Covering the News during Martial Law Years
Toronto-Canada
August 28, 2021
Working in a newspaper during those early years of martial law in the 70s was not so complicated and fearsome; all the papers had to do was publish "positive stories" about the workings of government and country-- and follow Malacañang's directives.
I remember the early days of our newspaper's operation--The Times Journal-- and we as employees were very well cared for by the paper's big boss, Gov. Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, the brother-in-law of former President Marcos.
Our salaries were relatively good, plus we had our Christmas and anniversary bonuses; we could quickly get company loans for our children's tuition, payable through salary deductions. We did our work well, without worrying about living under martial law-- right in the office, we never talked about martial law.
However, we knew how the paper operated during the initial years of martial law with the ubiquitous presence of censors who checked the newspaper's contents before publication. The editors themselves had to exercise self-censorship, fully knowing what they could publish under their care.
Eventually, these military censors were nowhere in sight because the editors became more adaptable; the unwritten rule at that time was that the paper could publish anything under the sun except negative stories about President Marcos and the First Family.
Since there were not enough political stories to publish, this situation gave rise to the birth of the "People's Journal," a tabloid sold at 15 Cents a copy. These tabloids were selling like hotcakes—and with some eye-catching headlines about "Don Pepe," "Ben Tumbling,."
The paper's top brass, led by Gus Villanueva, came up with the idea that publishing crime stories, sports news, and showbiz were more acceptable and safer than writing about politics.
During the martial law years, there were some attempts to organize a union, but with the advent of the EDSA Revolution, we then closed ranks once again and successfully formed a labour union.
And that was the time when the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) took over the PJI's management—and the rest was history.