Category: ninoy

ninoy’s politics: “Three Generations”

I am Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., 45, Filipino, married, father of five, a native of Concepcion, Tarlac, and presently detained since September 23, 1972 at the MSU Compound of the Philippine Army at Fort Bonifacio.

My detention camp is also known as the “cemetery for the living” — to distinguish it from the American Cemetery directly to the north and the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of Heroes) slightly to the south.

Both my grandfather and my father were imprisoned, as I am now, for serving the Filipino people.

I am the grandson of the late General Servillano Aquino of the Filipino Revolutionary Army under President Aguinaldo of the First Republic. Shortly after the turn of the century, my grandfather was captured by American forces, tried, convicted and sentenced to death by an American Military Tribunal for “guerrilla war crimes even after the capitulation of President Aguinaldo.” He escaped execution only after President Theodore Roosevelt declared an amnesty for all Filipino rebels. For six years, my grandfather was imprisoned in the dungeons of Fort Santiago and a grateful nation recognized and rewarded his efforts by naming one of the biggest Philippine Army camps in his honor.

I am the son of the late Benigno S. Aquino, Sr., a former congressman, a senator (majority floor leader), cabinet member under President Quezon during the Philippine Commonwealth, and a Speaker of the National Assembly. He was the No. 2 man of the wartime Second Republic. American authorities imprisoned my father, together with the other members of the wartime government, in Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. He regained his freedom at the birth of the Third Republic in 1946.

I am a product of the Benedictines and of the Jesuit ratio studiorum. After 2 years in Catholic educational institutions, I began the study of law at the University of the Philippines.

I am a former newspaperman (The Manila Times). At 17, I was a war correspondent (the Korean War). Later, I became a foreign correspondent (Indo-China, Malaya, Indonesia, the Middle East). In 1955, I was elected mayor of Concepcion, Tarlac. In 1961, I became vice governor of Tarlac province. In 1961, I became governor of Tarlac province. I was elected to the same office in 1963. In 1967, I was elected to the Senate of the Philippines.

I was executive assistant to three Presidents: Magsaysay, Garcia, Macapagal. I was awarded decorations by three Presidents: Quirino (The Philippine Legion of Honor, Degree of Officer, for services during the Korean War); Magsaysay (The Philippine Legion of Honor, Degree of Commander, for negotiating the return to the government of Luis M. Taruc, erstwhile Huk Supremo, in 1954); Garcia (First Brown Anahaw Leaf to the PLH – Officer, for services in the peace and order campaign; Presidential Merit Award for intelligence work in Indonesia, in 1958, “classified”). In awarding me the highest civilian award of the Republic, President Magsaysay cited my “invaluable contribution to the collapse of the communist-led Huk insurgency.”

I am not a communist. I have never been one. I have never joined any communist party. I am not — and have never been — a member of any illegal and/or subversive organization, or even a front organization.

Yes, I have met with communist leaders and members of subversive organizations both as a newspaperman and as a public servant as far back as 1954. In fact the government awarded me the highest civilian award precisely for what my pacification parleys with rebels and subversives had achieved.

President Magsaysay made use of my services as a negotiator not only with the communist-led dissidents in Central Luzon but also with Muslim outlaw leaders. Indeed, I consider my ability to communicate with the leaders of the various dissident movements as well as my understanding of their causes as one of my special qualifications for high office.

I have been a student of communism, especially the Philippine communist movement, for the last two decades. I have writtean many papers, delivered many lectures on the Huks, who later became the HMBs and who, still later, became the CPP/NPAs, their aims, their inner dynamics and motivations, both in the Philippines and abroad.

If I had planned to seek the Presidency in 1973, it was because I sincerely believed I had the key to the possible final solution to the vexing dissident (communist) problem.

I was first exposed to communism as a young teenager shortly after the war, in 1945, when my hometown of Concepcion was literally occupied by the Hukbalahaps. Our town mayor, an avowed Huk, was appointed by the dissident group.

In 1950, I was assigned by the Manila Times to cover the UN police action in Korea with special emphasis on the participation of the Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea (PEFTOK). I witnessed the brutal massacre of innocent civilians by fleeing communist forces. Barely 18, I learned firsthand from North Korean survivors how the communists governed and regimented their people, how all their freedoms were suppressed, especially the rights to peaceful assembly, religion and free speech. Some of my most poignant early newspaper stories dwelt on the grimness of existence under communist totalitarian rule.

At 20, I was assigned as a foreign correspondent in Indo-China. I was at Dien Bien Phu and covered the last dying moments of French colonialism in Asia. Later, I was posted to Malaya to cover the British counter-insurgency efforts under General Templar. In 1954, I returned to the Philippines and negotiated Mr. Taruc’s return to the government fold on May 16, 1954.

Three former Presidents availed of my services, especially in the field of counter-insurgency. I was special assistant to President Magsaysay when I met Taruc. Under President Garcia, I was entrusted with the delicate mission of monitoring the so-called “Colonels’ Revolt” in Indonesia. Under President Macapagal, I served as his special assistant in his travels to Cambodia and Indonesia at the height of the Malaysia-Indonesia konfrontasi.

In 1965, President Macapagal appointed me spokesman of the Philippine Delegation to the crucial Afro-Asian conference in Algiers where the two Communist super-powers, the USSR and the PRC, girded for a showdown. The Philippine Delegation, together with a handful of “free world” delegations, held the balance of power. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a bomb was exploded inside the confence hall on the eve of the meeting, forcing the organizers to “indefinitely postpone the conference.”

In 1970, I was a member of the Philippine delegation to the Djakarta Conference on Cambodia which took up the entry of American and South Vietnamese forces into that country.

In fact, four days before the martial law declaration, Senator Gerardo Roxas and I were given a highly classified briefing by the AFP general staff on the nation’s counter-insurgency plans at Camp Aguinaldo.

I enjoyed the highest security clearance from the government.

I have been a student of theoretical Marxism. I have followed every twist and turn of our local communists. I have read practically all lthe published works of our local Reds. Whenever possible, I interviewed communist intellectuals to get first-hand information.

This, however, does not mean that I have embraced communism, much less joined any communist of subversive organization. On the contrary, I would like to believe that I convinced some of the dissidents to return to the fold of the government, as in the case of Mr. Taruc.

I have never advocated the overthrow of the government by force and violence, much less the establishment of a totalitarian regime. Or worse, placing this country under the domination and control of an alien power.
I have no reason to do that — not I, of all people. Why should I advocate a violent overthrow of the government? I am one of the lucky few who have never lost an election — from mayor, to vice governor, to governor, to senator. Why should I want to destroy a form of government that has served me well? In fact, in 1972, I was within a stone’s throw from the highest office within the gift of our people — the Presidency.

It is true I urged our people to boot Mr. Marcos out of office. I campaigned vigorously against him in 1965 and again in 1969. I warned our people as early as 1968 of Mr. Marcos’ sinister plot to suspend our elections and perpetuate himself in power through the declaration of martial rule. I denounced in my maiden privilege speech in the Senate Mr. Marcos’ gradual and steady development of a “Garrison State.” For four years before September 1972, I warned our people of Mr. Marcos’ creeping militarism.

Mr. Marcos is not the Republic and the State. It is unfortunate that some people hold the belief that to oppose Mr. Marcos is to oppose the State and that opposition to Marcos is tantamount to treason.

I am against Mr. Marcos. But I am a loyal citizen of the Republic!”

Testament from a Prison Cell (1984) 13-16

beyond conspiracy: ninoy’s politics

it was impossible not to weep as i watched the retelling of ninoy’s life and death by the docu Beyond Conspiracy: 25 Years after the Aquino Assassination courtesy of the Foundation for WorldWide People Power. impossible because i so remember those days.

i was 23 when marcos declared martial law and i remember ninoy aquino before that, the chubby bespectacled senator who was the fastest talker and the most fearless and most ardent critic of marcos. and i remember those news photos of a thin Ninoy through the military trial and the hunger strike,and that one time he was allowed to speak out on television — when the streets of manila were empty because everyone was indoors watching and listening to the last man standing, painfully lean, and, to me, painfully sexy, in his hunger for justice and freedom.

i remember feeling abandoned when his heart failed and he flew off to america for treatment, and three years later exulting when he announced that he was coming home, tie a yellow ribbon ’round that ol’ tree, it’s been three long years, do you still want me… and i remember that fateful sunday afternoon, how my heart sank when i heard that he had been killed, and how i wept for cory and kids and country.

but the second half of the docu left me cold. i suppose okey lang for young viewers hearing the story of the assassination and the trials and witnesses for the first time; otherwise it told me nothing new, except maybe for some trivia. to my mind the big question, i mean, the big story, is no longer who ordered ninoy killed, rather, why aren’t these masterminds in jail? because blood, or maybe even just class, is thicker?

hindi rin lang ito kayang itanong o sagutin, sana iba na lang ang tinutukan, such as ninoy’s politics, on which subject there is ample material. then maybe the kids’ iamninoy campaign would have some ground to stand on other than faithhopeandcharity.

in his goodbye statement to the house of representatives of the u.s. congress in 1983 ninoy spoke of a “program of action” that he drafted during his three years in exile which he intendedto take up with the leaders of the non-violent opposition at home, hopefully to end the bloodletting and set the economy right. nothing has been heard about this program of action since. but the book Testament from a Prison Cell published by cory in 1984 has a wealth of information about the man and his politics.

TESTAMENT Foreword:

This book is Ninoy’s ‘closing statement’ before Military Commission No. 2.

Ninoy started working on his ‘closing statement’ in 1975 and he finished it in 1977. Although many believed that the charges against him were fabricated, still Ninoy believed he should present his side to the Filipino people.

Ninoy was determined that this book should reach his people and so my children and I smuggled out the manuscript, page by page. He instructed me to furnish the international press with copies of his statement. Perhaps he had a premonition. As it turned out, the Military Commission prevented Ninoy from reading his ‘closing statement’ by keeping him locked up in his cell during the last vital eight hours of the proceedings.

I cannot help but point out the striking parallel between Ninoy’s closing statement before the tribunal that condemned him to death on November 25, 1977, and his ‘arrival statement’ for August 21, 1983. In both instances Ninoy was stopped from reading them.

Allow me then to present to you, the Filipino people, Ninoy’s testament.

CORY AQUINO

coming next are selected excerpts from Testament:

Three Generations… “I am Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., 45, Filipino, married, father of five…”

The Filipino As Dissident… “In 1954, when I first established contact with Huk Supremo Luis M. Taruc…”

A Christian Democratic Vision… “As I delved deeper into the underlying reasons behind our chronic insurgency problem…”

Manifesto For A Free Society… “In the most unequivocal terms, not a few communist leaders have told me that there is no room for politicians in the CPP/NPA set-up…”

wearenotninoy

smoke’s rom thinks ninoy became a hero only because he was assassinated, that otherwise he would have turned out to be just like any traditional politician with feet of clay.

What does Ninoy actually represent, other than that he was a victim of a dictator (just like hundreds of other public intellectuals, labor leaders, journalists, and so on)?

Kids today don’t know squat about him, or about what he did. His place in our pantheon of heroes was secured for him by the fact that he was assassinated. Prior to that, he was just one of the many who were victimized by the Marcoses. Fine, he was primus inter pares or something, but at the end of the day, I tend to admire more those who stayed and lived their lives in constant danger of death, rather than those who fled.

I mean, Joma is in the Netherlands, isn’t he? And don’t we all laugh at how he runs the communists here by remote control? Well, if you’re being honest about it, that was exactly what Ninoy’s exile was all about.In the meantime that he was gone, people at home were being harassed, hounded into the hills, and getting impoverished by the importunings of the dictator.

The only time he returned was when, according to him, he felt that the time was right to convince Marcos to hand over the reins of government to him in order to prevent the turmoil that would inevitably result when Marcos died and his lieutenants began fighting for their share of empire (kinda like how Alexander’s generals – Ptolemy and all the rest – carved up Alexander’s empire into smaller kingdoms). Sure he braved death, but at least part of that bravery was openly motivated by the will to power. Not very heroic that, eh?”

clearly the information is inadequate, therefore the concluson is flawed.

in fact ninoy was one of those “who stayed and lived their lives in constant danger of death”. he was not one of those who fled, like oppositionists heherson and manglapus and maceda a.k.a. “steak commandoes” in america demonstrating against the dictator and martial law from afar. ninoy did not flee to america, he was offered medical treatment in america when his heart began to fail after 7 years and 7 months in jail. and once he was well, he could think of nothing but the homeland and going home, even if it meant going back to his prison cell.

if he had not been assassinated and had instead succeeded marcos i have no doubt that he would have been creative enough and brave enough -remember, he was much much younger than senators tanada and salonga – to find ways of working out a peaceful settlement of the mindanao problem as well as a more equitable economic system all around (as can be gleaned from his writings) AND with his charisma he would have inspired the nation to unite behind a truly democratic social order.

also rom dares say that edsa wasn’t about ninoy, it was about ramos and enrile.

Ninoy Aquino’s death didn’t free us.

We freed ourselves.

In fact, the EDSA revolution wasn’t even about Ninoy, was it? It was about Enrile and Ramos battling their way out of corners they’d found themselves painted into. It was Cardinal Sin who turned it into a Ninoy Aquino lovefest – and to great effect. The soldiers Enrile and Ramos were smart enough to recognize a tactical advantage and were quick to jump on the bandwagon.

What sets him apart from all his peers – people like Tanada and Salonga – is that his death happened at the right time and under the right circumstances that allowed it to be used by US as the seed of OUR revolution. The idea of him being killed by the dictator gave us the focal point we needed for our simmering discontent to boil over into massive mobilization. Except, of course, if Ninoy hadn’t died, he would have succeeded Marcos (prolly) and his feet would be touching the same base clay as Salonga and Tanada, and the discontent would have escaped into the atmosphere as nothing more than so much vented steam.”

if EDSA were about ramos and enrile, why then did enrile not end up the president?

in fact EDSA was about ramos and enrile trying to unseat marcos, replace him with enrile, thus preempting cory, but they failed because the people would have none of it — the people had united behind cory in the snap elections the way they would have united behind ninoy, and when they went to edsa, wearing cory’s colors and waving her flags, it was not just to support ramos and enrile, it was to woo them and the reformist soldiers into serving as cory’s armed forces and helping unseat marcos.

but rom’s right, we are not ninoy. i’d even say he died because we did not deserve him, and we still don’t.

ninoy, 21 august 83

‘FAITH IN OUR PEOPLE AND FAITH IN GOD’

August 21, 1983
Manila International Airport

I have returned on my free will to join the ranks of those struggling to restore our rights and freedoms through nonviolence.

I seek no confrontation. I only pray and will strive for a genuine national reconciliation founded on justice.

I am prepared for the worst, and have decided against the advice of my mother, my spiritual adviser, many of my tested friends and a few of my most valued political mentors.

A death sentence awaits me. Two more subversion charges, calling for death penalties, have been since I left three years ago and are now pending with the courts.

I could have opted to seek political asylum in America, but I feel it is my duty, as it is the duty of every Filipino, to suffer with his people especially in time of crisis.

I never sought nor have I been given any assurances or promise of leniency by the regime. I return voluntarily armed only with a clear conscience and fortified in the faith that in the end justice will emerge triumphant.

According to Ghandi, the WILLING sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God and man.

Three years ago when I left for an emergency heart bypass operation, I hoped and prayed that the rights and freedoms of our people would soon be restored, that living conditions would improve and that bloodletting would stop.

Rather than move forward, we have moved backward. The killings have increased, the economy has taken a turn for the worse, and the human rights situation has deteriorated.

During the martial law period, the Supreme Court heard petitions for Habeas Corpus. It is most ironic, after martial law has allegedly been lifted, that the Supreme Court last April ruled it can no longer entertain petitions for Habeas Corpus for persons detained under a Presidential Commitment Order, which covers all so-called national security cases and which under present circumstances can cover almost anything.

The country is far advanced in her times of trouble. Economic, social and political problems bedevil the Filipino. These problems may be surmounted if we are united. But we can be united only if all the rights and freedoms enjoyed before September 21, 1972 are fully restored.

The Filipino asks for nothing more, but will surely accept nothing less than all the rights and freedom guaranteed by the 1935 Constitution-the most sacred legacies from the Founding Fathers.

Yes, the Filipino is patient, but there is a limit to his patience. Must we wait until that patience snaps?
The nation-wide rebellion is escalating and threatens to explode into a bloody revolution. There is a growing cadre of young Filipinos who have finally come to realize that freedom is never granted, it is taken. Must we relive the agonies and the blood-letting of the past that brought forth our Republic, or can we sit down as brothers and sisters and discuss our differences with reason and goodwill?
I have often wondered how many disputes could have been settled easily had the disputants only dared to define their terms.

So as to leave no room for misunderstanding, I shall define my terms:

1. 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.

2. 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.

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

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

5. For the economy to get going once again, the workingman must be given his just and rightful share of his labor, and to the owners and managers must be restored the hope where there is so much 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 to an uncertain future with only determination and faith to offer – faith in our people and faith in God.

BENIGNO S. AQUINO, JR.