"We still have so many questions."
"We still have so many questions."
As if we did not have our hands full containing the ravaging COVID-19 outbreak, last Monday’s Jolo bombings which killed 15 people including six soldiers and injured 76 others brought us back to the reality on the ground.
That the blasts happened a year after that deadly Jolo Cathedral bombing reinforced the security forces’ belief that terrorists aligned with the Abu Sayyaf and ISIS carried out this deadly operation. It was as if they were mocking us.
So those bleeding hearts trying to play down this kind of deadly operation to the point of thwarting every initiative to neutralize these terrorists should rethink their position. These guys remain on the prowl, ready to inflict as much damage as possible to lives and properties and inject fear in our communities. Bombing has become their trademark with Jolo as their favorite playground. That these Jolo bombings were executed in late August, within a year of each other, has triggered not only universal condemnation. It has also firmed up certain beliefs, mainly Buddhist and Taoist in origin, about August, particularly towards the last week extending all the way to the second or third week of September, being the “ghost month” which believers say brings about bad luck, accidents and disasters.
Some believers have attributed a number of the more earth-shaking incidents in recent memory as covered by the same curse. They point to the Dona Juana sea tragedy considered the worst in history which claimed more than a thousand as one such indicator. They also referenced the assassination of the returning political leader and former Senator Ninoy Aquino on August 21, 1983 as another case. Sadly, not one in the last 34 years at least, had the courage to suggest that the deadly Plaza Miranda bombing 49 years ago on August 21, 1971 in the middle of the grand “Miting de Avance” of the opposition Liberal Party which killed two people and injured hundreds should be referenced as well. After all, that bombing, which the opposition blamed on then President Marcos, almost decimated its entire national leadership and caused the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus which then cascaded to the declaration of martial law a year after just after the end of the 1971 “ghost month.”
That 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing, not just Ninoy’s killing, makes August 21 of every year truly a day to remember. For one, it was not just another bombing. It marked a turning point in the nation’s historical journey to where we are at this time, decades after as a good part of our politics still revolve around the dictates and personages of the Marcos years. As one of the more prominent and heavily injured survivors, former Senate President Jovito Salonga, recounted just before he passed away, the public was made to believe that Marcos orchestrated the bombing to extend his stay in power. It turned out, based on his own findings and the confession of one of the bomb throwers, that the bombing was actually a plot undertaken by the reorganized Communist Party under the leadership of Jose Ma. Sison to force Marcos’ hand to “declare martial law” which he actually did a year after. Sison, who remains in exile in the Netherlands, has denied all such accusations. But a top Sison aide at that time, Dr. Mario Miclat, in his seemingly autobiographical novel “Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions” asserted and affirmed Salonga’s find.
Why Sison’s bombing plot spared one of the leading oppositionists at that time, then Senator and LP Secretary General Ninoy Aquino, a kink in an otherwise unassailable and deadly operation, remains unanswered up to this day. But no matter. Ninoy and the Liberal Party rode on that tragic bombing to sweep the 1971 midterm elections: Only two Marcos men made it to the Senate and Manila, the nation’s capital, was captured by the party with then Congressman Ramon Bagatsing unseating the popular incumbent Antonio Villegas.
In a way, the 1971 Plaza Miranda Bombing also marked the end of the square’s mark as the country’s foremost platform for political discourse and the people’s outlet for grievances against politicians and the societal set up. But despite its transformation into just an open area facing the Quiapo Church, its long history serving as the country’s public square, similar to the UK’s Hyde Park, remains embedded in the nation’s consciousness. And, in a curious twist of history, bombing has also become one of its trademarks, apart from being the foremost public square up until 1971.
Historical records tell us that it was in Plaza Miranda where then-President Sergio Osmena delivered his final campaign speech in the 1946 elections which he lost to his protégé, then House Speaker Manuel Roxas, who bolted the ruling Nacionalista Party and formed the Liberal Party. It is said that barely a year into his term, Roxas also delivered an important speech in Plaza Miranda—rallying the Liberal Party “to support the Parity Agreement to the 1935 Constitution, which granted American citizens equal rights with Filipino nationals in the use of national natural resources.” As the historians noted, just as Roxas finished speaking, a man lobbed a grenade on the stage, prompting his aide, General Mariano Castañeda, to kick it away and cover President Roxas with his body. The grenade landed near the audience, killing two and wounding a dozen people. A historical footnote? A coincidence? Certainly, a prequel of the 1971 bombing!