I
The year was 1969. Manila's streets shimmered with banners and slogans, a fever of democracy masking a sickness beneath. Loudspeakers blared from jeeps, promising "Progress! Unity! Continuity!" while walls were plastered with smiling faces that promised everything but peace.
In the provinces, posters of Marcos and his rivals faded under the sun, while soldiers stood guard near polling places, rifles glinting like warnings. In every barrio, whispers floated — of ballot boxes switched in the night, of votes bought with rice, of threats whispered through clenched teeth.
Rafael watched from a distance, his journal clutched in one hand. "Democracy," he wrote, "has become a carnival of fear. The people cheer, but their eyes are tired."
II
In Tarlac, where the memories of the Huk rebellion still scarred the fields, an old farmer named Mang Tacio arrived early to vote. He carried his hat against his chest, proud despite his age.
But when he reached the polling table, an officer barked, "Your name is not on the list."
Mang Tacio frowned. "Not on the list? I've voted every election since Magsaysay."
The officer shrugged. "Then you are no longer registered. Next!"
Two men in plain clothes stood nearby, watching. Mang Tacio felt their eyes burn into his back as he walked away, humiliated. He would later find his name — printed, misspelled — on a list that would never reach the precinct.
III
At dusk, the tension broke. In Pampanga, a truckload of armed men stormed a polling station. Shots split the air. Ballot boxes vanished. The official report would later say "bandits." The villagers knew better — they were men of power, wearing no uniforms yet untouchable by law.
Rafael arrived hours after the gunfire. Blood stained the schoolhouse floor. Teachers huddled in a corner, trembling.
"What happened?" he asked.
A young teacher, her voice shaking, replied, "They said they came for the ballots. But they took more — lives, hope, and the belief that votes still mattered."
Rafael knelt beside a fallen ballot box, its lid shattered. Inside, the papers were soaked in crimson. "Elections in blood," he whispered. "So this is how nations kill their conscience — one vote at a time."
IV
In Manila, the newspapers celebrated victory. Marcos had won by a landslide. Fireworks lit the sky. Radio announcers called it "a triumph of democracy."
But beneath the music and cheering, something darker stirred. Opposition headquarters were raided. Critics silenced. Student protesters beaten.
At a coffeehouse near the University Belt, Rafael sat with a small circle of young writers and professors. Their faces were pale, their words hushed.
A student spoke first. "We tried to watch the counting. They drove us out. Soldiers surrounded the hall. We saw boxes carried out the back."
A journalist added bitterly, "I wrote about it. My editor pulled the article before sunrise. Said the printing press was 'under maintenance.'"
Rafael looked around the table. "Truth," he said softly, "is now contraband."
V
Meanwhile, in Malacañang, celebration flowed like imported wine. Marcos stood on the balcony, addressing the crowd below. "The people have spoken! The mandate is clear! We shall march forward to greatness!"
Imelda stood beside him, diamonds catching the floodlights. "And together," she declared, "we will bring beauty to discipline!"
The crowd roared, but even among the cheers, soldiers scanned the faces for dissent.
Behind the pomp, a general whispered to another, "If this is victory, why do we need so many guns to guard it?"
VI
Rafael wrote that night in his journal:
"We have not elected a leader — we have crowned one. The people celebrate their own submission, mistaking it for freedom. And those who see the truth are branded enemies of peace. I fear that ballots have become bullets in disguise."
He paused, listening to the distant echoes of fireworks and gunfire blending into one indistinguishable noise. Then he wrote again:
"Tonight, democracy bleeds. Tomorrow, it may not wake."
VII
In the following days, the countryside swelled with anger. Farmers grumbled of rising prices and vanishing promises. Students returned to the streets, carrying placards that read "No Voice, No Nation." Police batons answered them.
At the funeral of a slain activist, a priest's voice trembled: "He died for speaking truth in a time when truth was outlawed." The mourners responded not with chants, but with silence — the silence of those who knew more deaths would follow.
Rafael stood among them, head bowed. He realized that what had been declared as victory was, in truth, the quiet birth of tyranny.
VIII
He wrote one final line that week:
"The Republic still breathes, but faintly. Each election promises revival, but delivers only another wound. And like all dying things, it will soon cry for order — and welcome the hand that strangles it."
IX
The week after the elections, the city pulsed with two kinds of noise — victory parades and whispers of betrayal. Jeepneys rolled through Avenida, their roofs painted with "Marcos Forever!" while in the alleys, families whispered of neighbors who had vanished the night before.
In a small tenement near Quiapo, a mother held her radio tight, listening to the results. "Landslide!" the announcer said, his voice brimming with forced joy. "The people have spoken!"
Her husband snorted. "People? They counted ghosts, not votes."
Their youngest child tugged her sleeve. "Mama, will it mean more food now?"
The woman turned away, unable to answer.
Outside, soldiers patrolled the streets — smiling, waving — but their eyes remained hard. Hope, once fragile, had begun to rot in silence.
X
A few nights later, the youth gathered in secret at a boardinghouse near Sampaloc. The air smelled of tobacco and fear. Maps of Manila lay on the table, marked not for war, but for protest routes.
"We cannot keep quiet," said Liza, a journalism student. "They stole not only the votes — they stole the future."
Her friend Victor, a law student, frowned. "And what will you do? March? Chant? The police will meet you before you reach Plaza Miranda."
"Then let them come," she said. "We must show that not all are blind."
Rafael, sitting in the corner, spoke quietly. "Courage is not in shouting, anak. It is in standing when silence becomes betrayal. But remember, even truth must choose its hour. A voice raised too early can be easily shot down."
Liza met his gaze. "Then when, Kapitan? When we are already buried?"
The room fell silent. The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered — small, stubborn, alive.
XI
In the provinces, the violence worsened. Ballot boxes were found floating in rivers, others burned in warehouses before dawn. Journalists sent to investigate were warned off or simply disappeared.
In Nueva Ecija, an entire village was razed after it voted for the opposition. Soldiers called it a "counter-insurgency operation." The mayor called it "an unfortunate misunderstanding."
Rafael arrived days later, the stench of smoke still thick. He met an old woman crouched beside a mound of ashes. "My son," she said softly. "They said he was a rebel because he spoke against the mayor. Now they say he was a mistake."
Rafael bowed his head. "I will write of this," he said.
She looked up, her eyes dry. "Then write with truth, hijo. Because they burn the poor twice — once in their huts, and again in their stories."
XII
Back in Manila, the Senate debated electoral reform — a hollow ritual. Politicians thundered about morality while deals passed under the table. The word democracy became a slogan printed on campaign tarpaulins and ashtrays.
In the gallery, Rafael listened, his jaw tight. One senator shouted, "We must respect the will of the people!"
Another replied, smirking, "And who are the people? The ones who can't read the ballots they sign?"
Laughter erupted. Rafael's pen snapped in his hand.
That evening, in his journal, he wrote:
"This is how freedom dies — not in war, but in jokes. The Republic laughs at its own decay."
XIII
The days grew darker. Curfews were quietly imposed in the provinces. Opposition leaders received anonymous phone calls. Student organizations were labeled "subversive." And yet, the crowds cheered whenever Marcos appeared on screen, immaculate and smiling, his voice honeyed with promises of "peace and discipline."
Imelda's projects multiplied — gardens, theaters, cultural halls — as if beauty could blind hunger. "We must teach the nation grace," she said in interviews, draped in diamonds. "A beautiful people cannot be poor."
But outside the palace gates, beggars lined the walls. Children chased motorcades for leftover bread. And in their hollow laughter, Rafael heard the sound of history repeating its cruelties.
XIV
One night, he met with his old friend Manuel, now a retired soldier running a small canteen. The air smelled of gin and fried fish.
"They say we'll have order now," Manuel muttered. "The President's strong. He'll keep the communists down."
Rafael stirred his drink. "Order without justice is only silence dressed in uniform."
Manuel looked at him, weary. "You still believe words can fix bullets?"
"I believe truth can prevent them," Rafael answered.
Manuel shook his head. "Careful, Kapitan. The palace has long ears. Even walls now have uniforms."
Rafael smiled faintly. "Then let them listen. Perhaps they'll learn what they've forgotten — that power is borrowed, never owned."
XV
The next morning, newspapers carried headlines of peace and progress. Yet beneath the fold, in smaller print, were reports of students missing, of rallies dispersed, of teachers dismissed for speaking out. The contrast was jarring — as if the nation lived two lives at once: one on paper, one in fear.
Rafael walked through Plaza Miranda, now empty except for pigeons and a single tattered banner that read "Democracy Lives Here." He traced the letters with his fingers, feeling the rough fabric.
"Lives here," he murmured, "but for how long?"
He turned toward the cathedral, the bells tolling in the distance — not for mass, but as if warning of storms to come. The air hung heavy, electric.
XVI
That night, in his room, Rafael penned his closing entry:
"Elections have become rituals of forgetting. The people vote not for change, but for permission to hope again — and that permission is revoked each dawn. Marcos has won not only the presidency, but the soul of the nation's silence. Soon he will no longer need ballots. He will have fear."
He closed the journal and stared out his window. Beyond the city lights, thunder rolled somewhere over the bay. He knew the sound well — not of weather, but of history gathering its storm.
"Let it come," he whispered. "Maybe lightning will remember what truth we've lost."
And as the night deepened, Manila slept uneasily — unaware that the real tempest was only months away, waiting to shatter the illusion of peace under the same sky that glittered with fireworks just days before.