The people of Escalante City in Negros Occidental never once failed to remember that fateful day of September 20, 1985, each and every year for more than three decades now.
At that time, the Filipino people would not suffer any longer under the rule of the fascist dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Protests were held across the country coinciding with the anniversary of Marcos’ Martial Law declaration. In Escalante, thousands of people composed mostly of hacienda workers from different towns of Northern Negros gathered for a Welgang Bayan.
Police and state paramilitary forces brutally dispersed the crowd using tear gas, water cannons, and bullets. Twenty people were killed, most of them young sugarcane workers and activists. With the massacre at Escalante, the proverbial “social volcano” seemed to have ruthlessly erupted. In just a few months’ time, the Filipino people would triumph in ousting the dictator.
Each and every year, the people of Escalante honor the memory of their martyrs through “EscaM,” a series of cultural activities culminating in a theatrical reenactment of the massacre by community-based youth cultural group Teatro Obrero. People’s organizations such as BAYAN, National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (NNAHRA) and Mothers and Relatives against Tyranny (MARTYR), see to it that the annual EscaM is participated in by various sectors such as the peasants, workers, urban poor, church people, students and educators, lawyers, health professionals, artists, and cultural workers.
For more than three decades, the EscaM tradition endured for the people of Negros to never forget the horrors of the fascist dictatorship and to say never again to Martial Law. This year, however, EscaM is no longer about the memory of a dark era in history.
The people are preparing to mark the 34th year of the Escalante Massacre amid de facto Martial Law — under actual military rule, state terror and impunity now dominant in the whole island of Negros.
“There is no open declaration of Martial Law as in 1972, or like Duterte’s over-extended Martial Law in Mindanao. What the President declared in Negros is Memorandum Order No. 32, and through Executive Order No. 70, Duterte’s men who introduce themselves as agents of the National Task Force (NTF) to End Communist Insurgency have teamed up with the military and police in effecting a brutal crackdown against farmers, activists and people’s organizations in Negros. Escalante City is one of their focus areas,” said Ernie Militar, NNAHRA Spokesperson.
“Members and leaders of legitimate people’s organizations are either coerced to surrender as rebel returnees en masse, arrested or killed. The cases of these ‘surrenders’ and arrests are particularly high in Escalante after Duterte released M.O. 32 and E.O. 70,” he added.
“Civilians are obliged to attend seminars by the NTF and the military’s Peace and Development Teams or PDTs, where progressive organizations and party-list groups are openly red-tagged. Persons who join rallies are practically threatened with EJK by soldiers. People are also forced to join military-sponsored groups like the Masaligan Farmers Association of the AFP Masaligan Battalion, and to renounce their membership in genuine peasant groups like the NFSW,” Militar said.
“There is a lot of pressure on the people this year. Though we are used to the yearly checkpoints, civil-military operations and other gimmicks by the army which aim to dampen the people’s fervor in kindling the memory of our EscaM martyrs, this year we do not know what exactly to expect but we must carry on. The NTF and the military establishment seem to have all the taxpayers money and government resources at their disposal. Some institutions like the LGUs and other civilian agencies are also under great pressure to the point of surrendering civilian supremacy to the whims of the military and NTF.”
“But we must not let military rule to prevail. The people have the support of many freedom-loving Filipinos who see the plight of Negrosanons, such as those volunteering for Defend Negros.” Defend Negros is a network of human rights advocates based in Manila and with links with concerned individuals and groups in different countries.
“We must keep in mind that our martyrs sacrificed their lives to defend our freedoms and fight dictatorship. Never Forget! Never Again to Martial Law!”
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