FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2025
Martial Law at 53: Marcos Jr.’s cruel déjà vu
On the 53rd anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law by Marcos Sr., Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) strongly condemns the Marcos Jr. government for subjecting the Filipino people to essentially the same agony as his father did.
It was on this day, in 1972, that Marcos Sr. proclaimed Martial Law, starting a decade long military rule. This period was marked by countless human rights violations, with thousands brutally murdered and tens of thousands facing intimidation, arrest, and torture. Its brutality has marked the survivors, the families of victims, and the entire Filipino people up to the present.
Today, in a cruel case of déjà vu, the ‘counterinsurgency’ war of suppression waged by Marcos Jr. administration has brought very similar forms of fascist violence to the Filipino people. Attacks on the revolutionary movement and the Filipino people have victimized more than 688,000 thousand.
Countless villages have been placed under de-facto martial law under the guise of the ‘Retooled Community Support Programs’. These villages are turned into hamlets, where the population faces restriction of movement, food blockades, and military surveillance. Farmers are kept from attending to their fields and livelihood. Many inhabitants face abuses by soldiers, from sexual harassment and rape against women to the red-tagging, unjust arrest and detention, torture, and murder of those arbitrarily named as terrorist.
“The daily violations of international humanitarian law and human rights committed by the Marcos Jr. government constitute a de-facto martial law, subjecting the Filipino people to hamletting, psychological warfare, intimidation, forced ‘surrenders’, abductions, extrajudicial killings, massacres, aerial bombings and shellings, among others,” said Robert Reid, chairperson of FFPS. “In reality the repression and state terrorism faced by the Filipino people is no different than those under the Marcos Sr. regime.”
In an attempt to disguise its fascism, the Marcos Jr. government tries to whitewash this de-facto martial law by claiming he’s working towards ‘peace, development, and unity’ and that his government abides by international humanitarian law. However the experience of the Filipino people, especially the countless victims, disprove this claim as a blatant lie.
Despite the attempts of Marcos to secure his rule by this violence, he is doomed to fail since the Filipino people will continue to fight for national and social liberation as long as they face the exploitation and oppression of the current system. Just like the Filipino people overthrew the rule of Marcos Sr., the Marcos Jr. government is bound to suffer the same fate.
About Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS):
Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) / Friends of the National Democratic Front (FNDF) is a global organization that supports the Filipino people’s struggle for genuine national liberation as outlined in the 12 point program of the NDF. For more information, visit https://ffps.info.
Contact: [email protected]