The 11,103 Negros Special
Negros Island in the Philippines became a cauldron of dissent, uprising, and harrowing human rights violations. There were too many stories to fit the 11,103 feature film. So the 11,103 production team produced a separate project and produced several short stories to capture a fraction of the Negros experience.
As the Philippine dictator President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. regime’s iron grip tightened, a sugar monopoly, wielded by cronies, laid waste to the sugar industry, plunging communities into depths of poverty and despair. These are the stories of resilience and defiance that emerged from the ashes of adversity.
Raping Sugarland
The sugar monopoly imposed by Ferdinand Marcos during martial law and the sugar import crisis created a perfect storm that ravaged families belonging to both land tillers and land owners. The Casocot family lost hectares of their property and everything they owned as a consequence of the government policies that favored the Marcos cronies. The Casocot family had to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Joel Abong
The iconic photo of the malnourished child, Joel Abong, widely circulated globally, became the symbol of hunger and desperation in Negros. Joel was one of, around one million, or half of the population of the province, that suffered from malnutrition. Joel’s father, Rolando Abong, journalist Inday Varona-Espina and Fr. Armand Onion, former chaplain of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Hospital recall the horror.
Negros 9
A group of three priests and six lay workers were imprisoned in 1983 during the Marcos regime and sentenced to death on trumped-up murder charges. The false accusations were an attempt by government to undermine their work for justice on behalf of peasant laborers. Fr. Brian Gore and Lydio Boy Mangao relive the injustice.
Escalante Massacre
September 20,1985 is unforgettable for the people of Escalante, Negros Occidental. Government paramilitary forces gunned down civilians who were staging a peaceful rally to protest the dire situation, human rights violation in the province, and to demand the ouster of Philippine dictator, President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.