LAGIM: A Filipino True Crime · LAGIM Podcast

The Martial Law Series: The Escalante Massacre Of 1985

·41 min·2 clips

Twenty people were killed, 24 were wounded, and 197 were missing after the Escalante shooting.

1. Lagim: A Filipino True Crime focuses this episode on the Escalante Massacre of 1985 in Negros Occidental. 2. The host, Christine, narrates the case and frames it as a Martial Law Series installment about sugar, dissent, and state violence. 3. The episode asks how the Philippine sugar industry became tied to Martial Law politics and the Escalante protests. 4. The narration traces sugar in the Philippines to Arab traders, pre-colonial Mindanao, and later trade through Visayas and Luzon. 5. Nicholas Loney is named as the British vice-consul who pushed loans, imported cuttings from Sumatra, and brought British machinery to Iloilo. 6. The show says sugar became the Philippines’ most important agricultural export and later accounted for almost 20% of national income after World War II. 7. The episode identifies 1974 as a turning point because sugar prices peaked at 67 US cents per pound before falling to 10 US cents. 8. The Lorry-Langley Agreement is described as the trade deal that had given Filipino sugar preferential access to the US market before it expired in 1974. 9. The Marcos administration then moved sugar trading functions to Philex and later activated Philsocom in 1977. 10. Philsocom and its trading subsidiary Nasut are presented as tools that set prices, bought companies, and helped monopolize the industry. 11. The host links that monopolization to the Negros Famine, when sugar planters went bankrupt and almost 200,000 workers and dependents were left without stable work. 12. Father Armand Oñon appears in the narration as a priest who ministered to parents whose children died from hunger, malnutrition, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. 13. The episode says one in five Negrense children were drastically affected by malnutrition during the famine. 14. Roberto Benedicto, Jose Unzon, Jaime Dacanay, and Fred Elizalde are named as the cronies at the center of the sugar collapse. 15. The host says the industry lost around $1.15 billion between 1975 and 1990, while Benedicto amassed assets valued around $800 million. 16. Joel Abong, also called Batang Negros, is described as the 7-year-old boy who died in Father Unyon’s arms and became a symbol of the famine. 17. The episode shifts into a tense, documentary-style account of the 19-21 September 1985 strike organized by Huelgang Bayan in Escalante. 18. The narration emphasizes the militarized setting, with army battalions, RSAF members, police, CHDF units, and Governor Armando Gustilo’s private army surrounding the town. 19. Listeners interested in Philippine history, Martial Law, and human rights will likely stay with this episode. 20. Listeners seeking light entertainment or a short recap may skip it.

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