The well-documented cases of Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi are concrete evidence of rights violations during Marcos’ rule
Every July 11, I always remember that on this day in 1985
Redemptorist priest Fr. Rudy Romano was forcibly taken by armed men
while riding his motorcycle in Labangon, Cebu City. On the same day
student activist Rolan Levi Ybanez also involuntarily disappeared in
Sanciangco St., Cebu City. Local and international interventions to
demand their return proved futile.
Asked about his last
recollection of Fr. Rudy, Reverend Father Ramon Fruto, who served as the
vicar to the Vice-Provincial Superior of the Redemptorists in Visayas
and Mindanao and who later became the Vice-Provincial Superior,
recalled: “My fellow Redemptorist priest, Fr. Rudy Romano, was fixing
the lock of one of our doors in our Cebu monastery when I last chatted
with him on July 11, 1985. Before he could finish this task, he got a
phone call that he was needed at a meeting. He left at once. I presumed
that the meeting had to do with another of his tasks of ‘fixing,’ this
time not some lock but some obstacles hindering the progress of society.
“Fr.
Rudy was not just an amateur mechanic, but by profession, a missionary
sent to bring good news to the poor. He left on his motorcycle. That
was the last time I saw him. When he did not appear for Mass, we got
worried, for he never missed Mass. On inquiry, we found out that at an
intersection along his route, he had been stopped by a group of men,
forced into a car and carried off to a place we knew not where.”
Etched in my memory was my personal experience of being part of a
mass arrest of protesters in front of Camp Sergio Osmena in Cebu City.
We were demanding the release of Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi. Together with
my colleagues in the Visayas Secretariat of Social Action and many
other activists, I was arrested and brought to Camp Sotero Cabahug in
Cebu City. We were released around 1am when the late Ricardo Cardinal
Vidal intervened. Every day, we joined huge rallies for more than two
months to demand the release of Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi. But our
collective efforts miserably failed to surface the two human rights
defenders, whose noble intention was to work hard to heal society of its
ills.
These two cases of enforced disappearances, which to this
date remain unresolved, occurred against the catastrophic landscape of
harsh repression during the Marcos dictatorship.
With the
election of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the Philippines has just
entered a new era of its history 50 years after the imposition of
martial law by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Senior. On the eve of
the 37th anniversary of Rolan Levi’s enforced disappearance, his brother Xcy Ybanez reflected:
“Since
Ferdinand Marcos Sr., there have already been many presidents from
Corazon Aquino to Rodrigo Duterte. There has never been any thorough
investigation to identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable for
violating human rights. All the more, we did not hope that Duterte
could give justice to victims of human rights violations because of his
anti-human rights policy. Now Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the president, we
have all the more lost hope that we can attain justice for the
disappearance of Levi and many other victims.”
Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi are among hundreds of desaparecidos who
disappeared during the dark years of martial law and sadly during
succeeding administrations. Victims of enforced disappearance, the
cruelest form of human rights violation, both are a testament to the
tyranny of the dark years of the Marcos regime. Their tragic stories
are a stark contrast to the so-called “golden years of peace and
prosperity” of the Marcos-imposed authoritarian rule.
“These
well-documented cases of Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi are concrete evidence
of the violations of human rights during Marcos’ rule. What happened to
real people is not hearsay. These are true stories that should never be
forgotten and should never be repeated,” Christian Buenafe, O'Carm said.
It
has been 11 days since Marcos Jr. assumed the presidency on June 30 at
the National Museum of Fine Arts. Just a few hours prior to his
oathtaking, another oathtaking of a thousand martial law survivors at
the Monument of Heroes was conducted. The names of Fr. Rudy and Rolan
Levi are among the hundreds inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance within
the huge compound of the Monument of Heroes.
The first-ever
face-to-face gathering that I attended since the start of the pandemic,
the event was a reunion of martial law survivors — both the victims and
those who fought hard for the restoration of democracy.
Led by
two martial law survivors, former member of the House of Representatives
and former chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights Loretta Ann
Rosales and renowned playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker Bonifacio
Ilagan, the martial law survivors made the following vow:
“We who
fought during the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 to 1986, along with our
allies, in response to the Marcos forces to distort Philippine history,
confirm that the so-called golden years of the reign of Ferdinand
Marcos Sr. were the darkest years in contemporary Philippine history.
“We
now declare our position that sitting as president will not absolve you
[Marcos Jr.] of historical responsibility; that the Marcos family must
admit the robbery committed and must return what was stolen to proper
authorities and that unity is based on justice; that the incumbent
president must recognize the bitterness that martial law inflicted on
the victims, on those killed and on all those who sacrificed — those who
have already died and those who are still here on the face of the
earth.
“So, on this day, we who have suffered and survived the
repression and violence of martial law vow to continue to sacrifice our
lives to destroy the distortions and lies that have been widely created
and spread in favor of the candidacy of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.”
The
oath ended with a pledge to block all attempts to distort history and
with a prayer for guidance from the Almighty. An almost vanishing
generation, the survivors of martial law have passed the torch to the
younger generation who were bequeathed the responsibility of continuing
the struggle they had started. If the devastation of martial law
declared by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. 50 years ago continues to
affect the lives of millions, the next six years or longer are feared to
further bring down the Philippines to utter perdition.
On my way
home, I could hear the proclamation speech of Marcos Jr. Claiming to
have the biggest political mandate ever in Philippine democracy,
president Marcos Jr. stated: “By your vote, you rejected the politics of
division.” He repeatedly uttered the word unity in his speech, stating
that he listened to the people’s voices calling for unity, unity, unity.
“I
am here not to talk about the past. I am here to tell you about your
future. A future of sufficiency, even plenty of readily available ways
and means to get things done that need doing — by you, by me. We do not
look back, but ahead. Up the road that we must take to a place better
than the one we lost in the pandemic,” he said.
The promise of a
bright future with a deliberate intention to obliterate the past ignores
the sufferings of victims of human rights violations, like Fr. Rudy and
Rolan Levi and their families. Memory has a special place at the core
of justice. It is society's duty to keep victims of human rights
violations from the oblivion of forgetting. Truth, memory and justice go
together. With the first official presidential speech opting to forget
the dark night of repression and resistance, enforced disappearances
like that of Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi, and other equally abominable forms
of human rights violations are doomed to be repeated.
In his
speech, Marcos Jr. selectively mentioned the past — the so-called
glorious past. “My father built more and better roads. Produced more
rice than all administrations before his. President Rodrigo Duterte
built more and better than all the succeeding administrations succeeding
my father’s.”
No matter how colorfully the Marcos administration
manicures the dark night of martial law through historical distortion,
martial law survivors are strong in their resolve to tell their stories
so that the generations of tomorrow will never endure the same
sufferings that they experienced. Xzy Ybanez is committed to continuing
the search for truth and justice for the enforced disappearance of his
brother. And so do many other survivors of a very dark part of our
history that should never ever be repeated.
Today, it has been 37
long years of searching, struggling and praying that one day, truth and
justice about Fr. Rudy and Rolan Levi’s enforced disappearances will
emerge victorious.
Fr. Fruto, in his reflection on today’s
anniversary of his brother priest's disappearance further shared: “As
Redemptorists, we are called to continue the Redeemer’s work of
evangelizing, of bringing good news to the poor.
"Fr. Rudy knew
that the poor of today are not just poor because they lack the basic
needs of life. They are poor because they are deprived, and deprived
because they live under oppression. This realization is echoed in the
Church’s encyclical, Gaudium et Spes, in the documents of the
Latin American Church and the Asian Bishops’ Conference, and in our own
Second Plenary Council’s Acta. This is the spirit that animated and
inspired Fr. Rudy to take the side of the poor, deprived and oppressed
at great risk to his personal safety under an oppressive martial law
regime.”
Fr. Rudy, Rolan Levi and many other desaparecidos
dreamed and worked for a society free from poverty and injustice.
Wherever they are now, with many other heroes and martyrs, their hearts
must be bleeding to see a Philippines whose present leaders admit
nothing of the wrongs committed to society during martial law. Such
admission is a basic step to dignifying the victims of
atrocities. Without admission, remorse is impossible. Without remorse,
there can be no genuine reconciliation. Thus, the repeated call for
unity can never be forced.
In the present context of Philippine
history, paying tribute to Fr. Rudy, Rolan Levi and thousands of other
victims of the authoritarian Marcos regime necessitates that, in
whatever ways possible, we continue their unfinished journey towards the
establishment of God’s Kingdom here on earth.
*The views
expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
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