Turning points

LOGARTA

Benigno Aquino Jr. was a brave opposition politician who often eloquently exposed irregularities of Marcos rule.

When the late president declared martial law, he was among the leading detainees and he even experienced solitary confinement. He had been accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

As a political prisoner, he continued to protest the prevailing abuses of the use of power through a hunger strike and even organized the Lakas ng Bayan Party (Laban) and ran in the election for the new legislature.

While prison experience had seemed to have “broken his heart” and thinned him down, it had purified him. By 1983, love of country had come to dominate.

Although friends warned him that he could be killed, he decided to return to the country.

He had been very much disturbed with the economic and political crisis the country was in. He feared the chaos that would follow.

He hoped to actively participate in a peaceful solution. When he was warned of the high probability of death, the famous response came: The Filipino is worth dying for!

Many feared that this was an ending, but it had been a beginning.

The massive crowd in the longest, record-breaking funeral bannering the slogan “Hindi ka nag-iisa” was predictive of what was to come. The assassination expanded the opposition to the dictatorship.

Many organizations emerged; many were roused from their indifference because it made many realize how horrible the dictatorship was.

This reached a climax in the People Power Revolution, “a peaceful, reclaiming of democracy.”

Its remembrance last Monday reminded me of another historical turning point.

The execution of the three innocent priests, Frs. Gomez, Burgos and Zamora. I always tell my Philippine History students the term “Filipino” to refer to the natives could only be used after the execution.

So let us remind ourselves of Jose Burgos. He was a brilliant priest who worked for reform of Spanish rule.

Historians inform us that he wrote essays “championing political and ecclesiastic reforms in favor of empowering more native clergy.”

As a defender of the native clergy, “his debates over their rights had extended to include questions of race and nationalism.” Such an advocacy resulted in angering the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in the Islands at that time.

So Fr. Jose Burgos got falsely accused of being involved in the Cavite Mutiny.

The public execution of the innocent priests scandalized the people. It made them realize intensely the racial issue: Filipinos versus the Spanish.

Certain historians thus point to this event as leading cause in the rise of nationalism in our country.

They also put a connection between this event and the Philippine Revolution. Jose Rizal is said to have declared that the execution made him change his career plans. He actually dedicated the El Filibusterismo to Jose Burgos.

On Wednesday, the Redemptorists read in the Masses their letter statement strongly protesting extrajudicial killings as against the poor.

They call attention to rich, powerful drug suspects given due process while many in the lower class are killed without benefit of a trial.

Over the weekend, we heard the call to end the “waste of human lives’ in the administrations war against drugs and asked all sectors in the country to unite in order to put an end to the illicit drug trade.” Are we at another turning point? “Ang alimangong magdukaduka maanod sa baja!”