"Strength Comes in Numbers"--An Interview of Maria Doma
Maria Doma is fifty-five years old and living in a new peaceful free life in America. She lives with her mother and nineteen year old daughter. Maria sits in her living room vaguely remembering the tragic moments in her life in which she and her family’s actions were controlled by the government. The tragic things she experienced caused her pain and anguish. These events occurred in the Philippines. Using her vague memory of herself as a child in a poverty-stricken area, she tells a story in intricate detail of the undemocratic views of Philippines when Marcos was in rule.
Martial Law. My experience in the Philippines had taken away our freedom to speak, and it was because we were under martial law. Martial law is when you say something wrong that is forbidden in the constitution, and that the only one that can proclaim is the president. Anything you say against the government will put you in jail. This was generally for everyone. There were many policemen around, and if they see you doing something wrong, they have the ability to handcuff you and put you in jail. No words would be able to stop them from doing so. They would take you with no question if they believe you’re doing something wrong against Marcos’s rule. Although there was a bail system, you would have to raise money in order for you to get out, and sometimes if they believe you’re against Marcos they wouldn’t let you go. Of course I believed this was wrong. Like I said, we had no freedom to speak. No matter what you said, if it concerned Marcos, you know where you’re going to end up.
I never knew the difference from before Marcos because he had been our president for the past 17 years. There was no election at all. My experiences when I was in high school were there were many rallies that were against Marcos’s rule. When I was in high school, I had some classmates who went against Marcos in rallies. Not everyone liked him, but if Marcos didn’t like someone, he could order someone to get that person killed. The people rallied for freedom of speech and for other people. There were a lot of people that were killed during his time. There were no witnesses of killings, however. But this was because Marcos had control of the press. He owned most of the TV stations—almost everything. Anything you say badly about him you’re either put in jail… or dead. There were also many poor people. Poor people got poorer, and as they got poorer, the rich got richer. Most people did not like the way he ruled the country, but there were few who did like him also. Those who liked Marcos only liked him because they made money when he was president. That was all.
My experience wasn’t good because we didn’t have a good education. You can’t get a proper education if you don’t have the money. There is no free education in the Philippines. During Marcos’s time, the only free schooling was in elementary school. But when you reached high school, even if it’s a government high school, you would still have to pay. There was school support in only some areas. Not all the provinces in the Philippines had support schools. Marcos provided supplies but not in every school. In my hometown, we did not have the kind of supplies for school that they were given in other schools. I felt bad because you really didn’t get the things you needed the most.
There were many killings during Marcos’s time. Like I said, if you said something bad about Marcos and his rule, they can kill you. As I mentioned above, not everything was put on the news or on TV. Marcos controlled almost everything. I saw people being abused on the streets. They were being hit on the street, and in some rallies they will hit you with a fire hose. They can also fire guns and use a bat to hit people with. This was all under Marcos’s command.
In the 80’s people power was created to make Marcos leave the palace. Because of Ninoy Aquino, the people of the Philippines overcame the law of having no say in the government. Ninoy Aquino is the person people wanted to be president of the Philippines, and so he came back for the presidential election. As soon as he stepped out from the airplane, somebody shot him. I don’t remember how many times, but more than five times. He was dead on the spot. That’s how people’s power began. People were so angry because they knew that Marcos had hired someone to kill him. People woke up on that day, “we need to stop this, and we need to stop Marcos from this.” The people of the Philippines became the leaders of the country and stopped Marcos’s rule.
Marcos invested the money of the Philippines and put it in a bank in Switzerland. It is where he put most of his money for investment buying houses from different countries, especially here in America. He put them in the names of different people so others wouldn’t know that he has so many properties, but they found out eventually. This affected a lot of people because there are a lot of poor people in the Philippines. A lot of people don’t even have food on their tables. Like I said, the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. This was all because Marcos was involved in taking money from the government.
As a child, I thought what Marcos did was wrong. But I liked him as a president because people were scared of him. The reason why they were sacred was because you can’t just carry a gun on the street because if you’re caught with one, you’re going to end up in jail. They’re scared of Marcos. Like what I said, you cannot just do anything during his rule. There are a lot of rules that you need to follow during his time. My experience in the Philippines helped me cope with hardships in America because it was harder back then. I guess that it was a good and a bad thing that I lived a poor life in the Philippines during Marcos’s time.
Interviewed by: Evan Mangubat