21/09/2026
𝐔𝐏 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐚’𝐬 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟓𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐚𝐰
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔: 𝑯𝒂𝒂𝒏 𝑷𝒖𝒍𝒐𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕𝒊 𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆.
54 years ago today, on September 21, 1972, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. signed Proclamation No. 1081, plunging the Philippines into the darkest depths of state fascism and subjecting Filipinos to widespread terror. Under the Marcos dictatorship, an estimated 70,000 people were unjustly imprisoned, 34,000 systematically tortured, and over 3,200 murdered between 1972 and 1981 alone [1]. Despite these statistics, the numbers fail to include the gravity and scale of thousands of undocumented martyrs, the desaparecidos who never surfaced, and the silenced histories of marginalized communities buried under a violent and fascist regime.
As youth of the North and members of UP Namnama, we remain stern in rejecting the fabricated myth of a Marcosian “Golden Era” and the enduring, bloodstained propaganda of a “Solid North.” The North was never completely subdued, nor was it ever solidly behind the dictator; instead, the Northern Philippines was and continues to be in the forefront of resistance against fascism, corruption, and state violence.
UP Namnama is bound to this legacy of defiance. Founded in 1974 at the height of Martial Law, UPN emerged from the socio-political upheaval of the mass movement. Establishing a political confraternity of Ilokanos, our founding members opposed the fascist regime, rejecting Marcos Sr.’s attempt to weaponize our regional identity to justify tyranny. Today, we remember our founding members who actively participated in mass demonstrations against the dictatorship alongside peasants, workers, and fellow youth, prompting their unlawful detention by the Marcos military apparatus.
When we look back at the Martial Law period, we remember the blood of Ilocano and Cordilleran martyrs who gave their lives to the national democratic struggle. We remember Fr. Zacarias Agatep, an Ilocano parish priest in Ilocos Sur who organized to***co farmers against exploitative local monopolies, leading to his assassination by state forces in 1982 [2]. We remember the Palabay brothers, Armando and Romulo, from La Union, a Marcos stronghold. They resisted the dictatorship, suffered horrific torture at Camp Olivas, and dedicated their lives to mass organizing among the Tinggians in Abra [3]. We also honor the historic Cordillera mass movement, where Igorot communities defended their ancestral domains against the Marcos regime’s Chico River Basin Development Project [4]. The state’s response was rampant militarization and the assassination of community leaders like Kalinga elder Macli-ing Dulag. These resolute indigenous and peasant struggles in the North are parts of history that defy the illusion of a peaceful “Solid North.”
Today, the nightmare of the dictatorship reawakens under Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte, who perpetuate the bloody legacies of their fathers. Their US-backed fascist regime employs similar tactics of state terror: relentless red-tagging, forced disappearances, and militarization of indigenous and rural communities to protect foreign monopoly capitalism.
Just as his father’s Chico River Dam venture sought to dispossess Igorots of their land, Marcos Jr.’s Pax Silica project, a 1,620-hectare US-led AI hub in New Clark City, now wants to displace Aetas and plunder their ancestral domain in Capas, Tarlac [5]. The deployment of state forces to enforce such displacement turns IP lands into militarized zones of corporate greed. From the Aetas of Tarlac to the Ilokanos, and Igorots of Cordillera, the state apparatus serves only to protect foreign capital and the ruling elite at the deadly expense of indigenous peoples.
Rooted in the anti-fascist struggle, UP Namnama vows to ensure that the North remembers and resists. The true Ilokano spirit lies not in subservience to tyrants, but in the relentless pursuit of genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, and human rights alongside the Indigenous Peoples, the peasantry, and the working class.
