By ALAYSA TAGUMPAY E. ESCANDOR

“He who does not forgive does not forget, but he who does not forget often forgives.”

—Madres de Plaza de Mayo

The autopsy report read six wounds shot at close range. Two bullets while falling to the ground. One bullet to the right leg as he lay bleeding. One bullet to the head. Cause of death: cranio-cerebral injury.

This was how my granduncle, Dr. Juan “Johnny” Escandor, died.

It was the year 1983, 11 years since the proclamation of Martial Law. Dr. Johnny, aka Ka Mapalad, was in Manila, the belly of the beast, and doing his best to go undetected. His position in the movement’s Provisional Action Committee required frequent excursions to the city to clinch crucial provisions for the men and women of the Cagayan Valley Armed Command, at the time one of the best performing guerilla forces at war, not just against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, but also over timber, minerals, lakes, land, and rivers—over the very soul of the country.

Dr. Johnny’s missions, however, were becoming increasingly dangerous as the military swelled from 60,000 in 1972 to more than 200,000 by 1983. But the people’s resistance continued as details of Ferdinand Marcos’ plunder began to emerge: first, from foreign economic assistance; second, from Philcag and other discretionary funds; third, kickbacks from public works contracts.

While Marcos’ offshore accounts grew, the Philippine economy deteriorated under the weight of a USD26 billion debt. Refusing to relinquish power, Marcos increasingly relied on the police and military to keep his position secure.

And so, people continued to be disappeared, detained, or left dead. The terms “salvaging” and “safehouses” took on an ominous tone. By 1983, impunity–the enduring hallmark of Martial Law–reigned from the city center to the outskirts with a force approaching madness.

Dr. Johnny, rebel doctor and founder of Kabataang Makabayan, would not make it back to Cagayan Valley on the night of March. The good doctor was sought, sniffed out, spotted and seized. Viciously. Impunity exacted its due with the crazed vengeance of a predator eager to punish the prey after eleven years of being eluded. An eye gouged, bones broken, guts emptied, skull smashed then stuffed with plastic scraps. Cause of death: cranio-cerebral injury. The price to pay for waging a war for the soul of the country.

A war that did not stop with 34,000 tortures, 2,520 salvages, and 737 disappearances.

Memory and Justice

A generation has passed, but there has been no show of remorse from the Marcoses. On the contrary, the Marcoses are back in power, with Ferdinand “Bongbong” Jr. inching closer than ever to take back Malacañang. There has been no compensation either despite the US Supreme Court’s conviction of Marcos for human rights violations.

When President-elect Rodrigo Duterte asked, “It’s just a matter of disturbing the award. So anong problema?” he wrongly assumes two things. First, that the enormity of work that went into rebuilding lives out of the ravages of Martial Law can truly be compensated. And second, that the victims and families are lusting over monetary compensation, when actually it is the symbolic and historical victory that they are after. A victory that is as much ours as it is the country’s. A victory that, until now, wanes more than it waxes. A victory that is still being negotiated.

Not long after the toppling of the Marcoses, the calls were, first, “never forget” and second, “never again.” That is, to draw on the power of memory (“never forget”) so that history will not repeat itself (“never again”). The two calls have always been connected, with the first serving the second. Remembrance was in service of justice, and was not a goal on its own.

The urgent task for countries emerging from their violent past was to cultivate a “memoria fertile” (fertile memory), to borrow a phrase from the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the mother of desaparecidos in Argentina. Memoria fertile is a memory that feeds the thirst and hunger for justice.

To forget, therefore, is another variety of impunity. To forget is to abandon justice.

Still at War

Our failure as a people to cultivate that “memoria fertile” is the reason why we see so much of our history being repeated. We have failed to “never forget”. And by failing, we have not accomplished “never again.” This is why, decades after Martial Law, we are still dealing with the consequences of the past.

The past persists in the murder of Labor leader Rolando “Ka Lando” Olalia. The killing of celebrated activist Lean Alejandro. Ironic that the underground movement’s leaders–the backbone of resistance to Martial Law–were left out of the “new democracy” under Cory Aquino and became targets of assassination.

The past persists in the disappearance of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan. The vanishing of Jonas Burgos. The regular occurrence of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture.

The past persists in the looting of national coffers. The abuse of foreign economic assistance, the plunder of discretionary funds, and kickbacks from public works contracts.

To forget, therefore, is another variety of impunity. To forget is to abandon justice.

The past persists in the displacement of the Lumad of Mindanao. The hunger in the bellies of farmers. The continuing war over timber, minerals, lakes, land, and rivers. The activists who pay with their lives for waging a war for the soul of the country. In the impunity that still reigns.

The war that Dr. Johnny fought is still with us today. It lives on in our everyday violence.

The Task at Hand

It is alarming to me that the rhetoric of forgetting is everywhere. Recently, Duterte said, “I will allow the burial of Ferdinand Marcos in Libingan ng mga Bayani because he was a great president and he was a hero.” And then, Sen. Bongbong Marcos, “I think it will bring closure not only to my family but to the rest of the country.”

To sustain the position of remembering can be a painstaking task, especially when powers-that-be peddle forgetting as a solution to our national woes. And yet, we cannot leave the task of remembering only to the victims and their families, not only because it is untenable, but also because it rests upon the mistaken notion that Martial Law ravaged only a limited number of people, when in fact it was the entire country that suffered.

In the eve of this new administration, we must decide now, as a people, whether we continue with our forgetting, or do we, at long last, foster and fortify a “memoria fertile."

My grandmother, who will be 85 this year, sometimes muses how long the wait has been for victory. Indeed, there are days when the wait seems to have congealed so firmly that we’ve forgotten, little by little, that we are actually waiting. Waiting comes with the expectation of a new future. But in this country where past is not past, there can be no new future. 

The idea that the past belongs to the past, that the present has been redeemed, and that the future is new, is an illusion. A premature verdict on an unfinished war that still rages. An immature conclusion on a phase of history that still unfolds. ●

Published in print in the Collegian’s June 26, 2016 issue, with the headline “The Persistence of Past.”