MARTIAL LAW UNDER MARCOS REGIME

1972 – 1981

On September 23rd, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced that he had placed the Philippines under martial law. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year period in which Congress was dissolved, civil and political rights were thwarted, and a one-man rule was strictly imposed. Martial law was enacted as a retaliation to civil protests incited by the Marcos administration development plans that excluded the poor and working class. While some believe this period to be a "golden age" of economic growth, military and police brutality became rampant. In a report by Amnesty International, over 100,000 people were recorded to have been victims of martial law from 1972 to 1981, 70,000 were arrested, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed by the military and the police.

"Salvage" was a new term that entered the Filipino vocabulary during after this period. It describes the brutal series of people disappearing after being picked up by military personnel, their corpses later to be found on the side of the road—beaten and tortured.