Marcos Martial Law: Never Again is now endorsed by noted academics, journalists and authors

Winning the prestigious National Book Awards is something I hope will lay to rest all the fake news that is being wildly propagated online about my book Marcos Martial Law: Never Again. For instance, that my book is banned in the US and 17 other countries by court orders. That it has no academic rigor. And that it contains lies.

The massive online propaganda shows my book is making an impact on the hearts and minds of Filipinos.

I would now like to thank the following personalities for endorsing my book:

Dr. Alfred McCoy
Harrington Professor of History
Department of History
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Just at the moment when the collective memory of Marcos’s brutality was fading and his partisans were recasting his Martial Law regime as a bold developmental initiative, Raissa Robles has delivered a powerful corrective. After years of rigorous research, she carefully documents the regime’s orgy of corruption and recovers persuasive eye-witness testimony to its tortures from both the perpetrators and their victims. More than any other work published in the thirty years since the dictator’s downfall, this book inscribes all this evidence of the regime’s excesses in the historical record for future generations of Filipinos.

Professor Ambeth R. Ocampo
Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University, Author of 14 books

Moving on means liberation from the past, but it does not mean forgetting. We cannot turn back the clock and undo the dark days of Martial Law, but we in the present should always remember and be vigilant so we do not repeat history. This book is an important step in the right direction.

Prof. Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua
Historian and Author; De la Salle University

Using a lot of primary sources and interviews, Robles wrote an account of the atrocities that happened during the Marcos Years that is different from what was written before. She not only documented the experiences of the victims, rather, she also sought the perspective from the other side—those of the punishers and executioners. She produced an account of an aspect of the regime which is truthful, comprehensive, readable, at times touching, but engaged—which is the most important thing—making a stand after seeing the facts. If this is not scholarship, I don’t know what is.

Bonifacio P. Ilagan
Lead Convenor — Campaign Against the Return of Marcoses to Malacañang (CARMMA); Playwright

The struggle against fraud is a continuing war; we have one enduring arsenal for truth. This book is it.

Vergel Santos
Chairman-of-the-Board, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility; Author and former BusinessWorld Publisher

Raissa Robles’ Never Again is nothing less than anything expected of her ─ first-class reporting. It is also critically timely, which makes it and her potential targets for people intent on desecrating the truth for themselves and certain of their comrades and idols. But as solid as it is, Never Again should be able to withstand any of that.

Roland Simbulan, Professor of Development Studies and Public Management, University of the Philippines Department of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines on Philippines–US relations; Author of eight books

This book is essential reading for all Filipinos—young and old—who love their country and reject dictatorship, plunder, and the abuse of power. For this was what the despised Marcos dictatorship was all about, and why we dismantled it through peoples’ power in 1986. Fortunately, court decisions in other countries, and legislation and Supreme Court decisions in our country have officially documented that dark era, where its victims – the Filipino people – still await justice to be rendered.

Ninotchka Rosca
New York-based Author

It is a pleasure to find a book that looks at the Dictatorship partly through the eyes of those whose only power came from a commitment to oppose it. Gerda Lerner noted how, “to those in power, history has always mattered;” and consequently, the writing of it has also been struggled over by those striving for dominance over society. In this era of historical revisionism and digital realities, of artificial consensus and political faddism, making room for the voices of the often silenced and unheard is itself an act of heroism. Read the book.

Candy Quimpo-Gourlay
UK-based Author

Marcos Martial Law: Never Again is a story of a nation betrayed – how the shiny New Society created by the Marcos dictatorship concealed a shocking theatre of terror and torture. Victims are interviewed their alleged torturers questioned, allegations cross-checked, footnoted, appended. Raissa Robles stays away from the spotlight and yet her inquiring voice is always there, at great personal cost, asking the difficult questions, verifying facts, leaving no obfuscation unexamined. It could not have been an easy task. The accounts are harrowing, many perpetrators are at large, and the martial law story clearly remains unfinished. This is an important book, not just for the victims whose voices deserve to be heard, but for the generations who deserve to know the truth. A stoic refusal to forget and a singular act of courage.

Niña Calleja in ‘Never Again’: Marcos victim recounts torture, Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 25, 2016

Using official records, Marcos’ own books, reports of local and foreign human rights lawyers, and nongovernment organizations as well as eyewitness accounts and interviews with survivors and military officers, Robles provides a brief historical narrative relating to how and why the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. In her book, she also reveals how Cory Aquino was strip-searched several times when she visited her imprisoned husband, opposition Sen. Ninoy Aquino.

Jose K. Tirol, PhD
Assistant Professor, History Department, Ateneo de Manila University

The power and relevance of Never Again lies not just in the narrative of Martial Law’s origins and graphic, uncensored description of the horrors of that era inflicted on ordinary Filipinos. The book goes one step further by discussing the aftermath, through a study of national memory, unresolved issues, and the continuing struggle for justice and accountability.

Robert J.A. Basilio Jr. in “Never Forget, Never Again”,
BusinessWorld, Weekender, February 26, 2016

…the book may very well be one of the most easily readable but thoroughly researched books about a sombre subject that always begs to be remembered: the atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship with 3,257 murdered, 40,000 tortured, and over 60,000 illegally detained.

Floyd Whaley in “30 years after revolution, some Filipinos yearn for ‘Golden Age’ of Marcos”, The New York Times, February 23, 2016

For others in the Philippines, the idea of a Marcos “golden age” is not supported by the facts. In her recent book, “Marcos Martial Law: Never Again,” the journalist Raissa Robles estimated that more than 3,200 people were murdered by the government during the Marcos years, and about 40,000 were tortured.