Bulacan Martyrs

A group of young activists were trying to help farmers organize themselves in the province of Bulacan. They were trying to form a local chapter of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL),[3] a militant farmers’ alliance based in Central Luzon.[4]

AMGL had organized a series of actions to demand that the government implement an agrarian reform program. AMGL was then a new organization looking for volunteers to help form a chapter in Bulacan. The Philippine military was in control of the province and martial law was in full effect throughout the country[3] under then-president Ferdinand E. Marcos. Bulacan landowners had been using private armies to harass farmers.[3] Organizing was a dangerous activity at the time.[3]

Danilo Aguirre, Edwin Borlongan, Teresita Llorente, Renato Manimbo, and Constantino Medina all volunteered to help organize a Bulacan chapter for AMGL.[1][3][5] They had been meeting to evaluate their organizational work and plan a program of action when they were arrested on June 21, 1982, and killed.[1][2] The bodies of Borlongan and Manimbo were found three days later; the bodies of Aguirre, Llorente, and Medina were found 10 days after the incident.[3] Their bodies all showed heavy bruises and multiple gunshot wounds.[3]

Another companion was able to escape arrest.[1]

Details of the arrest and death of the Bulacan Martys were documented by human rights group Task Force Detainees. The members of the group were meeting at a farmer's house when they heard shouts telling them not to move and telling them that the house has been surrounded. Some 30 heavily armed members of the 175th Philippine Constabulary (PC) entered the house.[1] One member of the group climbed out the window and hid himself on the roof. The rest of the group readily surrendered.[1]

The next morning, in San Rafael, a town 20 kilometers away, people found the bodies of the five organizers riddled with bullet holes in a corner of the municipal hall. The PC soldiers said the five were killed in an encounter. Municipal hall employees raised money among themselves to buy caskets for the five and a pair of jeans for the body of the woman who was in pajamas. The bodies were buried that afternoon.[1]

The member of the group who was able to escape went to the victims' relatives and told them of the raid. He still did not know that his companions had been killed. The relatives went to the PC camp and were told that the five organizers were not under their custody. The families learned of the deaths the following day.[1]

Nine priests said mass at the Barasoain Church in Malolos for the last three bodies that were recovered. The bodies were buried at the Meycauayan Cemetery. Not long after, the AMGL chapter that the Bulacan martyrs formed began to take root in the province. Church and human rights groups in Bulacan began a campaign to press for justice for the slain activists. When Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated the following year, residents of Bulacan took part in the protest, recalling the recent deaths of the young Bulacan martyrs.[3][6]

• Aguirre, Danilo
• Borlongan, Edwin De Guzman
• Llorente, Teresita Evangelista
• Manimbo, Renato Turla
• Medina, Constantino Reyes[1][2]

• Bantayog ng mga Bayani
• Workers' resistance against the Marcos dictatorship