A History of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines

A narrative statement of Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, SFIC
(Sr. Mariani's narrative statement was originally created on 1990 and was published in the book "Mariani, A Woman of a Kind" on December 2001. Sr Mariani has been the Chairperson of TFDP from April 1974 to September 1996. She was the honorary Chairperson of TFDP until her death in 2005.)

Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, SFIC. File photo from the Museum of Courage and Resistance

My name is Sr. Mariani Dimaranan. I am 65 years old, a citizen of the Philippines, residing in Quezon City, Philippines, and a member of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, I have been asked by the plaintiff’s counsel to testify regarding torture, summary execution and disappearance in the Philippines between September 1972 and February 1986.

I am an educator by training, I received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Santo Tomas in 1952, a Masters degree in Education from De La Salle University in 1970 and I am currently completing a Masters degree in Theology at the Maryknoll School of Theology in Ossining, New York. Prior to the 1970’s, I was Registrar and head of the Social Sciences Department at St. Joseph’s College. In 1974-1975, I was Dean of Our Lady of the Angels Seminary in Novaliches.

Following Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law in September 1972, I became deeply involved in the documentation of human rights’ abuses in the Philippines. As a member of the Catholic Church, I began visiting political detainees incarcerated in military camps in the Metro Manila Area. In October 1973, I was arrested and detained in a prison camp by the Philippine military on the alleged ground that my activities were subversive. During my incarceration, I was interrogated and I learned, first hand, about the large number of persons detained as well as the fact that many had been tortured by the Philippine military. Because the press was both censored and controlled by Marcos, almost no information was publicly available on the number of persons arrested by the military or the abuses they endured after arrest. The Catholic Church was virtually the only institution in the Philippines not controlled by Marcos at that time. Based on conditions observed and information collected by Church workers like myself, the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) conducted survey in September 1973 on the effects of Martial Law on farmers and the poor, including torture and detention. The survey showed an alarming number of human rights abuses.

Sr. Mariani visiting political detainees. File photo from Museum of Courage and Resistance

As a result of the survey, a group now known as Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) was formed by the AMRSP in January 1974 to investigate human rights’ abuses and, where possible, to intervene with the military to release detainees. I was elected chairperson in 1975 and continued in that position until mid-1990. During that period, I worked full-time for TFDP. I was chairperson of TFDP’s Board of Trustees. TFDP was the first Filipino human rights group dedicated solely to investigating human rights’ abuses. It could operate under Martial Law because it was under the protective umbrella of the Catholic Church. TFDP collected information from Churches of all denominations, from relatives of detainees, from detainees themselves and from many other sources. As a result of my experience with Philippine human rights matters, I have lectured frequently in the Philippines and abroad on human rights abuses. I am a Board Member of several organizations in the Philippines and am a Founder and first Chairperson of Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, a coalition of human rights organizations in the Philippines.

I would like to tell you about how TFDP operated between 1974 and 1986. Martial Law was in effect in the Philippines and there were laws against demonstrations and rallies and printing of statements, critical of the government of Marcos. TFDP decided to document and publicize human rights abuses. It was my belief that by publishing human right abuses to the outside world, I could protect present and future detainees from additional abuse. But there were many problems in documenting the abuses. Usually TFDP was notified by frantic relatives or eye witnesses that a person was seized and taken away by the military.

Locating and contacting the detainee was often difficult since incommunicado detention was the rule, and it was the biggest difficulty TFDP had to contend with. “Incommunicado” meant that the military would not permit any friend, relative or attorney to contact the detainee. Often the military would not confirm custody of the detainee, of his or her whereabouts even though we would receive information from relatives or eyewitnesses that the individual was taken away from them. Because of the large number of military camps and the various military commands, it was difficult to locate a detainee until the military admitted custody. In addition, many detainees were not taken to military camps after arrest. Instead, they were taken for interrogation to secret, non-military locations such as farm houses or apartments rented by the military. These were known as “safehouses”. Typically, detainees were held for days, weeks or even months while the military denied access to their families or that they had the detainees in custody. It was my practice to appeal to military commanders to confirm the custody and location of detainees and demand access to them.

Even after the military admitted holding a person, the family or TFDP had difficulty getting to see him/her.

When we did get access, we did the documentation process. Virtually, all detainees had been interrogated by the military before I or other TFDP representatives met with them. Not every detainee was tortured, but torture during interrogation was common and the military had a term for this known as “tactical interrogation”. Various types or torture were routinely employed. Beatings were the most common form of torture. Detainees, while their hands were tied and frequently blindfolded, were punched, kicked and hit with the butt of rifles. Often, their heads were banged against the wall or floor. Another method of torture was called the “telephone”. The detainee’s ears were clapped simultaneously producing a ringing in the detainee’s ears. Bullets were inserted between the fingers of the hand and were squeezed. Two types of water torture were common. The “wet submarine” submerged the head of a detainee in a toilet full of excrement. The “water cure” consisted of placing a cloth over the face of a detainee who was lying face up and water was continuously poured over the cloth. The effect was to cause the detainee to inhale or swallow water when he tried to breathe. It gave a sensation of drowning. A “dry submarine” placed the detainee’s head in a plastic bag to suffocate him/her. Cigarette burns on the detainee’s body were also common. Detainees’ hands were used as ashtrays. Sometimes the detainees were often stripped and sexually molested or raped, sometimes by multiple soldiers. It was not uncommon for detainees to be forced to stand naked before an air conditioner or sit on a block of ice. This induced pneumonia and also aggravated tuberculosis, a common disease in the Philippines. Though less common, truth serum was also injected into some detainees.

Electric shock torture was also used by the military. Electrodes were attached to sensitive parts of the body or extremities such as breasts, genitals, fingers or toes. The electric shock was often generated by cranking a standard-issue military field telephone. When former U. S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, was in the Philippines in August 1977, TFDP gave him the location of a room in a military camp where detainees had been tortured by electric shock. In his tour of that camp, he forced his way into the room and photographed the field telephone with electrodes attached to it and a metal chair nearby.

Frequently, detainees were subjected to multiple forms of torture. At Christmas, 1974, I visited Cenon Zembrano at Camp Olivas in Pampanga. He had been arrested by the military two weeks earlier. He had been beaten and given electric shocks. When I saw him, there were cigarette burns on his face, hands and chest and scars from electric shocks on his hands and around his eyes. The sole of one foot was blackened with burns from a flat iron. He could not walk.

In 1976, I documented the torture of Elena Ang who was arrested on her way to Church by military intelligence. They tortured her with beatings, sexual molestation, water cure and repeated sessions of electric shock. She was made to drink water to intensify the pain.

In 1982, I visited Boy Morales at Camp Bago Bantay. He had been arrested and tactically interrogated for weeks by the military who employed beatings, the water cure, electric shock. He was also placed dripping wet in front of an air conditioner.

Psychological torture was very common. The barrel of pistols and rifles were stuck in a detainee’s mouth or put to his heads or genitals. With the “Russian Roulette”, a single bullet was placed in a revolver and the pistol trigger was pulled while aimed at the detainee. In the San Juanico Bridge, a detainee was forced to support himself with his shoulder on one chair and his feet on another. If he slumped, he was beaten. In other instances, detainees were driven to remote locations by armed soldiers and told to escape only to be shot. In addition, there were verbal threats made during the tactical interrogation that the detainee would be salvaged or disappear. “Salvaging” was a term for secret summary execution of a detainee by the military. It meant saving the information and disposing of the body. “Disappearance” occurred when a person arrested by the military and was never seen or heard from again. TFDP’s emphasis on obtaining access to detainees as soon as possible after the arrest was intended to prevent salvaging and disappearance.

TFDP began documenting these abuses in 1975 in the Greater Manila Area where about one-sixth of the country’s population lived. TFDP gradually expanded its operations to all major regions of the Philippines because of the large number of requests for help. By 1986, TFDP had 65 local offices and four regional offices, all coordinated through the head office in Quezon City, which is in the Greater Manila Area.

I placed a great emphasis on visiting detainees, and I personally visited over 100 military detention facilities. Especially in the early years, I usually entered detention facilities with relatives of the detainees. I interviewed the detainees and saw their wounds.

As TFDP activities became more widely known and I became more recognizable, I was sometimes denied access to certain detention camps or to specific detainees. TFDP also collected information from family members or eyewitnesses, especially in cases of suspected salvaging and disappearance, to document the military unit that arrested the individuals. Sometimes, our information about arrest came from persons who were arrested but managed to escape. In addition to documenting abuses, TFDP also tried to assist detainees in getting medical attention, legal assistance and release from custody. Some detainees were held for months or years without formal charges or active prosecution after they were charged.

In 1976, TFDP published its first book entitled Political Detainees in the Philippines describing the ordeals and case histories of persons who were tortured, salvaged or disappeared. Because printing and publishing were closely controlled by the military under Martial Law, the book had to be printed secretly. TFDP distributed the book in the Philippines and to other countries, to the United Nations, foreign embassies, different religious groups and international human rights’ organizations. In 1977, TFDP published its second and third book under the same title, Political Detainees of the Philippines, chronicling torture, summary execution and disappearance in that year. In 1980 and 1986, TFDP published two more books under the title Pumipiglas. Loosely translated from Filipino, Pumipiglas means “struggling to be free”. Each of the books contained a commentary on the type of human rights’s abuses being committed, identified some of the more notorious military units responsible, and gave statements or case histories of specific individuals. Both were distributed in the Philippines, internationally to human rights’ groups, embassies and to the United States.

TFDP compiled statistics of torture, summary executions and disappearances for the period, October 1972 to February 1986. The statistics for 1972, 1973 and 1974 are partial since TFDP only started in 1974. Torture statistics for 1975 and 1976 were not compiled.

Sr. Mariani showing photos of victims of human rights violations. 

The statistics show that there were at least 5,531 instances of torture by the military and para-military units between October 1972 and December 1985. On the average, over 500 people were tortured each year from 1977 to 1985. Although TFDP’s compilations for the years September 1972 to 1976 are incomplete, very large numbers of persons were arrested for political offenses: over 6,000 in the last three months of 1972, over 29,000 in 1973, over 19,000 in 1974, over 9,000 in 1975 and over 5, 000 in 1976. The arrest figures for those years were obtained from the unit of the Philippine Military which was responsible for the custody of detainees. Political offenders’ arrest-statistics for 1977 also came from the military. For the other years, arrest statistics were compiled by TFDP. Based on my knowledge and experience as a detainee and in documenting torture most of those years, it is my opinion that at least 500 people were tortured annually between 1972 and 1976.

The torture statistics reflect documented cases. Torture was often not reported because of intimidation and fear of reprisal or because of the nature of the torture, such as rape. As I stated earlier, it was common for detainees to be threatened by the reported more consistently, although TFDP did not compile statistics for the years 1975 and 1976. Tragically, the statistics show a gradual escalation of salvaging and disappearance from 1977 to 1985. Between January 1977 and February 1986, there were 2,537 summary executions and 783 disappearances.

Sometimes the disappearance of individuals, after being last seen in military custody, would result into salvaging. TFDP received information from time to time about unmarked graves. TFDP also helped relatives in exhuming salvaged victims to identify the bodies through rings, clothing or physical characteristics. This situation occurred in 1977 when six persons, including Bong Sison, were exhumed from a public cemetery in Quezon Province and were identified. They had last been seen in military custody, two weeks earlier in Metro Manila.

Based on my extensive personal participation in documenting human rights’ abuses in the Philippines between 1974 to 1986, it is my opinion that torture, summary execution and disappearance perpetrated by the Philippine military and para-military were routine, systematic and widespread. “Tactical interrogation” was common-place, and detainees were tortured singly or collectively. I documented cases were electric shock was given to detainees. In other cases, detainees were interrogated and beaten with fists and rifles. These abuses occurred in all the regions although there was greater frequency in some regions particularly in the Greater Manila Area and in Mindanao and in certain provinces like Cebu, Pampanga, Bicol, Laguna, Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental. Likewise, there was a greater frequency of abuse where the military intelligence units were involved or presidential arrest orders were issued.

It is my opinion that political dissidents are frequently the target of torture, salvaging and disappearance. Members of the Catholic clergy who were arrested were tortured, some were salvaged or disappeared. The same lot fell on journalists, students, labor leaders, and human rights lawyers who were critical of Marcos policies.