Category: ninoy

Mga Kuwentong Marites  #NinoyImelda #NinoyFerdinand

Umiikot ngayon sa tiktok ang isang video na pinost ng isang empanadaeditx tungkol sa “one of the most controversial chismis of the history” (sic) that the upcoming Darryl Yap film, Martyr or Murderer, “might tackle” daw.

Might pa lang? Kung sabagay, medyo sablay ang tsismis:

i  That back in the 1950s Ninoy was courting Imelda who “wasn’t wealthy or powerful” and Ninoy’s family disapproved of the relationship “in favor of Cory Aquino” and so he turned his eye to Cory, whose father was “a wealthy politician and businessman of Tarlac”.

ii  That “As Ferdinand and Ninoy became friends before, as they went (sic) in the same fraternity, Ferdinand actually helped Ninoy get heart surgery, with Imelda’s help.”

ANG TOTOO

NINOY & IMELDA were dating for a while but not exclusively. They were both playing the field.  That Ninoy later started dating Cory exclusively was not because his family disapproved of Imelda but because he fell in love with Cory who was, among other things, a math major, minor in French. As for Imelda the beauty queen, the story is that she was actually in love with a certain Nakpil when Ferdinand swept her off her feet in that whirlwind courtship of 11 days. (Read Nick Joaquin’s book on the Aquinos, and Betsy Romualdez Francia’s on Imelda.)

ANG TOTOO

NINOY & MARCOS were never friends in the true sense of the word. They were both Upsilonians but Marcos was batch 1937 and Ninoy batch 1950; hindi sila nag-abot sa U.P.  Sabi ni Kiko Pangilinan sa Twitter: “Pareho naming silang brods kahit na magkasalungat ang kanilang pulitika.” Marcos considered Ninoy his political nemesis, a threat to his dream of dynasty and reigning forever and ever. Kaya niya ito ikinulong. And when Ninoy urgently needed heart surgery, he didn’t agree to let Ninoy fly to Texas out of friendship or generosity but out of political expediency.

SANDRA BURTON. Although Marcos was reluctant to let Aquino leave the country, Imelda was quick to see the advantage of the proposal. “If he is operated on here and he dies, everyone will think there was monkey business,” she remarked. On the other hand, if he were flown to the U.S., the Marcoses could wash their hands of the troublesome prisoner. She won the argument, as she often did. [Impossible Dream page 107]

LUMANG TUGTUGIN. Dati nang ipinipilit ng Marcos propagandists na, dahil magkaibigan ang dalawa, imposibleng may kinalaman si Marcos sa pagpatay kay Ninoy. Sinabi pa nga daw ni Marcos sa kanyang generals na “my best successor is Ninoy.” But it was only a statement of fact (meant to agitate the generals into a conspiracy, I imagine), and not a statement of intent. Ang totoo, matagal na niyang naipangako ang puwesto kay Imelda.

RAYMOND BONNER. On June 7, 1975, in his own tiny scrawl, Marcos wrote out Presidential Decree Number 731. “By virtue of the powers vested in me . . . , I, Ferdinand E. Marcos, hereby decree” that “in the event of my death or permanent incapacity,” a commission shall exercise power. And the chairman of the commission, he also decreed, shall be “Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos.” [Waltzing with a Dictator, 156. See also Imelda Marcos: The Rise and Fall of One of the World’s Most Powerful Women by Carmen Navarro Pedrosa]

NEXT: WHO’S THE “CONGENITAL LIAR”?

Heroism

RANDY DAVID

Heroes are exemplary individuals who embody a community’s highest values and ideals. “Heroes” and “nation” typically go together because a country’s best-known heroes are those whose lives are intertwined with the nation’s emergence, emancipation, and transformation.

Without any doubt, the Filipino people’s two greatest heroes are Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. Rizal, for offering through his writings and exemplary life a vision of Filipinos as a people capable of attaining the highest achievement within the reach of nations, including that of self-rule. Bonifacio, for organizing and initiating the revolution that eventually freed the country from Spanish colonial rule.

The Filipino nation regularly celebrates their lives and holds them up as models of patriotism, to be emulated by generations of its citizens, particularly the youth. Other communities have their respective heroes, too. The Catholic Church has its martyrs and saints. Revolutionary movements have their ideologues and warriors.

At about this time every year, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation plucks out of anonymity some four or five Asians, and casts a light upon the heroic work they do to make the world a better place, especially for the poor and neglected sectors of society. Offering innovative solutions to new and existing problems, often in the face of great adversity, these Magsaysay laureates are living heroes in their own way. They serve as models of an alternative life worth living in a materialistic and self-absorbed world.

A hero is thus the closest personification of a value or set of values that a given community desires to preserve, reinforce, and promote. The battle for a nation’s memory is, at bottom, a battle to maintain its core values in a rapidly changing world. There are, however, times when swiftly unfolding events bring out a change in the national mood that contradicts values enshrined in existing state commemorations.

If the theory is right, the resulting cognitive dissonance compels either a revision in action — for example, by abolishing the commemoration of an event, or a change in attitude, such as by offering a different and less dissonant interpretation of what happened.

The 2022 presidential election brought the son and namesake of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to Malacañang. The meaning of Marcos Jr.’s election by a big majority of Filipino voters seems to clash with everything that Ninoy Aquino Day, commemorated on Aug. 21 every year, seeks to represent. This special nonworking national holiday, instituted in honor of the former senator and martial law detainee, unavoidably recalls that fateful day in 1983 when, coming home from foreign exile, he was shot to death at the airport while under military escort.

As I argued in last week’s column, Ninoy Aquino’s assassination triggered a national outrage that eventually brought down the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. His martyrdom to the cause of democracy was immediately recognized and was undisputed in the years that followed. The people’s memory and appreciation of his heroism remained stable even after nearly three decades, when his son Noynoy was elected president.

It is remarkable that in a 2011 Social Weather Stations opinion poll on the personalities that Filipinos regard as genuine Filipino heroes, Ninoy ranked No. 3 — after Rizal and Bonifacio. (Thanks to Mahar Mangahas for bringing this out in his column the other day.) Together with Cory Aquino at No. 4, Apolinario Mabini at No. 5, and Emilio Aguinaldo at No. 6 — these names were the only ones that received double-digit percentage mentions. One wonders how the Aquinos would fare if the same poll were conducted today.

What is certain is that President Marcos Jr.’s administration has not seen it fit to remove Feb. 25 (the people power revolution) and Aug. 21 (Ninoy Aquino Day) from the list of official national commemorations. Neither has the administration signified any support for one lawmaker’s proposal to rename the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It’s not hard to understand this. Not only will doing so appear vindictive, it also directly challenges the Filipino public’s sense of values.

This, however, does not mean that attempts to rewrite history to make it conform with the current political configuration is about to come to an end. As the film “Maid in Malacañang” indicates, the drift of current efforts appears to be toward a reinterpretation of the past in order to paint the Marcoses less as whimsical wielders of power and more as ordinary people with little control over events, and their political enemies less as the self-sacrificing heroes they are held out to be, but more as vicious and opportunistic power players.

Like everything in society, values change. Therefore, our conception of heroism and who our real heroes are is also bound to change. In 1981, writes historian Alfred W. McCoy, Marcos Sr. requested Pope John Paul II to ride a helicopter to bless the giant steel cross atop Mt. Samat in Bataan. By doing so, the visiting pope made Mt. Samat a shrine, “and by analogy honored Marcos as a hero, just as he would soon beatify (Lorenzo) Ruiz as a martyr.”

But only two years later, McCoy continues, Ninoy Aquino came home “to die a martyr before military executioners, stealing the Rizal-like heroism that Marcos so assiduously cultivated and subverting the ideological foundations of his authoritarian regime.”

The Ninoy Aquino cases

TONY LA VIÑA

Following the proclamation of Martial Law in the Philippines, petitioner Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was arrested on September 23, 1972, pursuant to General Order 2-A of the President (Ferdinand Marcos) for complicity in a conspiracy to seize political and state power in the country and to take over the Government.

Aquino was detained at Fort Bonifacio in Rizal province. On September 25, 1972, he sued for a writ of habeas corpus in which he questioned the legality of the proclamation of Martial Law and his arrest and detention.

Aquino then filed before the Supreme Court an action to restrain the respondent military commission from proceeding with the trial of his case set for August 27, 1973.

He challenged the jurisdiction of the military commission to try him for crimes – four counts of subversion, one illegal possession of firearms, and one murder—he allegedly committed and for which he was arrested and detained since the proclamation of martial law.

In questioning the jurisdiction of the military commission, petitioner insisted he was a civilian, and his trial by a military commission deprived him of his right to due process, since in his view the due process guaranteed by the Constitution to persons accused of “ordinary” crimes meant judicial process.

The High Court, in dismissing the petition in Aquino vs. Commission, ruled that the military commission had competent jurisdiction over the accused, reasoning that:

“Martial law lawfully declared, creates an exception to the general rule of exclusive subjection to the civil jurisdiction, and renders offenses against the laws of war, as well as those of a civil character, triable, at the discretion of the commander (as governed by a consideration for the public interests and the due administration of justice), by military tribunals.

“It has been said that in time of overpowering necessity; public danger warrants the substitution of executive process for judicial process.

“The immunity of civilians from military jurisdiction must, however, give way in areas governed by martial law. When it is absolutely imperative for public safety, legal processes can be superseded and military tribunals authorized to exercise the jurisdiction normally vested in courts.”

On whether due process can be guaranteed by a military tribunal, the Court was of the opinion that the guarantee of due process was not a guarantee of any particular form of tribunal in criminal cases.

A military tribunal of competent jurisdiction—accusation in due form, notice, and opportunity to defend and trial before the impartial tribunal present—adequately meets the due process requirement. Due process of law does not necessarily mean a judicial proceeding in the regular courts.

For the Court then, the guarantee of due process, viewed in its procedural aspect, requires no particular form of procedure.

It implies due notice to the individual of the proceedings, an opportunity to defend himself and the problem of the propriety of the deprivations, under the circumstances presented, must be resolved in a manner consistent with essential fairness.

It means essentially a fair and impartial trial and reasonable opportunity for the preparation of the defense.

The procedure before the Military Commission, as described in Presidential Decree 39, assures observance of the fundamental requisites of procedural due process, such as due notice, an essentially fair and impartial trial, and reasonable opportunity for the preparation of the defense.

On the issue whether petitioner’s trial before the military commission will not be fair and impartial, as the President had prejudged petitioner’s cases and the military tribunal is a mere creation of the President, and “subject to his control and direction.”

The Court had this to say: “Prejudice cannot be presumed, especially if weighed against the great confidence and trust reposed by the people upon the President and the latter’s legal obligation under his oath to ‘do justice to every man.’

“Nor is it justifiable to conceive, much less presume, that the members of the military commission, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Board of Review and the Secretary of National Defense, with their corresponding staff judge advocates, as reviewing authorities, through whom petitioner’s hypothetical conviction would be reviewed before reaching the President, would all be insensitive to the great principles of justice and violate their respective obligations to act fairly and impartially in the premises.”

The court added that this assumption must be made because innocence, not wrongdoing, is to be presumed.

The presumption of innocence includes that of good faith, fair dealing and honesty. This presumption is accorded to every official of the land in the performance of his public duty.

There is no reason why such presumption cannot be accorded to the President of the Philippines upon whom the people during this period has confided powers and responsibilities which are of a very high and delicate nature.

The preservation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution rests at bottom exactly where the defense of the nation rests: in the good sense and good will of the officials upon whom the Constitution has placed the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the nation in times of national peril.

What the Court did here was to reverse the long standing rule on presumption of innocence.

Instead of applying it to Ninoy Aquino, the Supreme Court gave his accusers and judges the benefit of the doubt.

Imelda (after) Marcos #Halalan2022

It is said that Ferdinand, and nation, paid very dearly for his love affair with Hollywood starlet Dovie Beams because he could not but humor Imelda at every turn of extravagance and political ambition ever after.

But was it just the Dovie scandal that turned Imelda into the power-tripping steel butterfly who fancied herself a highborn queen with crowns and tiaras and a palace to match?

Scholar Caroline S. Hau reminds that there was, too, the fact of martial law and, corollary to that, the all-important question of who would succeed the dictator Ferdinand.

HAU. The turning point for Imelda’s “rise” to power is arguably not the Dovie Beams scandal, but the declaration of martial law and the dictatorship that Marcos established in the Philippines. It is one thing to be the wife of an elected president, living in a country whose politicians are corrupt and enrich themselves at public expense, but with a free press that can criticize the president’s (and his wife’s) policies and actions and a body of elected officials to vet or else block the president’s decisions. It is another thing to be the wife of a dictator unconstrained by any institutional checks and balances, capable of putting rivals and enemies behind bars and stripping them of their assets, commanding an army to arrest anybody given the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and helping himself to the nation’s funds and taking over various industries and turning them into personal expense accounts for himself, his wife and relatives, and his cronies and political allies.

Any number of explanations can be offered to account for Imelda’s growing clout in the martial law government, but the most important is regime maintenance, the desire of Marcos to keep himself, his closest kin, and his most trusted people in power for as long as he could. Ferdinand’s deteriorating health, the knowledge that his children were neither old nor experienced enough to “inherit” his position, the suspicion shared by all dictators that their lieutenants–especially those with strong connections to the military such as Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor Jr. and Minister of Defense Enrile–were conspiring to build thier own power bases and ultimately dislodge the dictator in a coup d’etat: all of these would have had salience in determining (as well as upsetting) the “balance of favor” through which Marcos managed his dictatorship.

Imelda metamorphosed into the “Steel Butterfly” because she could do so and did so from 1972 onwards: there would be no institutional mechanism to hold her decisions and actions to public accountability, and there would be no one, not even an increasingly debilitated Ferdinand, to stop her from doing what she wanted. [Dovie Beams and Philippine Politics: A President’s Scandalous Affair and First Lady Power on the Eve of Martial Law. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, September-December 2019. pp. 595-634. Ateneo de Manila University. p623]

I believe Ferdinand was already grooming Imelda to succeed him when he appointed her Governor of the newly-created Metro Manila Commission in 1975, and then Minister of Human Settlements in 1976, and Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary in 1978.

He did not have much of a choice. Who else but Imelda could he trust with the children’s future. Who else but Imelda shared his dream of a Marcos dynasty “reigning for ever and ever” as in Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”.

This is why Ninoy Aquino, the only one who posed a serious challenge to the Marcos dynasty dream, had to go. ‘Yun nga lang, sumabit sa execution at sa post-production. Hindi bumenta sa audience ang storya nina Marcos at Ver na si Galman ang pumatay kay Ninoy sa tarmac.

The evidence of a military conspiracy was clear: a soldier shot Ninoy from behind, midway down the service stairs. The airport security had been so tight, Galman could only have been part of the military conspiracy to kill Ninoy and blame it on the communists.

Because the people saw through all the lies, na-EDSA ang mga Marcos. Poetic justice.

EXILE

The ouster in 1986 was totally unexpected, and unacceptable, to the disgraced tandem and their kids who had expected to live happily forever and ever in the Palace by the Pasig. To the (his) very end in September 1989, Ferdinand schemed and maneuvered for a quick forceful comeback, the surest way to bring back the good old days of impunity ASAP. But the coup attempts kept failing and he died just two months before the last, the biggest, the bloodiest, attempt which failed anyway because America played knight in shining armor to Cory’s damsel in distress.

I imagine that in the ailing Ferdinand’s lucid moments over those three years and a half when they were in Hawaii, and he was in and out of hospital, aching to go home, na paulit-ulit nilang napag-usapan ni Imelda, at napag-isipan nang malalim, exactly HOW to get the family back to the Pinoy future, with the patriarch’s luster restored.

No doubt Ferdinand continued to mentor | lecture Imelda on the ways of the law, and of politics, and of propaganda. Surely that famous line “Perception is real, truth is not” is a Marcos legacy, his very own political mantra passed on to Imelda and now the kids. It explains all the lying, all the denials, all the twisted stories, repeated endlessly over a decade on all media, so that people have started believing the bogus Marcos version of martial law and EDSA history.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Looking back now on Imelda’s trajectory upon her return from exile, it is clear that she came home in November 1991 not just to face and plead innocent to ill-gotten wealth court cases and the like, but to work on denying and disputing all accusations of wrongdoing by her husband and herself, including the Ninoy assassination, if not in judicial courts then before the bar of public opinion.

And, let’s give it to her, the Marcos widow has done exactly that in the last 30 years, to the point that many decry the alleged persecution of the Marcoses and believe they deserve a second gig in the Palace.

BACK IN BUSINESS 1992-2016

She lost in the ’92 presidential elections but Bongbong won a seat in Congress as Ilocos Norte rep.  In ’93 she was convicted for graft but the case was on appeal so she was out on bail, praise the law, I mean, the lord.  Also in ’93 she lost the bid to bury Marcos in Libingan ng mga Bayani but at least she got him back home in Ilocos to display in a museum while awaiting more opportune times.  In ’95 Bongbong lost his first run for the senate but Imelda won the seat he vacated in Congress as Ilocos rep.  In ’98 she again ran for president but withdrew a few weeks before E-day and threw her support behind landslider Erap who ordered Marcos’s burial in Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) even before he had taken his oath, but the outrage was so huge, the new prez backed off.  Consuelo de bobo: Imee ran for Ilocos rep and won the first of three consecutive terms.

By 2000 the campaign to free the convicted killers in the Aquino assassination, in jail then for some 14 years (counting from ’86), was in full swing, fueled by one of the convicts, Sgt. Pablo Martinez—one of 16 lowly-ranked officers serving double life sentences for Ninoy’s and Galman’s killings—who confessed in ’94 that he had been Galman’s handler, claimed he saw Galman shoot Ninoy on the tarmac, and named a general and a businessman identified with Danding Cojuangco who allegedly gave him and Galman their orders on the morning of the 21st of August 1983.

The story didn’t gain traction because Martinez was lying–Galman did not shoot Ninoy–but over the years, everytime August rolled around, media would keep repeating and speculating on the story, eventually succeeding in sowing doubt about Marcos and Ver as co-conspirators and throwing shade on Danding Cojuangco instead as the mastermind.  By the 20th anniversary of the assassination, the big lies had taken hold.

In 2005 Imelda Marcos threw her support behind Gloria Arroyo when the prez needed it most, after the Hello-Garci scandal, which must have counted a lot because in November 2007 Arroyo started releasing the killers of Ninoy and Galman after serving only one of two life sentences.  By March 2009 they all walked free, they had suffered enough, it was said; they might even be innocent like Marcos, it was also said.  In 2016 Bongbong ran for VP and almost won.  Imelda won anyway: Marcos got his hero’s burial in November, though behind closed gates.  In 2019 Imee won a seat in the senate.  And now Bongbong’s running for prez.

NEXT STOP, THE PALACE?

Imelda’s incredibly close to fulfilling the Marcos dream.  Can we still stop her | them at this point?

Our only fighting chance is to prevail upon Isko, Ping, and Manny to withdraw from the race for love of country—make the battle one-on-one as in the time of Cory.  With all of the opposition ganging up on Marcos-Duterte may panalo tiyak si Robredo.  Sa VP race, may the best man win—sana may bulagaan!

*

Read Randy David’s “If Marcos Jr. becomes president” https://opinion.inquirer.net/151481/if-marcos-jr-becomes-president