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Only in 2012, with the release of Juan Ponce Enrile’s Memoir, did we realize that  it wasn’t just good luck or privilege but extraordinary strength and courage that saw Eugenia aka Eggie through those dark times, standing up not just to Marcos but to his defense minister as well.

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In the pantheon of EDSA warriors 1983 to 1986, Eggie Apostol stands next only to Ninoy, Cory, and Butz for her fearless fight “to quench the public thirst for information on the murderous weight of martial law” and her passionate opposition to press censorship that saw Ninoy’s shocking assassination on Aug 21, and 10 days later the awesome funeral procession, barely covered or reported by Marcos media. Two days later, she dared turn the weekly lifestyle mag Mr. & Ms. into black-and-white Special Editions to fearlessly chronicle those troubled times and document the anger of the people.

The first issue with Ninoy’s bloody face on the cover sold 750,000 copies which settled down to 300,000 to 400,000 weekly over the next 70 weeks or so to the end of November 1984.  Eggie ran stories of the Ninoy-Galman double murder, and events and revelations unfolding thereafter, from the street protests, the human rights violations, the hidden wealth, and the Agrava Fact-Finding Board hearings, especially the Majority Report, released in November 1984, that the double murder was the outcome of a military conspiracy involving Ver and 25 others, and NOT the doing of Galman, the alleged communist hit man.

By Feb 1985, when the Sandiganbayan Trial of Ver et al. began, Eggie had quickly shifted to newspaper mode with the Philippine Weekly Inquirer, tabloid size, to chronicle what turned out to be a mock trial. TV cameras labelled “Office of the President of the Philippines” beamed court proceedings to the Palace from where Marcos stage-managed and directed outcomes and decisions, most crucially the exclusion of all evidence surfaced by the Agrava Board. G.R. No. 72670

The rest is history, so to speak. In Dec 2 1985 the Sandiganbayan acquitted Ver et al., the next day Cory announced she would run in snap elections, and a week later, Dec 9, Eggie went broadsheet with the Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s first issue — the banner story: “It’s Cory-Doy”. In less than three months, Marcos was gone, martial law was over. The “mosquito press” that Marcos dismissed as minor irritant had turned out to be lethal.

But Eggie wasn’t done. In 1996, ten years after EDSA, she founded the Foundation for Worldwide People Power (FWPP) and published my Chronology of a Revolution 1986, coffee table, and in 2000, the updated essay version in Tagalog, Himagsikan sa EDSA–Walang Himala, cheap newsprint, that was serialized in her pop-up tabloid Pinoy Times (1999) in the run-up to Edsa Dos and the ouster of Erap.

In August 2006 she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature & Creative Communication Arts in recognition of “her courageous example in placing the truth-telling press at the center of the struggle for democratic rights and better government in the Philippines.” In November of the same year, she was hailed byTime Magazine as one of its “Asian Heroes” of the past 60 years.

Eugenia “Eggie” Duran Apostol never tires of saying that she was just lucky “to be at the right place at the right time,” with “the knack for starting small things that end up doing big things.” [Butch Hernandez, FWPP]

Only in 2012, with the release of Juan Ponce Enrile‘s Memoir, did we realize that  it wasn’t just good luck or privilege but extraordinary strength and courage that saw Eggie through those challenging times, battling not just Marcos but his defense minister, too.

Enrile’s JAKA Investments Corp. was part owner pala of Mr. & Ms. — pre-1983 the Enriles and Apostols danced and dined around in the same alta sociedad circles; Eggie’s husband Peping Apostol, project engineer, was a favored builder of the Ponce-Enriles — and when the Special Editions came out, Enrile kept his investment in Mr. & Ms. secret (he was in enough trouble with Marcos?).

Juan Ponce Enrile had surprisingly kept his hands off. To avoid scrutiny, his shares had been “warehoused” under Eggie’s name — a “gentleman’s agreement.” https://insiderph.com/

But the 1985 shift to the Inquirer broadsheet came back to bite Eggie. In ’89 JAKA filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accusing her of allegedly diverting Mr. & Ms. corporate funds to set up the Daily Inquirer and complaining of irregularities that she allegedly committed from ’83 to ’87.

In the 1990s the Philippine Daily Inquirer underwent a struggle for power – between Apostol and her managers. Apostol severed all corporate and editorial ties with the Philippine Daily Inquirer on January 26, 1994, resigning from the board and retiring from the paper. She is said to have seen the battle for corporate control to be detrimental to the paper’s growth. [Mojares, Resil. “Biography: Eugenia D. Apostol”]

The Court of Appeals dismissed the complaint In August 1995, which dismissal was affirmed by the Supreme Court in July 1998. [G.R. No. 72670] But Enrile wasn’t done with Eggie. In the 2012 Memoir, he painted her as an opportunistic social climber (imagine!) who curried his favor during martial law to protect and advance her own business interests. Projecting much? It was he who was super fortunate to have Eggie and the mosquito press on his side when he defected from Marcos with FVR and RAM in Feb 86.

The Memoir was “a serious attempt to revise the history of the dictatorship and the libertarian people power movement that followed it,” said Inquirer columnist Amando Doronila. And of course Enrile took exception to my Chronology that editor Nelson Navarro tagged a product of “the official yellow school of history” which cast Enrile in a most “unfavorable light.” https://opinion.inquirer.net/37782/enriles-memoir-story-of-sorcerers-apprentice

ENRILE: Because I was imvolved in politics, the systematic vilification against me was easy to understand and to even forgive. But the disservice done to me was nothing compared to the equally systemic attempt to minimize, if not totally eradicate from the annals of history, the role of the courageous and patriotic soldiers of the land who dared and who were willing and ready to sacrifice their families, their blood and their lives to free the people from a regime that had long lost its moral right to govern. It is something unpardonable and something that I have detested all these years. It showed me the callousness, perfidy and ingratitude of those who benefitted most from the 1986 Edsa Revolution. [page 654]

One realizes now that Enrile’s take down of my EDSA history must have also been about his long-drawn-out battles with Eggie. That he got it all wrong is just consistent as well with that history.

There was no attempt to minimize the role of the rebel military. I tell it as it happened, based on published sources and first-hand accounts: The reformists broke away and the people marched to EDSA to shield them from the dictator. And we continue to celebrate that Day of the Defection as the beginning of the four days of EDSA.

what i do say is that if enrile and ramos had not defected, people power would have happened anyway.  feb 22 was the 7th day of the crony boycott, the economy was reeling, the people were in the throes of nonviolent revolution, marcos’s inauguration would have brought them to the streets anyway, straight to mendiola, most likely, there to face tanks and marines just as bravely and stunningly. https://stuartsantiago.com/resetting-the-record-straight-edsa/

It also bears repeating, clarifying, that Eggie did not commission me to write Chronology or Himagsikan. Both were purely private efforts at telling, and thinking on, how the four days unfolded, what was that all about. By the time Eggie heard of my work and asked to see it, I had already snagged interviews with FVR and Ming, Almonte and Razon, atbp. (for a 1991 FVR project na hindi natuloy). The Cory interview was arranged by Eggie; she sent word to Enrile, too, but he wanted editing privileges.

Eggie was every writer’s dream publisher who did not in any way attempt to influence or edit my reading of, and writing on, the four days’ events, except to send me her folder of news clippings and some foreign titles to flesh out my timeline. And oh yes, she got me that wonderful foreword from Nick Joaquin, cover by Brenda Fajardo, book design by Lynett Villariba. And for Himagsikan, Nonoy Marcelo, no less.

Eggie was 86 when Enrile’s Memoir came out, and the story is, she must have found it very interesting.,,,

…. because she stayed up all night reading it. By the time she was finished with all 750 pages, it was already 5 a.m. As she turned the last page, she closed her eyes…and laughed. https://opinion.inquirer.net/39544/and-then-she-laughed

Katawá-tawá naman talaga na the obfuscating hadn’t stopped, and that he was still so very angry with Eggie for standing up to the machos of martial law. What a life well-lived!

Taos-pusong pasasalamat, Eggie, and happy new trails!

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Original manuscripts online
Chronology of a Revolution https://www.edsarevolution.com/chronology/
Foreword by Nick Joaquin https://www.edsarevolution.com/chronology/foreword.php
Himagsikan sa EDSA–Walang Himala! https://www.stuartxchange.org/Edsa.html 
Panimula https://www.stuartxchange.org/Panimula.html