Alexei & Ninoy, Yulia & Cory

It’s fascinating how Alexei’s story is so very much like Ninoy’s. Pareho silang nakulong (on trumped-up charges) for standing up to a tyrant, parehong nag-hunger strike sa kulungan, parehong nakalipad na sa ibang bansa — Navalny to a hospital in Germany to recover from poisoning by Russian security, Ninoy to Texas for heart bypass after suffering 7 years 7 months in jail — pero bumalik pa rin sa lupang tinubuan, lupa na ipinaglaban nilang mapalaya, bahala na kung makulong muli o mapatay. At napatay nga: si Ninoy binaril noong umuwi from exile in 1983, si Alexei tila linason uli kailan lang, habang nakakulong.

Even more fascinating is the unfolding story of the widow Yulia Navalnaya. She has promised to carry on Alexei’s fight to free Russia from Putin’s one-man rule, much like Ninoy’s widow Cory Aquino took on Marcos and led the fight to free the nation from martial law. But Yulia’s circumstances are different. She has been threatened with arrest if she returns to Russia.

Cory left Boston Tuesday and was back in Manila by Wednesday, just three days after Ninoy’s murder at the airport. There was no attempt to stop her, I guess because Marcos and Ver were prepared to deny culpability, complete with a silenced scapegoat. Pumayag pa nga na imbestigahan ng Agrava Board ang patayan, at nang idiin nito in November 1984 na the killings were a military conspiracy that went all the way up to Ver (his loyal Armed Forces Chief of Staff), Marcos got the Sandiganbayan to acquit them all anyway in December 1985, which led Cory to run for President in snap elections, at which Marcos cheated, so Cory called for civil disobedience, which culminated in EDSA and the dictator’s escape from Malacañang.

Yes, the Marcoses are back anyway, but that’s another story, and uniquely Filipino I daresay. Altho I imagine that the grief is the same, maybe even worse, with Russian authorities insisting that Navalny died from “natural causes” and refusing to release the body unless his mother agrees to a secret burial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/22/navalny-body-secret-burial-yulia/