MANILA - Decades of pain in his ribs and damaged hearing are daily reminders of the punishments torture victim Francisco Luneta endured in the struggle against Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

With 20 years passing since Marcos died in exile, Luneta's sufferings are exacerbated by the fact he has found no justice and that two relatives believed snatched by the strongman's security forces remain missing.

"All of us in our family suffered a lot," Luneta, 58, told AFP in an interview to mark Monday's anniversary of Marcos's death.

"But now, actually things are worse," he said, referring to Marcos's wife, Imelda, living a life of luxury back in the Philippines after beating all charges against her, and the couple's children holding positions of influence.

Luneta, his five brothers and one sister, were left-leaning anti-Marcos activists in their 20s when martial law was imposed in September of 1972.

With martial law, Marcos arrested dissidents, padlocked media outlets and unleashed his shadowy Constabulary Security Unit to hunt down thousands of suspected members of the Communist Party of the Philippines who had been gaining strength and support from China since the group's founding three years earlier.

Among those on top of the list was Francisco's elder brother Jose, a senior member of the party's central command.

For two years, the siblings managed to evade arrest. However, eventually all but one were arrested and taken to Manila's Camp Crame, where they were kept for about five years.

Luneta was arrested in May 1974 after heavily armed soldiers barged into the safe house he was hiding in.

He said there were over 2,000 people packed like sardines in various cell blocks at Camp Crame. He recalled horrific screams of pain echoing across the bare walls, as guards pried information from suspects.

His younger brother Ernesto, who was captured ahead of him, suffered the most, to the point that he tried to commit suicide, only to be revived by his captors who wanted to torture him more.

"You are not yet ready to die," Luneta remembered one of the captors telling his brother, before jabbing the victim's stomach with a "kaburata" -- a wooden baton shaped like an eggplant that was the preferred weapon of pain.

Francisco's twin brother, Franco, actually evaded arrest and managed to slip into China, which had given Filipino leftists refuge.

But people believed to be Marcos's henchmen raided his home and snatched his wife, Margarita, and their three-year-old daughter Nina. They remain among the over 2,000 documented cases of unsolved disappearances under the Marcos regime.

"Sometimes, I myself can't sleep. I wonder about the little girl. I believe she is still alive, somewhere. I can still see her face, hear her voice," Luneta said.

Jose, the communist party leader, was captured but escaped and made his way to Germany, where he was granted political asylum and continues to organise solidarity for Filipino causes.

Luneta said his family's sacrifices paid off in the 1986 people power revolution that finally saw the end of Marcos, and a new era under Corazon Aquino, who restored democracy and released many political prisoners.

Aquino, however, would later allow Imelda Marcos and her children back into the Philippines, where they remain politically powerful and back in the public limelight.

"I am disgusted when I watch the news and see them," Luneta said. "I am seething with anger, but what can I do now?"

Yet, he said, he believed there remained hope for the Philippines.

He prescribed getting rid of corruption and empowering the poor -- giving them sustainable jobs while increasing accountability for public officials.

Would he help lead street protests again, if given the chance?

"I have laid low, already. My bones are tired," he said. "But my spirit remains always willing."