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.
Most of these political detainees were arrested without warrant, and detained without charges; 11,103 of them have been officially recognized by the Philippine government as having been tortured and abused. They were held in the various military camps in the capital - there were five detention centers in Camp Crame, the three detention centers in Camp Bonifacio, and the New Bilibid Prisons and a detention center in Bicutan all held a large number of prisoners. In addition, there were about 80 detention centers in the provinces, as well as various undocumented military "safehouses" located throughout the Philippines. Four provincial camps were designated as Regional Command for Detainees (RECAD) - Camp Olivas (RECAD I) in Pampanga in Central Luzon; Camp Vicente Lim (RECAD II) in Laguna in Southern Luzon; Camp Lapulapu (RECAD III) in Cebu in the Visayas; and Camp Evangelista (RECAD IV) in Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao.
Volunteers by the Roman Catholic Church-established Task Force Detainees of the Philippines initially took it upon themselves to document the detention conditions and detainee tortures in the detention centers, and after international pressure, teams from international human rights agencies such as Amnesty International were eventually allowed to conduct their own observation missions.
Background Marcos began laying the groundwork for Martial Law as soon as he became president in 1965 by increasing his influence over the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). He established close ties with specific officers, took control of the military's day-to-day operationalization by appointing himself concurrent defense secretary in the first thirteen months of his presidency, and soon carried out the "largest reshuffle in the history of the armed forces" when he forcibly retired fourteen of the AFP's twenty-five flag officers, including the AFP Chief of Staff, the AFP Vice Chief of Staff, the commanding general of the Philippine Army, the Chief of the Philippine Constabulary, the commanders of all four Constabulary Zones, and one third of all Provincial Commanders of the PC. Professor Albert Celoza, in his 1997 book on the political economy of authoritarianism in the Philippines, notes that: "It was alleged that a plan of action [for Martial Law] had existed as early as 1965...no one opposed the plan because no one was certain that the plan would be carried out."
In May 1970, the Marcos government picked up the brothers Quintin and Rizal Yuyitung, the controversial publishers of the Chinese Commercial News who dared to question Marcos' policy with regard to Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. The brothers were deported to Taiwan, where Rizal was sentenced to jail for three years and Quintin for two years. The incident became a test case through which Marcos was able to gauge how the public would react to the jailing of journalists.
On August 21, 1971, the Plaza Miranda bombing took place, with grenades thrown into the crowd during a political rally of the Liberal Party at the Plaza Miranda in Quiapo district, Manila. Marcos immediately blamed communists for the incident, and used the bombing to justify his subsequent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, an act which would later be seen as a prelude to the declaration of Martial Law more than a year later.
At 7:15 p.m. on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced on television that he had placed the Philippines under martial law, stating he had done so in response to the "communist threat" posed by the newly founded Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the sectarian "rebellion" of the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM). This marked the beginning of a fourteen-year period of one-man rule which effectively lasted until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986.
Warrantless arrests In a document dated September 22, 2023, Marcos issued General Order No. 2 under his newly made-official Martial Law regime - a full day before he would even make the proclamation public. This gave him power to order arrests without undergoing the usual bureaucratic process, and at times the Arrest, Search and Seizure Orders (ASSO) provided were merely lists of people to be arrested.
Because prior investigation was not needed, Marcos' forces could insert names in the list of people to be arrested. Those detained were often not charged or given clear information about the status of their case.
Human rights abuses The Marcos dictatorship is historically remembered for its record of human rights abuses, and 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, and 70,000 incarcerations. Some 2,520 of the 3,257 murder victims were tortured and mutilated before their bodies were dumped in various places for the public to discover - a tactic meant to sow fear among the public, which came to be known as "salvaging." Some victims were subjected to cannibalism.
Although various human rights abuses were attributed units throughout the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) during the Marcos dictatorship, the units which became particularly notorious for regularly violating human rights abuses were the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) under B.Gen Ignacio Paz; the Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group (MISG) under the command of Col. Rolando Abadilla, and the 5th Constabulary Security Unit (5CSU) under the command of Lt. Miguel Aure. An officer of the 5CSU, 1Lt Rodolfo Aguinaldo, eventually became one of the most notorious torturers of the Marcos regime.
The 5CSU and MISG were parts of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) under then-Major General Fidel V. Ramos, a distant relative of Marcos. Both Paz and Ramos answered to Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, who was also a Marcos relative. Aside from human rights abuses, these units also hounded media entities, corporate management, and opposition groups with threats, intimidation, and violence. The PC and ISAFP were also aided in these activities by the Presidential Security Unit and the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), headed by Gen. Fabian Ver.
Detention centers Political detainees were held in the various military camps in the capital - there were five detention centers in Camp Crame, the three detention centers in Camp Bonifacio, and the New Bilibid Prisons and a detention center in Bicutan all held a large number of prisoners. In addition, there were about 80 detention centers in the provinces, as well as various undocumented military "safehouses" located throughout the Philippines. Four provincial camps were designated as Regional Command for Detainees (RECAD) - Camp Olivas (RECAD I) in Pampanga in Central Luzon; Camp Vicente Lim (RECAD II) in Laguna in Southern Luzon; Camp Lapulapu (RECAD III) in Cebu in the Visayas; and Camp Evangelista (RECAD IV) in Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao.
Camp Crame
As the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, Camp Crame also became the site of five of the Marcos regime's most infamous detention facilities for political prisoners: the Men's Detention Center; the Women's Detention Center, the PC (Philippine Constabulary) Stockade; the MetroCom (Metropolitan Command) Detention Area (RECAD 6); and the CIS (Criminal Investigation Service) Detention Area.
Camp Crame was also the site of the Command for the Administration of Detainees (CAD or COMCAD), headed by PC Chief Fidel V. Ramos, which was the agency in charge of giving orders for the arrest and detention of the Marcos regime's political prisoners.
Camp Crame also played the most prominent role in the first batches of arrests during Martial Law. In the hours just before Martial Law was officially announced on the evening of September 23, 1972, the Camp Crame Gymnasium became the site where the first hundred or so political prisoners - those caught from a list of about 400 journalists, educators, politicians, and others on a list of "National List of Target Personalities" who were labeled "subversives" because they had openly criticized Ferdinand Marcos - were brought before they were moved to other facilities such as Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija or the various detention centers in Fort Bonifacio.
The prisoners brought to Camp Crame included former President Sergio Osmeña's son Sergio Osmeña III, Senators Soc Rodrigo and Ramon Mitra Jr., businessman Eugenio Lopez Jr., teacher Etta Rosales, lawyer Haydee Yorac, and a plethora of writers and broadcasters including Amando Doronila of the Daily Mirror, Luis Mauricio of the Philippine Graphic, Teodoro Locsin Sr. of the Philippines Free Press, Rolando Fadul of Taliba, Robert Ordoñez of the Philippine Herald, Rosalinda Galang of the Manila Times; Ernesto Granada of the Manila Chronicle, Maximo Soliven of the Manila Times, and Luis Beltran and Ruben Cusipag of the Evening News. These early detainees even included eleven opposition delegates from the 1971 Constitutional Convention, including Heherson Alvarez, Alejandro Lichuaco, Voltaire Garcia, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Philippines Free Press associate editor Napoleon Rama, and broadcaster Jose Mari Velez. The Gymnasium facilities were later used as a permanent detention facility, known as the Men's Detention Center.
The PC Stockade is noted as the place where the first death of a student while under government detention took place: Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila Communication Arts student Liliosa Hilao, who had been brutally tortured before she died.
Others who were detained in Camp Crame at different times during the Marcos dictatorship were writers Luis R. Mauricio and Ninotchka Rosca, Obet Verzola, Dolores Stephens Feria, Boni Ilagan, and Pete Lacaba, among others.
Fort Bonifacio
When martial law was declared in 1972, Fort Bonifacio became the host of three detention centers full of political prisoners: the Ipil Reception Center (sometimes called the Ipil Detention Center), a higher security facility called the Youth Rehabilitation Center (YRC), and the Maximum Security Unit where Senators Jose W. Diokno and Benigno Aquino Jr. were detained.
Ipil was the largest prison facility for political prisoners during martial law. Among the prisoners held there were some of the country's leading academics, creative writers, journalists, and historians including Butch Dalisay, Ricky Lee, Bienvenido Lumbera, Jo Ann Maglipon, Ninotchka Rosca, Zeus Salazar, and William Henry Scott. After Fort Bonifacio was privatized, the area in which Ipil was located became the area near S&R and MC Home Depot at 32nd Street and 8th Avenue in Bonifacio Global City.