Thank you, Ninoy

BAGUIA

For over two years, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., whose memory Filipinos celebrated yesterday, the 35th anniversary of his assassination, was my contemporary.

The other day, I watched with my father the closing segments of a 10-year-old documentary, hosted by Tina Monzon-Palma, about the killing of Ninoy.

The mastermind remains unknown, right? I asked Papa.

He answered in the affirmative.

Using interviews with experts and interested parties, photographs, newspaper clippings, Tina showed how Filipinos demanded to know who killed Ninoy and whose brains was behind his murder.

While deplaning at the then Manila International Airport after returning from exile, Ninoy, a passionate critic of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos was felled by a bullet.

Shortly thereafter, another man, a gun-toting Rolando Galman was also shot to death near Ninoy.

In the ensuing inquiry into Ninoy’s assassination, the first story that came out pinned the blame on Galman.

According to Tina’s account, however, this story was discredited by the people, who suspected a whitewash and harshly criticized a fact-finding board hurriedly cobbled together by Marcos and headed by then Supreme Court Chief Justice Enrique Fernando.

Marcos then created another board, one led by former Court of Appeals Justice Corazon Agrava to determine who was behind Ninoy’s killing.

According to one striking argument to the board, Galman could not have killed Ninoy because a triggerman on the tarmac could not have shot the oppositionist senator from the elevated angle indicated by the trajectory of the bullet that killed Ninoy.

Tina also reminded viewers of the suspicious disappearances of close relatives and associates of Galman after his death, some of whom turned up dead.

She further narrated how the dictator spoke with judges of the Sandiganbayan who presided over the trial of soldiers implicated in majority of report of the Agrava Board to secure their acquittal.

He must have something to do with the assassination, I told my father. Otherwise, who would not have exerted so much effort to have the soldiers cleared.

Only someone who understands that command responsibility ultimately makes him liable will do his darnedest to ensure that men under his supervision are absolved of wrongdoing.

All the accused were cleared but fallout from the decision was among the factors that led in 1986 to the ousting of the dictator.

Under the new government led by Ninoy’s widow, Corazon a retrial was conducted.

Sixteen of the accused were convicted and sentenced to live imprisonment.

But as of 2009, the last convicts have been released (others died in prison or secured commutations of their sentences, serving them out), including one pardoned on humanitarian grounds by then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007.

A new layer of disrespect, on top of the still-unresolved question of who ordered Ninoy’s killing has been added to the suffering of the Aquino family and of history-faithful Filipinos today in the form of an internet avalanche of false stories questioning if not denying the heroism of Ninoy and rehabilitating the dictator and his family.

I invite those who claim to be patriotic in their concoction, circulation, and consumption of fake news and other forms of historical revisionism to show an iota of gratefulness to the man whose sorrows in part paid for the freedom of expression they now enjoy.

For those who were never seduced by riveting lies, Ninoy continues to speak, as in these words, excerpts of a speech he would have read had the assassination on Aug. 21, 1983 remained but an attempt:

“Six years ago, I was sentenced to die before a firing squad by a military tribunal whose jurisdiction I steadfastly refused to recognize. It is now time for the regime to decide. Order my immediate execution or set me free.

“I was sentenced to die for allegedly being the leading communist leader. I am not a communist, never was and never will be.

“National reconciliation and unity can be achieved, but only with justice, including justice for our Muslim and Ifugao brothers. There can be no deal with a dictator. No compromise with dictatorship.

“In a revolution there can really be no victors, only victims. We do not have to destroy in order to build.

“Subversion stems from economic, social, and political causes and will not be solved by purely military solution: It can be curbed not with ever increasing repression but with a more equitable distribution of wealth, more democracy and more freedom.

“For the economy to get going once again, the working man must be given his just and rightful share or his labor, and to the owners and managers must be restored the hope where there is so must uncertainty if not despair.

“On one of the long corridors of Harvard University are carved in granite the words of Archibald Macleish: ‘How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms; by truth when it is attacked by lies; by democratic faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always and in the final act, by determination and faith.’

“I return from exile and an uncertain future with only determination and faith to offer — faith in our people and faith in God.”