Ang Paghihirap ng Isang Bansa-Struggle of my Country

A dictator, the word has always come up with a negative response.  Never in history has there been such a vile symbol of hate and terror in this world.  Many have lived and survived with their lives in such times of their rule and one such person had agreed to come and complete and interview with me on how such a time really was, Mr. Nelson Villiarosa, my uncle.  Today Nelson lives a most peaceful life and enjoys his time nowadays, however, his life was not always full of comfort and joy.  Before this present day, he lived in a land and time where fear was constantly by your side.  Death was always watching and waiting for its turn.  This was how he described ones feelings during the rule of a dictator.

During the Marco era, well he became president in the 1960 and at that time, he was not exactly a dictator yet.  He was still a good president when he started and I guess he became a dictator around six years after he became the president in probably 1966, so I was probably around sixteen years old at that time.  My parents were probably around their mid-thirties or late-thirties when the dictatorship started.

From a civilian point of view, I’m not exactly a politician and I’m not that much interested in politics, but I guess the reason why he became a dictator was the power.  He liked the power, he like being in command and from my opinion his wife Imelda Marcos, who has a very strong character, was engrossed with gaining more power and she had a good influence on Ferdinand Marcos and both of them enjoyed this power over the people of the Philippines and that is how it started.  They wanted more power, they wanted more control over the people, they wanted to have whatever they want and that’s the way, as a civilian, how it started.

During that time, it was not exactly like you were being guarded.  Martial Law was not declared yet, but Marcos, being a dictator, is already so strict with the opposition and has a lot of people in the military that control the opposition.  Meaning like the opposition can’t voice out their opinion much and they would send these people of Marcos to go, not exactly scare them, but to intimidate them.  So at that time my life was like the life of an ordinary boy except with restriction that I would not get involved with politics.  So long as you don’t get involved with opposition, you have a pretty normal life.

We were not required to keep opinions to ourselves; it was a good suggestion and practical way if you were against Marcos just to keep things to yourself.  If not, probably somebody would be watching you or somebody is to be pretty soon, if they say that you are beginning to be more of an influence to people against Marcos, then somebody will probably approach you and talk to you meaning that they are going to try to tell you stop what you are trying to do or face the consequences.

During that time I’ve heard that people would disappear.  Those who are really in deep politics and are trying to change officials and are trying to influence people to get rid of Marcos, I’ve heard some people like this disappear and suddenly you don’t know what happened to them.

I was still in school when he became the president.  I was in high school and probably when he became a dictator I was already in college taking up civil engineering, but during that time he was beginning to contemplate on martial law.

I enjoyed school very much especially in college.  I was in the University of Santo Tomas, it was a private school in the Philippines and although during that time there were some college students who would voice out their opinion against Marcos and some of them are really against him and were already taking actions.  You can see that some of Marcos people are trying to tell these students not to really go against Marcos or you can say that they are intimidating them.  They might not be able to finish college so either by Marcos telling the college officials to kick them out or they are going to have an accident.  So when I was in school I didn’t dare go with the politics, although there were a lot of my friends who were trying to voice out their opinions and I had a future ahead of me and I have to also think of myself.

I had a lot of friends, my gosh I was hanging out with everybody, I was good friends with everybody not only in my engineering building, but also with other students in other buildings at my university.  It was a pretty normal college, parties and especially a lot of projects and we helped the community also, and we helped a lot of people and had plenty of fun.

I was a full time student during that time.  And actually in the middle of his dictatorship right before Marcos declared martial law, my parents and some of my brothers and sisters already immigrated to the United States.  I stayed with my aunt and with my uncle and with my cousins in the province called Bulacan for quite a while and they were really very kind to me.  So its like they were my extended family.

I would say that when my parents were in the states and I was still in the Philippines in college, they were really quite worried cause they know how Marcos runs the government, but I assured them that nothing is going to happen to me because I’m not really involved in politics.  However, during that time we didn’t have a phone yet in our province of Bulacan so my parents and I just wrote letters to each other.  It took a while before he letters reached the states and my parents were quite worried also, but it’s a good thing nothing happened.

When my parents were still in the Philippines they had a good jobs; my dad was an engineer with cal techs, an oil refinery in the province of Batanga and my mom was a dentist.  She had her won clinic so I guess they are not that really affected by Marcos.  They had a good job during those days in the Philippines before they came to the United States.

I would say, I don’t know my parents view about him, but for me both, he’s hero and a villain.  Hero in a sense that he has brought some discipline to the people or rather although he scared the people into obeying the law and during that time the Philippines had a good economy although you can see that these people in the government are acquiring much wealth because of corruption and briberies, but although I can see the poor remains poor and some became poorer and the rich became richer if they are connected to people in politics.  So during that time there was progress made in something’s that made him a villain because he stole from the people so which is why he has a lot of wealth even his children nowadays, that is the people’s money.

A curfew was enforced when martial law was declared.  And as I remember it, during around 7 p.m. people should stay in their houses and you were only allowed to leave for work the next day.  Curfew was only during the martial law.

The only thing I got involved with was during the last part of his dictatorship.  You would say during the uprising, I joined them a little bit, but when my parents got scared of this they asked me to join them in the United States and so that anything bad might not happen to me.  I wanted to avoid it so I joined them in the United States.

I guess that positive outcomes is just not that much regardless of the economy of the Philippines.  Because when corruption really reached the peak in the eighties much of the people in the Philippines are already in poverty and the rich people became richer and Marcos was really getting old and it looks like Imelda Marcos had more influence on his decisions other than himself.  So the last ten years of his rule were really a negative outlook regarding the economy and the people of the Philippines.

When I finally came to the U.S. it was more a decision of my parents because they want me to be safe.  I can understand that parents, they don’t want any harm to happen to their children.  So it’s more of their decision for me to come to the United States and join them, which I’m glad.  At least were together as a family so that’s what happened.

Jeffrey Salvador