Until recently, these images would occasionally fill the thoughts of University of the Philippines Prof. Monico Atienza. Not once had he been awakened in the dead of the night by memories of a dark past-marred by violence, fear and loneliness. Not once had he been reminded of a gruesome period in his life, when he lost his freedom in fighting for democracy.

It has been more than 20 years since Atienza, of the Departamento ng Panitikang Pilipino, was released from prison. Atienza was a Martial Law political detainee for almost six years, during which time he went through some of the most appalling means of torture, both physically and mentally.

A student-activist in the late 60s, he was a member of the militant groups Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP). Espousing the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and the like, the two groups headed the First Quarter Storm on Jan. 30 1970, among other protests and mass actions against then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos and his one-man rule.

With the advent of Martial Law, Atienza got himself involved in hidden activist works. He was arrested in October 1974 with his wife and child in a friend's hideout somewhere in Southern Luzon. His wife was pregnant while his child was barely three years old then. Their case: subversion.

For the next few months, he was detained separately from his wife, who, together with their child, was later released when she was about to give birth.

He spent the next six years being moved from one detention center to another. He enumerates a few: Camp Aguinaldo, 5th Military Intelligence Corps, Constabulary Defense Unit in Camp Crame, FEAT-CSU, Camp Crame Stockade, V. Luna Neuropsychiatric Detention, Camp Bicutan, Metrocom South Sector in Fort Bonifacio, 173rd Company in Pampanga, and Camp Olivas.

In all but one case, conditions were cramped and discomforting. Some were not even regular detention cells. The 173rd Company Detention Cells and Camp Olivas were military barracks. In the 5th Constabulary Security Unit, he and his fellow detainees stayed in a storage room for firearms and gunpowder. "Napakainit," he says of the place, adding that they had to be guarded as they took their baths outside.

Reluctant at first to narrate stories of abuse he suffered in the hands of uniformed men, he settled for a quick rundown of the things done to him, albeit in a seemingly irritated manner.

As he described in his poems, military men would often bang his head onto a filing cabinet, punch and kick him in different parts of his body, and strip him naked while they pour beer on his body in an air-conditioned room. They would poke a gun at him and play with it, pulling the trigger, Russian roulette-style. In extreme cases, soldiers would play with his genitals: heating it with a burning piece of komiks, hitting it with a ruler, or positioning it next to a Doberman.

More than the physical assault, the emotional blackmail of harming his family, or not being allowed to see them is even more disturbing, Atienza says. "Sinisira ang pagkatao mo, pinapahiya ka, at pinahihirapan," he says of the experience. "At nauulit siya habang kinukwento ko sa'yo," he adds.

In one torture case documented by the non-governmental group Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), a soldier was reported to have remarked to a detainee: "Do you know what happened to Monico Atienza for refusing to talk? He went crazy! We used the electric machine on him."

Atienza is just one of the numerous political detainees who suffered from torture in the hands of military men during Martial Law. If the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), an NGO put up by Sen. Jose Diokno that provides legal aid to the poor, were to be believed, no less than 70,000 persons were arrested between the start of Martial Law on Sept. 21, 1972 and its lifting on Jan. 17, 1981. TFDP recorded 17, 723 cases of arrests and detentions from 1977 to 1985. Of those detained, Amnesty International found out that 70% suffered from torture.

This, despite repeated denials by Marcos. In 1977, before the Foreign Correspondents' Club of the Philippines, Marcos denied there were any detainees held for political reasons. When he finally admitted there were, he insisted: "No one but no one has been tortured."

But cases documented by TFDP point out otherwise.

TFDP, established in 1974 by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) to assist political detainees in the country, was able to talk to some of the more known political detainees: journalist Satur Ocampo, student-activist Fidel Agcaoili, alleged New People's Army Chief Bernabe "Kumander Dante" Buscayno as well as a host of other victims.

In a collection of her speeches entitled "Mariani: A Woman of a Kind," long-time TFDP chairperson Sr. Mariani Dimaranan exposed the different torture mechanisms and human rights violations that the military used in their tactical operations.

Among these methods are: water cure-gallons of water are continuously poured on the victim's face, thus blocking the mouth and nostrils until the feeling of suffocation and sense of drowning sets in; telephone or cymbals-the ears of the victims are simultaneously hit with the hands, causing rupture of eardrums; wet submarine-the victim's head is submerged in water, very often in toilet bowl with feces; and dry submarine-a plastic or cellophane bag is placed on the victim's head to suffocate him/her.

Some of the more common ones are: Russian roulette-a single bullet is placed in a revolver and then pointed at the victim's head to scare him/her; electrocution-electrodes charged with a cranker are attached to a victim's body, usually the genitals; ashtray-burning of the skin, usually the palms, face and abdomen by the use of cigarette butts; administering of drugs; pulling off of fingernails, sometimes dipping the fingers in acidic solution; sexual abuse; beatings; use of handcuffs and manacles; and mental and emotional harassment.

The book "Pumipiglas," published in 1986 by TFDP, presents personal recollections of victims themselves. One victim recalls military men inserting bullets between his fingers before squeezing them. "A piece of coconut midrib was inserted into his urethra while a lighted cigarette was held close to the genitals. He was made to drink a lot of water only to be punched in the lower part of the stomach. He was denied food for 48 hours and was later made to eat a meal sprinkled with gunpowder. His earlobes were punched with staple wire. He was tied by the neck to a fence while three men threatened to shoot him," the book said.

A 1975 Amnesty International mission in the Philippines concluded, "torture was used systematically against those who had no means of appeal to influential friends or established institutions." The mission added that even women were not exempted from torture. As TFDP would later learn, sexual harassment took place not just among women, but also even among priests.

In 1978, in response to international pressure that the Philippine Government address the issue of human rights violations among political detainees, Marcos promised swift punishment for those found guilty. But as writer P.N. Abinales would discover in his 1982 research paper, only two out of 79 cases filed against military men were meted out punishment (these were even light sentences) while the rest of the charges were dropped.

Not only were cases of torture harsh enough, living conditions in detention cells were found to be sub-human. In a speech in 1977, Dimaranan disclosed that the daily allowance of P4.00 a day for detainees are not fully spent; part of the amount goes to corruption. She noted the scarcity of medicines, the inadequate quality and quantity of food, excessive restrictions on visiting rights, inadequate sports facilities and the lack of sanitation measures in most detention cells all over the country.

But perhaps the harsher reality is that which the victims and their families had to bear. Dimaranan pointed out that since most of those jailed were the breadwinners, the family is often left on their own to fend for themselves. The economic problem is even different from the constant fear of reprisal from the military should they choose to speak to cause-oriented groups such as TFDP.

On top of that is the psychological and emotional torment borne by those arrested. Some victims reported that the more they lose touch of the world, the more their views and senses become "myopic," as was the case with Kumander Dante. Agcaoili puts it bluntly: "Prolonged solitary confinement imposes boundaries on the mind a million times over."

In his case, it took some time before Atienza was able to fully recover from the trauma. And his ordeal was not over yet. When he was released from prison (thanks to the efforts of TFDP, FLAG, Senators Diokno and Joker Arroyo, his wife left him. He gained his liberty but lost his spouse. He says he could not stop her from leaving; afterall, it was she who bore the brunt of raising their children while taking time to visit him in prison.

Going back to normal life was not easy, Atienza claims. With the help of TFDP, he went to the provinces to raise poultry, hogs, and even goats. He later on returned to Manila and asked his friends for a job in U.P. where he would finish his undergraduate studies and pursue a master's degree.

In the course of doing his master's thesis, unidentified men ambushed the car he was driving. It was past midnight, June 8, 1987, and he was with Kumander Dante and three other friends, on the way out of Broadcast City after an interview. Two of his companions died-Manny and Danny-to whom he dedicated the book that was the product of his research. He managed to live through the 11 bullets he sustained.

The whole experience, he says, has made him less trusting of people and even wary of military men.

But he has no regrets.

"Ito ang nagpalakas sa akin, nagbigay ng mas buong pagkatao. Ito ang nagtulak sa akin na ipagpatuloy ang pagtataguyod ng hustisya, demokrasya at karapatang pantao," he said.

For more than a decade now, Atienza has been teaching Panitikang Pilipino and PI 100 to U.P. students, most of whom were and are not even aware of the horrors of Martial Law.

To know more about political prisoners and human rights violations during Martial Law, visit the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines website.