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.
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.
Rizalina "Lina" Parabuac Ilagan was an anti-martial law activist who belonged to a network of community organizations in the Southern Tagalog region 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.
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.
Edgar Catacutan Ang Sinco was a student activist from the University of Mindanao (UM) in Davao City who was active in the years immediately prior to Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law. He was shot down while giving a speech in front of the University' Main building on February 16, 1971 – one of several students gunned down during the events of the First Quarter Storm, but the first from the city of Davao. As such, he is considered Davao City's first martyr in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.
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.
Rogelio Concepcion Morales was a Filipino master mariner, educator, Navy captain, and activist best known for his role in the transformation of the Nautical School of the Philippines/Philippine Nautical School into the modern-day Philippine Merchant Marine Academy, and for his activism to promote the rights of Filipino seafarers, which led him to become the president of various advocacy societies and unions through the 1950s and 1960s, and to become founder of the Concerned Seamen of the Philippines (CSP) in 1983.
Rev. Magnifico Libre Osorio was a Filipino Methodist Pastor and human rights advocate best known for championing the rights of Indigenous people in the province of Palawan and his murder during the waning days of Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship in the Philippines. He was not known to have political affiliations nor leanings, but his humanitarian work and the circumstances of his murder have led him to be considered a martyr of the resistance against the dictatorship, and his name is inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City.
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.
David Triunfante Bueno was a Filipino human rights lawyer and radio show host from Ilocos Norte, best known his work as the most prominent human rights lawyer in Ilocos Norte during the later part of the Marcos administration and the early part of the succeeding Aquino administration. He was a member of the prestigious group called the Free Legal Assistance Group or FLAG, the oldest and largest group of human rights lawyers in the country.
Soledad Nacional Salvador was a religious worker and activist in the Philippines who fought against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
Jacobo Sybico Amatong was a Filipino lawyer, politician, and newspaper publisher from the province of Zamboanga del Norte. He was best known for founding the Mindanao Observer, a community newspaper which became well-known for criticizing the martial law administration of Ferdinand Marcos, and for being assassinated by uniformed soldiers on September 24, 1984.
Zorro Campos Aguilar was a Dipolog-based Filipino human rights lawyer, activist, and newspaper editor best known for his work with the Free Legal Assistance Group, and the Zamboanga del Norte chapter of the Coalition for Restoration of Democracy (CORD).
Indigenous people’s resistance against the Marcos dictatorship varied from case to case among the various indigenous peoples of the Philippines. The most documented cases are the various resistance movements towards the Marcos administration’s appropriation of indigenous lands, particularly in the case of the Chico River Dam Project and the Manila Water Supply III project on the Kaliwa River watershed, and the birth of the various separatist groups and their coalescing into the Moro conflict in the wake of news about the Jabidah Massacre.
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.
