Historians estimate that there were about 70,000 individuals incarcerated by the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the period between his 1972 declaration of Martial Law until he was removed from office by the 1986 People Power Revolution.
[8][9] Marcos began laying the groundwork for Martial Law as soon as he became president in 1965 by increasing his influence over the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
He established close ties with specific officers, took control of the military's day-to-day operationalization[10][11] by appointing himself concurrent defense secretary in the first thirteen months of his presidency,[12] and soon carried out the "largest reshuffle in the history of the armed forces" when he forcibly retired fourteen of the AFP's twenty-five flag officers, including the AFP Chief of Staff, the AFP Vice Chief of Staff, the commanding general of the Philippine Army, the Chief of the Philippine Constabulary, the commanders of all four Constabulary Zones, and one third of all Provincial Commanders of the PC.
[18] Marcos immediately blamed communists for the incident, and used the bombing to justify his subsequent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, an act which would later be seen as a prelude to the declaration of Martial Law more than a year later.
[20] This marked the beginning of a fourteen-year period of one-man rule which effectively lasted until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986.
[4] The Marcos dictatorship is historically remembered for its record of human rights abuses,[26][27][28] and based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities,[29] historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings,[29] 35,000 documented tortures, and 70,000 incarcerations.
[31] The 5CSU and MISG were parts of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) under then-Major General Fidel V. Ramos,[30] a distant relative of Marcos.
Aside from human rights abuses, these units also hounded media entities,[35][36] corporate management,[37] and opposition groups[7] with threats, intimidation, and violence.
[6] As the headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary, Camp Crame also became the site of five of the Marcos regime's most infamous detention facilities for political prisoners:[39] Camp Crame was also the site of the Command for the Administration of Detainees (CAD or COMCAD), headed by PC Chief Fidel V. Ramos, which was the agency in charge of giving orders for the arrest and detention of the Marcos regime's political prisoners.
[6] The prisoners brought to Camp Crame included former President Sergio Osmeña's son Sergio Osmeña III, Senators Soc Rodrigo and Ramon Mitra, businessman Eugenio Lopez Jr., teacher Etta Rosales, lawyer Haydee Yorac,[6] and a plethora of writers and broadcasters including Amando Doronila of the Daily Mirror, Luis Mauricio of the Philippine Graphic, Teodoro Locsin Sr. of the Philippines Free Press, Rolando Fadul of Taliba, Robert Ordoñez of the Philippine Herald, Rosalinda Galang of the Manila Times; Ernesto Granada of the Manila Chronicle, Maximo Soliven of the Manila Times, and Luis Beltran and Ruben Cusipag of the Evening News.
[42] Others who were detained in Camp Crame at different times during the Marcos dictatorship were writers Luis R. Mauricio and Ninotchka Rosca, Obet Verzola, Dolores Stephens Feria, Boni Ilagan, and Pete Lacaba, among others.
Among the prisoners held there were some of the country's leading academics, creative writers, journalists, and historians including Butch Dalisay, Ricky Lee, Bienvenido Lumbera, Jo Ann Maglipon, Ninotchka Rosca, Zeus Salazar, and William Henry Scott.
[45] The YRC was a higher security prison which housed prominent society figures and media personalities, supposed members of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and some known criminals.
They stayed there until Marcos moved them to an even higher security facility in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija on March 12, 1973.
[65] Prominent detainees imprisoned there include Edicio de la Torre,[66] Judy Taguiwalo,[67] Tina Pargas,[68] Marie Hilao-Enriquez,[69] and Bernard-Adan Ebuen.
[70] Prisoners who were documented to have been tortured include the sisters Joanna and Josefina Cariño,[71] the brothers Romulo and Armando Palabay,[65] and Mariano Giner Jr of Abra.
[85] Among the Cebuanos immediately arrested by the Marcos dictatorship when Martial law was announced on September 23, 1972, were columnist and future National Artist Resil Mojares and human rights lawyer and Carcar Vice Mayor Democrito Barcenas, who were both detained at Camp Sergio Osmeña.
[6] Amnesty International called particular attention to the case of Pastor Romeo O. Buenavidez, a United Church of Christ of the Philippines (UCCP) minister, who was beaten up in various safehouses in August 1981 and then brought to Camp Evangelista where he was forced to sign a waiver indicating he had been "well treated" during his "questioning."