and dictated to me the story, which I immediately edited and transmitted by the so-called “takes” on the PNS wires or teletypes. As all of the other PNS editors and deskmen had already gone home by then, I advised Panesa to call me again as soon as he had the facts.
Nobody in the convoy was hurt, Panesa said, adding that he was rushing to Mandaluyong from Camp Crame to get more details. He said Enrile was on his way home to Makati from Camp Crame when his convoy was fired upon. Panesa told me that a three-vehicle convoy of then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile was ambushed moments ago by unidentified gunmen near the Wack-Wack Golf Club in Mandaluyong, Rizal. 22, 1972, when I got an urgent telephone call from our reporter, Jaime Panesa, who was then covering Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame for the night shift. I had just arrived at the PNS office at the second floor of the National Press Club (NPC) in Intramuros on the night of Friday, Sept. Tatad.īy the way, PNS was a news-gathering agency put up together by the then eight leading national newspapers in Manila – Manila Times, Daily Mirror, Philippine Herald, Manila Chronicle, Evening News, Bulletin, Fookien Times, and Bagong Buhay. In effect, the proclamation curtailed press freedom and other civil liberties, closed down Congress, the courts and media establishments, and caused the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists.Īs an overnight shift deskman then of the former Philippine News Service (PNS), I felt I was privileged to be among the few people to know about the declaration of military rule in the country before it was officially announced by Marcos and then Department of Public Information (DPI) Secretary Francisco S.
In his nationwide address, he cited what he described as rising "wave of lawlessness and the threat of communist insurgency" as justifications.
That was partly because Marcos himself made the announcement of the effectivity of the proclamation two days later, or on the evening of Sept. Several people thought that Proclamation No. Marcos, many of the Filipino people, especially the millennial ones, remain confused on the exact date of that presidential prerogative based on the provision of the 1935 Constitution. A TOTAL of 48 years after the declaration of the controversial martial law on Sept.