Category: ninoy

Distorting EDSA, Dismissing Agrava

Heard a pro-Duterte lawyer vlogger telling her followers na kung maraming marami silang jo-join sa  rallies, maaaring sumama na pati ang military, just like in ’86 daw when the military went to EDSA to protect daw the people in case of violent actions from the powers-that-be.

She also said that she doesn’t believe there can be a truly credible investigative commission. “Remember the Agrava Commission? May naniwala ba?” She reminded that there were two reports “dahil hindi magkásundô” [ang commissioners].

THE MILITARY IN EDSA 86

Sinong military troops ang pumuntang EDSA in ’86 to protect the people? Enrile, FVR, and Gringo’s RAM? The Marines’ Tadiar and Balbas?

FACT.  Enrile and Gringo’s Reform the Armed Forces Movement went to Camp Aguinaldo Saturday afternoon, joined by FVR a few hours later, to defect and take a stand vs Marcos (after their coup plot to replace the dictator was discovered). Wala pang tao noon sa EDSA. It was Day 7 of Cory‘s crony-boycott campaign. Close to midnight na when the people went to EDSA upon the call of Butz Aquino and Cardinal Sin to protect the rebel military who were perceived to be possible allies against the dictator.

FACT. Marine Commander General Artemio Tadiar and his tanks went to EDSA Sunday on orders to eliminate Enrile and co. but the people stopped them in Ortigas (as Enrile was crossing the highway to join forces with FVR in Camp Crame).  Monday Col. Braulio Balbas and his howitzers were able to enter Camp Aguinaldo through Libis, with orders to bomb Crame across the highway, but Crame was full of people protecting Enrile and Ramos, and Balbas simply disobeyed orders.

So. It’s not true that the military withdrew their support from Marcos and went to EDSA to protect the people. It was the people, waving Ninoy’s and Cory’s colors and banners, who marched to EDSA to protect the rebel military, not the other way around. Let’s get that straight. https://edsarevolution.com/chronology/

AGRAVA COMMISSION

Hindi rin totoo na walang naniwala sa findings ng Agrava Fact-Finding Board on the Ninoy assasination. Kapani-paniwala ang patunay ng Board na nagsinungaling sina Marcos at Olivas when they insisted na sa tarmac binaril si Ninoy at si Galman ang bumaril sa kanya.

Based on eyewitness accounts and audio recordings, the Board established beyond doubt that Ninoy, the victim of a military conspiracy, was shot on the service stairs by the soldier right behind him. All five members of the Board agreed on this principal finding.

The Majority and Minority reports differed only on how high the military conspiracy went. Chair Corazon Agrava named only the six (6) soldiers who were on the stairs with Ninoy, plus their immediate superior Avsecom chief Gen. Luther Custodio. The majority of four (Dante Santos, Ernesto Herrera, Amado Dizon, and Luciano Salazar) went all the way up to Ver and Olivas, with 22 military men, and one civilian.

That the Majority Report (Oct 1984) dared belie the dictator’s communist-hitman-tale and lay the blame squarely at the feet of Ver, Marcos’s highest military official, was a high point in the struggle to obtain justice for Ninoy.

Unfortunately, if expectedly, following the dictator’s orders na “Mag moro-moro na lang kayo”, the 1985 Sandiganbayan trial (Pamaran Court) declared inadmissible in court the copious evidence unearthed by the Agrava Board, and acquitted all 26, ruling that Ninoy was shot by Galman who was in turn shot by the military. The very next day Cory announced that she would run for President if Marcos were to hold snap elections. We all know how that turned out.

A year after Cory assumed office, there was a Sandiganbayan retrial of the Aquino-Galman double murder case (Hermosisima Court 1987-’90), this while Marcos loyalists mounted coup attempt after coup attempt to topple Cory and bring back Marcos. Criminal Case No. 10010 and 10011 was finally decided a year after Marcos died. It was a compromise decision, upholding Agrava’s finding of a military conspiracy but convicting only 16 soldiers, Custodio the highest ranking. Perhaps a concession to the restive military that settled down only in FVR times.

That Ver and Olivas (and other culpable ones) got off scot free, and that there was no evidence directly linking Marcos to the killing — these do not reflect on the Agrava Board, rather, on the genius of the mastermind who planned and enabled the project : How to kill Ninoy and get away with it. That’s my theory anyway, after some research on what Marcos and the military were up to in the three years preceding Ninoy’s homecoming.

***

More in my Ninoy book, coming soon. This year, if I stop blogging. But these are such exceptional times. Even, desperate times for pro-Duterte vloggers, kaya nagkakalat ng fake history.

***

Ninoy wasn’t perfect but he was one bright star!

First posted November 2019

And he was for real, nothing like the three “brightest stars” kuno … “shining” in the sky … that Duterte claims himself, Go, and Cayetano to be.  Hello.  Not one of them, not all of them together — kahit isali pa natin si Inday Sara at ang buong Konggreso — can hold a candle to Ninoy.

Were he still alive, Ninoy would be 87, retired na siguro but still nakiki-alam malamang, still holding forth with his ten-centavos worth on every issue under Sun and Moon, leveling up popular discourse at the very least.  What I’d give for some informed intelligent talk about Nation, with wisdom that comes from age and experience, with credibility that comes from integrity and love of country.

One thing his political opponents couldn’t fault Ninoy for, ever, was corruption.  And so they hit him hard with the communist card, tagged him a godless enemy of the state, without evidence other than that he was friendly with certain anti-America anti-bases Huks and communists, but then so was Marcos, friendly with certain other anti-America anti-bases communists but secretly, of course, in the run-up to martial law.

Which is not to say that Ninoy couldn’t have played his cards better.  I can understand, for instance, that he thought it a great idea to facilitate, hasten, a meeting (which would have happened anyway without his help, it is said) between the communist ideologue Joma Sison and the rogue Huk Bernabe Buscayno, but did it have to happen in / around Hacienda Luisita?  Of course nakarating ang intel kay Marcos, and of course Marcos exploited it to the hilt.  Ninoy laid himself wide open for that.

I like to think that Ninoy didn’t have to die just so we could topple Marcos.  I like to think that we would have toppled Marcos with Ninoy himself leading the way.  But i guess that would have been a different kind of battle.  Enrile, for one, might not have given way to Ninoy the way he did to Cory.  And then, again, who knows.

Ang nakahihinayang sa lahat, Ninoy never, it would seem, considered the possibility, in case he was killed, that Cory might take up the struggle in his place.  Because if he did he might have prepared Cory better, and Noynoy too?  Or did he try sharing the Christian Democratic Socialist ideology with his family but their eyes glazed over?

Maybe they would all have tried harder had they known how much Ninoy was loved and admired for standing up to Marcos, even in exile, and had Ninoy known how eagerly we awaited his return.  But then how was he to know, when Marcos controlled all media, and he continued to denounce Ninoy as communist, and we had learned to keep our mouths shut, or else.  Almost like now.

We had no idea then how many we were (legion! pala) who believed in Ninoy and trusted him to lead the way forward, that is, until he was taken from us, murdered on the tarmac, our one great hope.  No wonder the love and the hope spilled over and embraced Cory and the children in grief.  The rest is history, ika nga.

Nowadays, we have no idea, either, how many we are who desperately desire a better life for the marginalized and impoverished masses and a just and equitable social and political order for all.  But little do we really know what it would take to achieve these goals.

What we need is a Ninoy, nay, we need many Ninoys, who have the welfare of the masses at heart, and who have the expertise to pick up where Ninoy left off, craft a credible and sustainable development program (beyond BuildBuildBuild and PPP) toward systemic change that would be worth uniting behind. 

In an interview with Nick Joaquin, Ninoy said that in 1967, when he ended his gig as manager of Hacienda Luisita to run for the Senate, it took eight men to take over his job. [The Aquinos of Tarlac page 278]

Eight is a good number, for starters.  But, yeah, Ninoy is a hard act to follow.

*

Ninoy he is not

When Ninoy Aquino was murdered in 1983 by Marcos minions, the reaction of many opposition figures was: “If they can do this to Ninoy, they can do this to any of us.”  Beyond grief and anger, they were suddenly feeling vulnerable — wala palang untouchable, not even Ninoy — baka sila na ang susunod.

When Digong Duterte was arrested some two weeks ago, I heard some DDS peeps saying roughly the same thing: “If they can do this to Tatay Digong, they can do it to any of us.” I wondered if it was a natural visceral reaction, as in ’83, or a knowing and deliberate copy, meant to liken Digong, accused of crimes against humanity, to Ninoy, the hero and martyr who dared stand up to the dictator and died for it. I thought to give them the benefit of the doubt, Hindi naman siguro deliberate.

But when VP Sara said from The Hague na “Nag-iisa ako dito…” and Imee Marcos responded from the Senate na  “Hindi kayo nag-iisa…” and soon after, I heard a “tribute song” via Tiktok pa-lovingly sadly intoning “Tatay Digong, hindi ka nag-iisa…,” there was no longer any doubt that the DDS are deliberately using a significant artifact of the Ninoy narrative as a slogan to convey their love for Digong, never mind that Digong is no Ninoy, basta lang makaantig ng puso.

“Ninoy, hindi ka nag-iisa!” was a welcome message upon his return from U.S. exile in August 1983, meant to assure Ninoy that his kababayans had not forgotten him, he was not alone, we were with him in the struggle to end martial law through nonviolent means. A message, along with yellow ribbons, that Ninoy never got to see but which became the dominant soundbite cried out by the millions of Filipinos who paid him homage in the longest funeral procession in history. Addressed to Digong, however, it is a message of support for EJKs and their perpetrators, nothing more, nothing less. https://web.archive.org/web/

Then came the latest Ninoy reference that quickly went viral. Sara from Den Haag shared a conversation with Digong who asked daw when he could go home and Sara said daw that it would be better if he didn’t, otherwise he’d end up like Ninoy Aquino Jr., or something to that effect. Eh okay lang daw kay Digong, because, I guess, he is ready to die for country? better than to rot in jail?

Aquino Family.  Kung pag-aaralan natin ang kasaysayan, makikita natin na ibang iba ang ginawa kay Ninoy sa pinagdadaanan ngayon ni dating Pang. Duterte.
https://www.facebook.com/francis.n.dee/

Ruben Carranza.  Si Ninoy na-EJK ni Marcos. Si Duterte nang-EJK at ginawang hero si Marcos.  https://www.facebook.com/ruben.carranza.

Kiko Aquino Dee. Mas annoying po ito sa akin kaysa nakakasakit. … Huwag na sana idamay ang Lolo Ninoy ko…. Sa both sides po ito. Alam kong may pahayag din ang Malakanyang tungkol sa sinabi ni VP Sara.  Again, parang ginagamit yung pangalan ng Lolo Ninoy ko upang basically ipagtanggol yung anak ng isang presidente na siya mismo yung nagpasimuno sa lahat ng pagdurusa ng Lolo Ninoy ko. To both of them, sana tigil-tigilan yung paggamit ng dugo ng isang Aquino upang ipaglaban yung kani-kanilang sariling interes. https://www.youtube.com/

Luke Espiritu #25. The nerve! … Yung tatay mo mamamatay-tao, si Ninoy lumaban para sa karapatang pantao. Yung tatay mo ang nagpalibing sa pumatay kay Ninoy sa Libingan ng mga Bayani. Kayo ng tatay mo ang naging instrumental sa pagbalik ng mga Marcos sa kapangyarihan, si Ninoy ang naging instrumental para sila bumagsak. Pag pinatay tatay mo ang tawag diyan ay justice, noong pinatay si Ninoy ang tawag dun ay injustice. Ispesyal na katangian at pambihirang level ng kapal ng mukha ang kailangan para di mo mapansin ang kontradiksyon sa mga sinasabi mo. https://www.facebook.com/LukeEspirituPH/

It’s all very ironic, considering that Digong, once in office, had been quick to discredit and dismiss the defeated LP as elitist dilawans.

The main opposition, the LP, became the focus of Duterte and his supporters’ criticism. This animosity has been further simplified and popularized by personalities like Mocha Uson, bloggers, administration officials, and Duterte himself, allowing them to cluster their opponents into an easily recognizable group: dilawans.

Patricio Abinales stressed that yellow was also “associated with the elite,” noting how Duterte, in line with the populist approach, redefined yellow to refer to the oligarchs he promised to depose. Furthermore, he mentioned the failure of the LP to appeal to the Filipino masses, unable to counter President Duterte’s populism. https://theguidon.com/2020/04/

That the DDS are now taking tips from the dilawan drama but in a twisted kind of way is nakakainis talaga, annoying nga, because there is no basis for comparison: hindi sila magkatulad, on any level.  But like FB friend Fredda Ruth Rosete says, “… nobody owns or has a patent on strategies like boycotts, EDSA People Power and zero remittance day…” https://www.facebook.com/fredda.r.rosete/posts/

I imagine that the attitude is, “Hindi ka nag-iisa” atbp. worked for Cory and EDSA, it can work for Digong, let’s get creative. And so, kahit pa it’s for Tiktok and YouTube content that can be skewed or exaggerated in favor of Digong for some future blitz, I’m taking it na lang, pa rin, as a win, of pogi points for Ninoy, because we’re having conversations about him, beyond birth and death anniversary tributes. Thanks, DDS!

 

“Storm in a teacup” #SaraDrama

Nov 23.  “Don’t worry about my safety. I have talked to a person and I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke.”

Nov 25.  “Di ba pumalag nga ang buong bayan nang pinatay ng pamilya nila si Benigno Aquino Jr. (Didn’t the people fight back when they plotted the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.)?”

Nov 26.  “Ang hindi lang nagawa ni Ninoy … kaya hindi siya nakaganti … kasi hindi siya nagbilin. … But you know Benigno Aquino Jr. is not Sara Duterte. Ibang tao siya. Ibang tao din ako.”

All that from VP Sara in the run-up to November 27, when Ninoy would have turned 92, were he not assassinated by the Marcos military in broad daylight @ 50, just when he was finally of age to run for president under the Marcos constitution.

Few doubted that the dictator Marcos was the mastermind, simply because, like Cory said, once martial law was declared, nothing ever happened to Ninoy without the dictator’s approval, nothing! No one, Ver least of all, would have dared touch Ninoy without clearance from on high. It was also said that the dictator needn’t have given the order directly, that is, not in so many words, but merely indicated his wishes in other ways, perhaps a la Henry II in TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral: as in, who will rid me of this troublesome one… or some such similar expression of grim exasperation.

The Marcos camp has always denied that Marcos was the mastermind, but anyone who bothers to check out credible documented reports and court rulings and docus knows that the Marcoses and their allies are lying or simply don’t know the truth just because, let us remember, the OG Marcos was wily that way.  And now that the son has made it back to the Palace, thanks to the Dutertes, the one time napag-usapan ang Ninoy assassination was in the time of Imee‘s movie Martyr or Murderer (2023) where a lot of screen time was still spent “trying to establish Ferdinand, Sr.’s innocence with regard to the Aquino assassination.”

BUTCH FRANCISCO: Was that still necessary? Through the years, the nation seems to have been convinced that Ferdinand, Sr. had nothing to do with Ninoy’s death. A comedic scene in Martyr that shows chief household staff Elizabeth Oropesa playing detective summarizes what had become the scenario in the public mind – yes, the one that involves a blood relation as the mastermind behind Ninoy’s killing. https://www.pikapika.ph/

Yes, it was still necessary, it will always be necessary. ‘Ika nga ni Imelda, perception is real, truth is not — but only in her world. Perception of innocence that is based on lies has to be periodically reinforced, otherwise the believers are confronted with nothing but the truth.

The truth that VP Sara dared speak, salamat na rin, and thankfully not to paint herself as a Ninoy, because she’s nothing like Ninoy. Her claim of death threats I can believe, but her conditional death can’t be automatically attributed to the Marcoses without investigation and confirmation.

PBBM, to his credit, has been very measured in his responses, even if he seems to have flipflopped from palaban to pa-statesman.

PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE Nov 25 

The President said Duterte should be made accountable for her statements. Any assassination attempt against the President also raises concerns about the security of the nation and its citizens, he said.

Such criminal attempts should never be overlooked, the President added.

“Kung ganun na lang kadali ang pagplano sa pagpatay ng isang Presidente, papaano pa kaya ang mga karaniwan na mamayan? ‘Yang ganyang criminal na pagtatangka ay hindi dapat pinapalampas,” he said.

Interestingly echoing the people’s sentiments in 1983: “If he can do it to Ninoy, he can do it to any of us.”

Three days later,  Nov 28, as the Left and pinklawan social media pundits urged, nay, demanded, that Congress impeach the VP, now na! this purported message from “BBM” to Congress was leaked to media.

In the larger scheme of things, Sara is unimportant. So please do not file impeachment complaints. It will only distract us from the real work of governance which is to improve the lot of all Filipinos.

Today, the 29th, PBBM acknowledged sending the message and reiterated:

What will happen if someone files an impeachment? It will tie down the House [of Representatives], it will tie down the Senate, it will just take up time and for what? For nothing,” he added.

“None of this will help improve a single Filipino life,” he stressed. “As far as I’m concerned, it is a storm in a teacup.” https://philstarlife.com

Ang tanong, magpapapigil ba ang Konggreso? And will there be similar messages to the DOJ and the NBI to let the VP be? As in, dedma na lang? And let the people power attempt die a natural death?

The Left would be so disappointed, and maybe the DDS peeps daily gathering in EDSA, too, who seem to think that impeachment is what will bring huge crowds of Duterte supporters to the streets. But but but what fueled the huge rallies of 1986 was Cory’s nonviolent civil disobedience campaign and the wildly successful boycott of crony businesses that primed the people to stand as barricades and shield the military rebels from Marcos’s wrath. Parang this one is, has, nothing like that.

And then again, who knows. Here’s hoping BBM’s right and the “storm in a teacup” subsides quickly enough. If so, here’s to a viable tandem who can beat Sara and/or  Raffy Tulfo in 2028.