BAGUIO CITY, Philippines - During the Martial Law years under the President Ferdinand E. Marcos, not much was done to provoke the Solid North. 

One, there were no honest-to-goodness elections to awaken Ilocano pride. Second, it was very hard to manipulate the Ilocano people when the military and Marcos' iron gloves controlled the countryside. 

"There is a notion that Ilocos and the rest of the regions were treated more 'fairly and humanely,' hence their continuing support," said University of the Philippines Los Baños sociology professor Reidan Pawilen.

"This has not always been the case," he wrote in "The Solid North Myth: An investigation on the status of dissent and human rights during the Marcos Regime in Regions 1 and 2, 1969-1986."

Pawilen and Berniemack Arellano came out with an atrocity map of the Solid North during Martial Law. 

They used the database of the  Human Rights Violations Victims' Memorial Commission that listed various abuses, ranging from involuntary exile to enforced disappearances or killing, through a 10-point system in the Motu Propio Roll of Victims.

"Based on the data provided, it is shown that even Northern Luzon was not spared [from] these atrocities, thus questioning the notion of a 'one united solid North' narrative," Arellano said. 

The two created a map in Filipino and Ilocano, noting that "the map shows that most of the '10 points' human rights abuses occurred in Cagayan Province, with 76 confirmed individuals either missing or killed, followed by Isabela with 50. Ilocos Norte had 22 victims, not yet counting various degrees of abuses like involuntary exile or torture."

Cagayan Province was synonymous with Juan Ponce Enrile, defense secretary of the late dictator Marcos. 

Now 98 years old, he will be the oldest Filipino to serve in Cabinet, having been appointed by president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the dictator's son, as chief presidential legal counsel.