An excerpt from the Preface: "Martial Law Diary" is not a personal diary in the conventional dense. Except for some entries of a personal nature, almost all its pages are devoted to accounts, observations and comments on significant happenings during the early and critical stage of martial rule... This diary may therefore be regarded as a source reference for political and social education and enlightenment. It covers the critical period of 1973 and part of 1974 when the dictatorship exercised absolute power over the life and survival of every Filipino. These were the days when henchmen and agents of the regime had license to kill and commit the most heinous crimes against anybody tagged as an "enemy of the state. " -D. P. V.