuyog Dagiti Iglesia, which sought to address the plight of exploited farmers in Isabela, where land ownership was monopolized by a few elite families. In 1981 she was among those arrested at a farmers' protest rally in Ilagan and jailed from April to October. Upon her release, she joined the revolutionary underground and worked full-time in organizing the local farmers in defense of their rights. Witnesses said she was captured alive by government forces in 1983 and was then maltreated and abused before being killed.Santiago Arce
A farmer who also served as a lay worker for the Roman Catholic Parish of Peñarrubia, Abra, Santiago Arce joined the Federation of Free Farmers in the early 1970s and later became the FFF provincial coordinator for Abra, conducting seminars and organizing local cooperatives while working towards tenancy system reforms in the province. Having irritated local authorities, Arce was framed, tortured, and killed by the dictatorship's forces in a Constabulary camp in Bangued, Abra. His death was widely mourned by the people of Abra, with Twenty Abra priests concelebrating his funeral mass, classes in Catholic schools all over Abra suspended as a mark of mourning, and his funeral procession becoming "the longest and biggest ever recorded at the time" in Abra, all despite the fear perpetuated by the dictatorship's forces.Pepito Bernardo
A priest who was originally assigned to serve the Dumagat communities in Nueva Ecija, Pepito Bernardo later joined the Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos and served as coordinator for the Sierra Madre area of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines. He had also joined the activist organization Christians for National Liberation. His missionary work was interpreted by Marcos' forces as suspicious, so Fr. Bernardo was detained and tortured several times during Martial Law. He was killed in a traffic accident inSan Leonardo, Nueva Ecija in 1985, in circumstances which his companions thought suspicious, but which the authorities never investigated.
Romeo Guilao Crismo
As executive secretary of the United Methodist Youth Fellowship, Romeo Crismo was instrumental in organizing the Protestant youth sector to resist the policies and programs of the dictatorship. Supporting himself by teaching, he also worked with the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, and the Christian Conference of Asia.Mariani Dimaranan
Mariani Dimaranan was a Franciscan nun best known for leading the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines for 21 years, including the entirety of the 14-year Marcos dictatorship. Dimaranan led the Manila-based non-profit national human rights organization in documenting human rights violations, assisting victims and their families, organizing missions, conducting human rights education work, campaigning against torture, and promoting advocacy for Human Rights Defenders.Joe Dizon
An activist Roman Catholic priest, Jose Dizon, led protest actions against government corruption and human rights abuses during martial law in the Philippines, political dynasties, and the pork barrel system. At protest rallies against the Marcos dictatorship, he would say mass to prevent violent dispersal by the government and to boost the morale of demonstrators. He actively campaigned for honest elections and helped form people's organizations in rural areas to support those dealing with land grabbing, military abuses, and hamletting. He died of complications from diabetes at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute on November 12, 2013, at the age of 65.Tullio Favali
A Roman Catholic missionary priest sent by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, Tullio Favali was the first foreign missionary to be killed during the years of the Marcos dictatorship. While serving as a parish priest in La Esperanza, Tulunan, Cotabato, Favali was called by the townspeople for help after the Marcos government's paramilitary forces, led by Edilberto, Norberto, Jr., and Elpidio Manero, shot the town's tailor. When the Manero brothers saw him arrive and enter a house, Norberto, Jr. dragged his motorcycle and set it on fire. When Favali hurried out after seeing the fire, Edilberto shot the priest point-blank in his head, trampled on his body and fired again. This caused the priest's skull to crack open, and Norberto, Jr. picked at the brains and displayed them to horrified witnesses. The brothers, along with a few other gang members, stood by laughing and heckling.Oscar D. Francisco
Oscar "Oca" Diamaro Francisco - A graduate of the Mapua Institute of Technology who eventually worked for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila's National Secretariat for Social Action and the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace, Oca Francisco played a key role in developing the concept of Basic Christian Community-Community Organizing, a program of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines which became an important means by which Filipino Catholics, priests and laity alike, could work to counter the abuses of the Marcos dictatorship. Among the many figures in the resistance to the dictatorship, he is often said to have had the widest network of contacts, since he was able to interact with resistance figures across the political spectrum, and from activists in the poorest Philippine Barangays to lobbyists in international fora involved in the international fight against the dictatorship.Inocencio T. Ipong
A Roman Catholic lay worker with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, "Boy" Ipong was the son of migrants from Bohol who settled in North Cotabato, so he felt drawn to the plight of poor peasants in the Visayas and Mindanao. Wanting to help them, he joined the youth organization Khi Rho, and later the Federation of Free Farmers. When Martial Law was declared in 1972, he began working as a lay assistant at the RMP with its vision of a "free, just, peaceful, and egalitarian society." In 1982, he was abducted and illegally detained at the Metropolitan District Command Headquarters and at Camp Catitipan in Davao City. He was tortured by his captors who wanted him to admit that he was a certain "Enciong" the military was looking for. His family and his coworkers at the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines spent ten days looking for him and upon finding him, successfully negotiated his release. On November 20, 1983, he was among a group of 12 religious and laypeople who were going to Cebu to attend a seminar, on board the M/V Cassandra. A passing typhoon caused the ship to sink, drowning over 200 passengers in the waters off Surigao, including everyone from Ipong's group.Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen
Julio Xavier Labayen was a Roman Catholic bishop. Ordained to the priesthood in 1955, Labayen served as Bishop of the Territorial Prelature of Infanta from 1966 until 2003. He was the first Filipino Carmelite bishop when he was ordained on 8 September 1966 and the second bishop of the Prelature of Infanta. He was a staunch defender of human rights, especially during the years of the Martial Law in the Philippines, being known to be one of the "Magnificent 7" who voiced their opposition against the Marcos regime.In recognition of his efforts against authoritarian rule, his name was inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in 2016. Aside from this, the bishop served as chair of the CBCP's National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace.