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.
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. The Marcos camp has always denied that Marcos was the mastermind, 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.