“The irony of it all is that 39 years have passed and, till now, despite Cory and PNoy’s presidencies, we have yet to know who was the real mastermind of that dastardly assassination at the airport…”
It’s been 39 years since a man clad in white came back to his country only to be shot to death at the tarmac of the airport.
That assassination sparked an outpouring of grief that many of us who welcomed him at the Manila International Airport did not quite expect.
Weeks before, we celebrated my wife’s birthday over lunch at our weekend home in Tagaytay, where Doy and Celia Laurel along with Tessie Aquino Oreta were special guests.
At that time we were not yet certain about the exact date of Ninoy Aquino’s return. Originally, the date was August 7, and Tito Doy had already informed Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the chief of the Philippine Constabulary, about the political exile’s intention to come home.
Tessie Aquino Oreta said Ninoy decided to move the date for security reasons, as he could not just book a flight back to Manila without necessary precautions.
I told my guests that we had coined a nice homecoming message for Ninoy — Hindi ka Nag-iisa.
It wasn’t really all that original. Erik Espina, the youngest son of Cebu’s Sen. Rene Espina, came to the office one day with a news clipping of We Forum, the precursor of today’s Malaya, wherein those words were printed in a cartoon describing a totally unrelated, apolitical subject.
Then and there, I thought the words would be most apt for Ninoy Aquino’s forthcoming return.
Ninoy may have been largely forgotten. People may have thought that his exile, initially for health reasons, would mean he would stay in the United States with his family for good.
And so “Hindi ka Nag-iisa” was a message intended to assure him that his kababayans had not forgotten him, that they were with him.
I was taking off from that memorable evening in 1978 where people cheered him with a noise barrage that stunned the dictatorship on the eve of the Batasang Pambansa elections where he headed the Laban slate contesting the ruling party’s hand-picked candidates.
People from all walks of life, from the young and the upper middle class drove around the main streets of the nation’s capital blaring their horns and were met by ordinary folks showing support by cheering and banging pots and pans along the way.
A wealthy friend cynically remarked right after we finished our rounds that night that tomorrow it would be “back to normal,” that the results had been “Comelected.” True enough, the regime managed to make all their candidates for the Batasan “miraculously” win!
So now with his return, we wanted to tell him: “You are not alone, we are with you.”
Days after that lunch, Doy Laurel told a small group where Sen. Eva Estrada Kalaw was present that Ninoy called him from the US and the homecoming date was set for August 21, but we were to keep it confidential until the right time.
So I had tee shirts and placards with the words “Ninoy, Hindi ka Nag-iisa” printed.
Meanwhile, Tita Eva’s group came up with the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘round the old Oak Tree,, a folk song about a man returning home after years of imprisonment. Thus did the “yellow revolution” begin.
But flashback to the US in the winter of 1981, when I met the former senator at a hotel lobby and, after introducing myself as a kababayan, we had a long and lively discussion about the politics of martial law and the state of our country.
It was the first time I met the opposition leader when he visited Washington DC.
This was followed by several visits to Boston and his home where I met his wife Cory who intimated once over breakfast that she was so happy where they were and was even thinking of some small restaurant business in Faneuil Hall where several Asian cuisines, but not Filipino, were making a dent in the American palate.
Those visits and long discussions with Ninoy prepped me up for a sea change in my life, and converted me from a young entrepreneur and college instructor in Manila to the turbulently exciting world of politics.
When I was about to leave back for home, Ninoy asked me to see Doy Laurel, and help organize the opposition.
I was rather quizzical about the Laurels, knowing that it was Doy’s older brother, Pepito, who ushered Ferdinand Marcos Sr. to the Nacionalista Party, eventually becoming the president after defeating the incumbent, Diosdado Macapagal Sr. of their Liberal Party.
But Ninoy assured me, saying, “Para kong kapatid si Doy.”
Thus did Doy, Eva Kalaw, Rene Espina and a small band of brave and dedicated souls, which included Neptali Gonzales Sr. and Ernesto Maceda form the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO); and I was appointed a deputy secretary general to Espina.
I initiated what we called “truth rallies” in key capitals of the country where we bared the ills of the country under the long night of authoritarianism. It was difficult.
As I write this article in Tacloban City, I recall how in 1982 we landed on a commercial plane at the airport and had to hire several tricycles to bring us to a gathering organized by our local leaders, Cirilo Roy Montejo and Leopoldo Petilla (the husband of former Gov. Martin and father of now Gov. Icot). There was a brown-out, and we had to use bullhorns to amplify our voices.
It was only after that murder at the tarmac of the international airport now named after Ninoy, that people, from all walks of life including many once silent and complacent political and business leaders, began rallying to the cause of the opposition.
After Cory and Ninoy’s family returned from Boston, the people awakened, and Ninoy’s funeral from Santo Domingo in Quezon Avenue all the way to Manila Memorial Park in Paranaque became the longest and biggest procession in history, where a million lined up the streets or walked all the way to his final resting place.
Ninoy — Hindi ka Nag-iisa was immortalized. The rest is now history.
The irony of it all is that 39 years have passed and, till now, despite Cory and PNoy’s presidencies, we have yet to know who was the real mastermind of that dastardly assassination at the airport, leaving a band of soldiers to serve long imprisonment for a crime they probably knew neither the motive nor the act that would happen when they escorted Ninoy down the door of the China Air plane.
Meanwhile, the political clock of the nation has turned full circle.