Calamba, officially the City of Calamba, is a 1st class component city in the province of Laguna, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 539,671 people making it the largest city in the province. The city is applying for a Highly Urbanized City (HUC).
The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) is a nationwide organization of human rights lawyers in the Philippines. It was founded in 1974 by Sen. Jose W. Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, J.B.L. Reyes, and Joker Arroyo during the martial law era under former President Ferdinand Marcos. It is the first and largest group of human rights lawyers established in the nation. They work on countering varied abuses against human rights and civil liberties. Its current chairman since 2003 is human rights attorney Chel Diokno, the founding dean of the De La Salle University Tañada-Diokno School of Law.
The Bantayog ng mga Bayani, sometimes simply referred to as the Bantayog, is a monument, museum, and historical research center in Quezon City, Philippines, which honors the martyrs and heroes of the struggle against the dictatorship of 10th President Ferdinand Marcos.
Student activism in the Philippines from 1965 to 1972 played a key role in the events which led to Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law in 1972, and the Marcos regime's eventual downfall during the events of the People Power Revolution of 1986.
The Southern Tagalog 10 was a group of activists abducted and "disappeared" in 1977 during martial law in the Philippines under Proclamation No. 1081 issued by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Of the 10 university students and professors who were abducted, only three, Virgilio Silva, Salvador Panganiban, and Modesto Sison, "surfaced" later after being killed by suspected agents of the state. Two of those who surfaced were apparently summarily executed. The rest were never found.
Benjamín Roberto "Behn" Holcombe Cervantes was a Filipino artist and activist. He was highly regarded as a theater pioneer, teacher, and progressive thinker who was detained multiple times during martial law in the Philippines.
Antonio Maria "Tony" Onrubia Nieva was a Filipino journalist, union organizer, and activist. He worked to defend press freedom and the rights of workers, and campaigned to end authoritarian rule in the Philippines. He led the National Press Club as president and founded the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. He was secretary general of the International Organization of Journalists based in Prague, Czech Republic, from 1995 up to the time of his death in 1997. His name is on the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Wall of Remembrance, for his contributions to the fight against injustices of the dictatorship under President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
Religious sector opposition against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos included leaders and workers belonging to different beliefs and denominations.
The dictatorship of 10th Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s and 1980s is historically remembered for its record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against his dictatorship. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 737 'disappeared', and 70,000 incarcerations.
During the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino workers in the labor industry experienced the effects of government corruption, crony capitalism, and cheap labor for foreign transnational industries, One of the objectives of Martial Law was to cheapen labor costs, in order to attract transnational corporations to export labor to the Philippines. Marcos signed many presidential decrees beneficial only to his associates, while allowing for the forced relocation of indigenous peoples, decreasing workers' wages, and murders of labor activists. Minimum wage was a fixed PHP8.00 per day. Many workers were unemployed or underemployed. It was also during the Marcos presidency when the practice of contractualization began, enabling managements to avoid giving regular, permanent status to employees after six months of work. Strikes were banned and the government controlled trade unions, leaving workers without effective protection against employers who had unfair labor practices and regulations.
Alexander "Alex" Orcullo was a Filipino journalist, community leader, and activist known for speaking against the abuses of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and for being a seminal figure of the protest movement against the Marcos dictatorship in Mindanao, Philippines.
Captain Danilo Poblete Vizmanos, PN, Ret. was a Filipino activist and retired captain of the Philippine Navy. He is best known for his resistance against the Martial Law regime of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. On November 30, 2016, Vizmanos' name was engraved on the Wall of Remembrance of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.
Jessica Mendez Sales was a college professor and community organizer in the Philippines who disappeared during martial law under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. She was a founder of the university chapter of the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Aloysius “Ochie” Ureta Baes was a Filipino chemist, environmentalist, pro-democracy activist, educator and musician.
Mariani Cuevas Dimaranan,, also known as Sister Mariani, was a Catholic nun and activist in the Philippines who fought against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
Joanna Patricia Kintanar Cariño is a Filipina human rights activist, educator, researcher, and co-founder of the Cordillera People's Alliance (CPA), SELDA Northern Luzon and SANDUGO.
Armando "Mandrake" Ducusin Palabay was a Filipino student leader and activist from San Fernando, La Union. He is best known for his work in organizing anti-Marcos campaigns during the first quarter storm and the early days of Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. He was killed for the anti-Marcos cause while doing community work among the indigenous Tingguian people of Sallapadan, Abra, in 1974, and was honored in 2001 by having his name inscribed on the Wall of the Remembrance at the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought the dictatorship.
The murder of Francisco Laurella, Fernando Pastor Sr., and Fernando Pastor Jr. in Cabarroguis, Quirino on February 8, 1986, were three of numerous violent incidents associated with the Philippines' snap presidential elections of 1986. Quirino province assemblyman Orlando Dulay, who was the provincial coordinator of the Ferdinand Marcos' political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was caught and found guilty of the murders in 1990.
Maria Leticia Quintina Jimenez Pascual-Ladlad, also known by her nickname Tish, was a student journalist at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) during the Marcos dictatorship, known for being the first woman editor-in-chief of the Aggie Green and Gold, for her community organizing work among farmers in Laguna and Quezon, and for being the first UPLB student to become a desaparecido during the Martial Law regime.
Historians estimate that there were about 70,000 individuals incarcerated by the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the period between his 1972 declaration of Martial Law until he was removed from office by the 1986 People Power Revolution. This included students, opposition politicians, journalists, academics, and religious workers, aside from known activists. Those who were captured were referred to as "political detainees," rather than "political prisoners," with the technical definitions of the former being vague enough that the Marcos administration could continue to hold them in detention without having to be charged.
