‘To sing our own song’ a powerful indictment of the Marcos regime.

This 1983 BBC Television documentary, To Sing Our Own Song, was a searing exposé on the Marcos dictatorship. It was never broadcast locally, but bootleg copies were distributed and watched widely. Marcos angrily denounced the documentary and lodged a formal complaint to the British government via its embassy, an act that added to the documentary’s prominence and attracted new and eager viewers.

 

I write in this book:

 

‘It was with BBC Television that I struck the most rewarding alliance of my career. BBC Television’s intention was to make a personalised 50-minute documentary on the Philippines under Marcos, and my suggestion was sought about the best possible program narrator and host. Instantly, I nominated Jose Diokno, a former senator who was arrested without a warrant at the onset of martial law and held in a military stockade for almost two years without charges and without trial. Upon his release, he established the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and in the following years emerged as the country’s preeminent human rights lawyer. He was, in my opinion, the most principled, eloquent, and impressive man I met in all my years as a foreign correspondent.’