Re-Post

KNOWING NINOY AQUINO

      By Mauro Gia Samonte

(Author’s Note: Although this essay had been finished back in 2010, waiting for an opportunity to be published, it was posted with urgency on February 23, 2012 with the intention of setting this year’s commemoration of the EDSA 1986 happening in the perspective the author believed it should be viewed.  With similar intention – that is, of providing a correct perspective for viewing the Ninoy Aquino assassination on August 21, 1983 – the author sees it opportune to re-post this article today.)  

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Part 1

The Celebrated Speech

            “People who claim to know you before Martial Law say that if you were elected president you would have acted exactly (like) if not worse than Marcos. Will you comment on this impression? Has seven years of solitary confinement changed your political attitude, character and credibility?”

            The question was one of several posed to Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. during the open forum following his celebrated speech at the Freedom Rally organized by the Movement for Free Philippines  at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles, California on February 15,1981. While Ninoy had done away with other questions with characteristic rhetorical pomp, this particular reaction from the audience appeared to dumbfound him for a moment, and he visibly had to resort to a standard recourse in a debate whereby for want of a ready retort one grabs at the first diversionary ploy: ignore the topic.

Ninoy grabbed the question sheet from the moderator and in a move betraying that his mental reflexes were at work, he fashioned his rebuttal from a deep glance at the question. He said, “I would like to begin with the first line of the sentence ‘People who claim to know you before Martial Law say if you were elected president you would (have) act(ed) exactly (like) if not worse than Marcos.’ The defect is in the first line, ‘People who claim to know you…’” And with that came his curt, final answer: “They don’t know me.”

For the rally participants, it had been a nice afternoon listening to the  legendary Marcos antagonist dishing out diatribes they all wanted to hear, and now that he delivered yet another splendid punch line, the packed capacity audience rippled their amusement all over the huge landmark auditorium. They were all anti-Marcos elements (save of course for those who came incognito Marcos supporters) and here was a man who since recuperating from triple heart bypass operation a year ago had gone  on a speaking spree all over the United States, denouncing what he called Marcos tyranny. A common desire with the man to see Marcos ousted seemed all it took for them to believe they knew him.

But how many of the hundreds who paid their way to the rally really knew Ninoy; how many privy to what had been going on in his mind all his past forty eight years, more specifically the period when he began nursing his ambition for the presidency of the Philippines? How sure were they that they were not among those Ninoy alluded to as not knowing him.

To be sure, even as they  amused at his remark, Ninoy’s facial expression did not at all indicate that he intended to entertain. He stared at the audience like seeing there the guy who sent in the question and with a cocksure, not-so-subtle intimidating grin signaled to him the message: “You don’t play smart on Ninoy, man.”

The Knowing Begins

Knowing Ninoy is  no mean job.

It requires, first, gaining access to information that ordinarily are limited only to the immediate circle of his family. But any disclosures in this regard will necessarily undergo a thorough sanitizing in order to preserve the hero-image that for the great majority of the Filipino people has already been institutionalized for the man. It’s worth citing here that a wealth of information about Dr. Jose Rizal and the propagandists in Spain in the late 1800s was provided by personal letters he wrote to her sisters. These letters have been compiled in a book titled “100 Letters of Rizal”. Might we ask in this light if any of Ninoy’s children, Kris, Noynoy, etc., would be willing to share with the public the letters Ninoy wrote to each of them immediately prior to his coming back to the Philippines in 1983. Despite the visibly relentless and meticulous efforts made in projecting the supposed heroism of Ninoy, none of these letters which could lead to a better understanding of the circumstances that compelled Ninoy to come home had ever been made known to the public. Those letters, for one, could best depict the real state of mind and health Ninoy was in at the time, making it possible to solve the paradox of a man knowingly walking into his death. Quite unlike Rizal who was fleeing the Spanish authorities when captured to be subsequently tried and executed at Bagumbayan, Ninoy had been advised by the very authorities of the country not to return to the Philippines for fear for his life, yet he insisted in coming home to face death exactly as he would describe it. The letters Ninoy wrote to his children might just help unravel the mystery of Ninoy’s death.

The necrological services for Cory at the Manila Cathedral was one golden opportunity for Kris to have touched on those letters to dramatize with even greater  pathos the passing of her mother in the same perceived  and promoted heroic fashion as did her father. Certainly Kris touched on little anecdotes with Cory which effectively mesmerized her listeners. Couldn’t Kris have made a greater performance had she quoted, too, from the last words her father sent her?

So far, Noynoy, too, has not come forward to reveal what Daddy wrote just before he walked right into his death.

The day Ninoy left America in his return journey to the Philippines, Ninoy telephoned Steve Psinakis, head of the Movement for Free Philippines in the United States, to bid him goodbye. It is to our fortune that Psinakis had seen it fit to record the talk that transpired between him and Ninoy on the phone. Twenty five years after Ninoy’s death, the recorded phone talk was aired publicly for the first time in Ricky Carandang’s show on ANC. The talk gave much hint on what  had gone on in Ninoy’s mind when he decided to come back to the Philippines.

Revelations Before Ninoy’s Death

Here is an excerpt from the phone conversation:

NINOY: Now, this is the latest, Steve, that I can give you.

STEVE: Yeah…

NINOY: My source is Cardinal Sin.

STEVE: Yes…

NINOY: Number One. Marcos checked in at the Kidney Center.

STEVE: Yes…

NINOY: The experts went, saw him, they did a test. He flunked all tests and the                                             conclusion was if they operate on him it would be fatal.

STEVE: Uhuh…

NINOY: So he went back to the palace. He is no longer responding to medication and he                            will have to be hooked up to the dialysis machine now more often. How he will                                   last with that machine on, I don’t know. If they apparently… they are now                                        moving to put Imelda in effective control and they are going to revamp the                                  cabinet with Ongpin (Jaime) most probably emerging as prime minister and                             finance minister, Danding Cojuangco or Ver, defense minister, O.D. Corpuz,                                        possibly foreign minister, and maybe Ayala, I mean Enrique, maybe agriculture                              minister, I don’t know.

STEVE: Uhum…

NINOY: But there’s a major shakeup. Marcos met with his generals and apparently said                              goodbye to them last Friday. He was on television in Manila 24 hours ago                              commenting on the boxing fight of Navarette and Talbot to show the people he                              is okay. But it’s a matter of time, so he wanted three weeks to collect his                                               thoughts, write his memoirs, complete his book and most probably craft the                                      final stages of his administration. He is a man now, terminal. He knows he is                                 going and that’s the background that I am coming in.

STEVE: Well the… I heard some of this yesterday. After I came on TV, I got some                          reports that, not of course as authoritative as yours but pretty much the same

               that something was wrong and they could not operate and so forth. At any rate

               the thought that comes to mind is that this is good and bad – good in that he is

               going and he knows it. He might show some compassion for the country and                                treat your return with pragmatic… I don’t know what they are thinking. I                             hope… and that’s the good part.

NINOY: Yes…

STEVE: The bad part maybe  that the hardliners like Ver who are bulldogs without any                             political savvy, who may think that they are next in line. Obviously such people                                would look at your return very oh…

NINOY: Well there are two reports I received along that line.

STEVE: There’s not so much time and see…That’s what I’m afraid about.

NINOY: Well, if they pinpoint the plane I’m coming in. The rumor in Manila is that I’m                             taking the private jet of Enrique from Hongkong. But that all places are being                                 guarded and they may close the airport by Sunday or turn back the plane if they                    would be able to pinpoint which one I’m coming in.

STEVE:  (muffled reaction)

NINOY: The third one and this is the real iffy. They have two guys stationed to knock me               out at the airport. They will try them for murder, they will convict them, but                             they have assurances.

STEVE: Ah… let’s not think about that.

NINOY: Yeah, that’s the… these are the things that I”ve been alerted. So, I don’t know                              what options they will do now. But I’m meeting with ASEAN leaders beginning                               Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Indonesia, Suharto might receive me.                              Malaysia is already firm, and Thailand is just about firm. Now, Japan has sent                               me word that if Imelda is in place, Nakasone is willing to use his economic                             clout.

STEVE: Ah, really, huh?

NINOY: Yeah… To tell Imelda that if you treat Aquino nicely, we can dialogue.

STEVE: Oh, that’s good news, alright.

NINOY: Yeah, that’s the best news I got from Japan.

STEVE: That is darn good news.

NINOY: Nakasone is willing to send a private envoy, a secret private envoy with a                                     personal letter making a plea for me. If I’m still alive and in prison, that if they                                will treat me gently and come up with some kind of an understanding, Japanese                                 economic assistance will continue. Because they are very uptight that if the                              woman takes over and there will be chaos, you know, it would be bad. Now the                                  ASEAN leaders on the other hand, feel this way. ASEAN today is already one                             region. And any instability in one part of the ASEAN will scare investors in the                                   entire region.

STEVE: (reaction)

NINOY: That’s why they are very very uptight about the possibility of chaos and                                        instability in the Philippines with Imelda. And that is the background of my                          conversation with them. That I am not going to upset the apple cart but that we                                    can harmonize our movement.

STEVE: (reaction)

NINOY: Now to what externt they will be able to mitigate the hardliners, I don’t know.                              That’s a chance we’ll have to take. If I survive Sunday and I get to prison, and                                 I’m there in a week’s time, I can get the works going.

STEVE: (reaction)

NINOY: I’m picking up a letter from Nur Misuari telling them that if the government                                  will trust me as a negotiator, then they can start talks again. But they will not                              talk to anybody else.

STEVE: It sounds to me that you have an awful lot of plusses on your side.

NINOY: Right. Those are the trump cards I’m bringing home. Which of course can be                               negated if one character gets to throw me out.

STEVE: (reaction)

NINOY: If I get into prison, there is no doubt, like a 100%, I will be brought directly to                              prison. I may not even get a chance to talk to anybody. There on the ground. But                 it’s okay. As long as I’m alive and in prison, I can start using my trump cards. I                                   will try to hold out for a meeting with Marcos. Now that he is about to meet his                                    Maker, I’m almost confident that I can talk to him and sell him something.                                   Although the Cardinal tells me that “If you think you can sell Marcos a bill of                           goods like return to democracy and electoral processes, forget it. You’re                              dreaming. He’s no longer in that stage.” This is the Cardinal’s idea. I don’t buy                  it. Because I don’t think that a man who is about to die will be, you know, too                            hard-headed.

STEVE: Well, just an input for an opinion here. I hope you are right, but as far as I’m                               concerned I think the Cardinal is right. I think Marcos not only because he                          doesn’t to… that’s academic at this point in time. But I think he has just… he’s                          so deep and he has no choice but to stay where he is and leave things as they                           are. And certainly, we hope that that’s wrong because we don’t want that.

NINOY: Okay, oh, goodbye Steve.

STEVE: One last question.

NINOY: Yes?

STEVE: Any whatsoever… Any indication from US side that there might be somewhat                               help on the cooperative or absolutely nothing?

NINOY: No. No indication. Except that they are watching me.

STEVE: Of course.

NINOY: They are following all my steps. But I’m still hopeful that sanity will prevail                                  and they will know that eventually, they’ll have to come to talk. Because I don’t                          think they’re very happy with the woman running the show.

The readers are forewarned that the publication of the above recording was nade 25 years after it happened. There is a big possibility that editing of the recorded phone talk must have been made to alter any element that might prove disastrous to Ninoy or the anti-Marcos movement which Psinakis headed in the United States, the Movement for Free Philippines. Moreover, we note the numerous hiatuses throughout the entire recording. Considering the fluency of both speakers in conversational English, those hiatuses are very unsettling, impressing us that they had been deletions done to hide or slant otherwise the true essence of the statements made. Note for instance this line by Psinakis: “There’s not so much time and see… That’s what I’m afraid about.” Right off, the statement does not make sense, and yet Ninoy goes on with the conversation, saying words that should be within the flow of what Psinakis had actually spoken.

Nonetheless, the Psinakis document  is valuable for a number of revelations.

Firstly, that Marcos was rumored to be dying in three weeks time and that there was a scramble for taking over power between the First Lady Imelda Marcos and Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver.  Secondly, that Ninoy was moving in desperation to prevent the power grab most probably by Imelda and that Ninoy intended to fill in himself the power hiatus in the event Marcos died, a fact borne by Ninoy’s revelation to Psinakis his having already made arrangements with ASEAN leaders like he were already the Philippine head of state and government. Thirdly, that Cardinal Sin was in on Ninoy’s plans, whatever they were. Fourthly, that the US had not distanced itself from Marcos until that time but was keeping track of Ninoy’s every move. And fifthly – and this is what intrigues – Psinakis is afraid about time running out on something.

Recall the line by Psinakis: “There’s not so much time and see… That’s what I’m afraid about.” What is time in this dialogue running out on? They are talking about an imminent power grab by either Imelda or Ver in the event of Marcos’ death. What seems to be so pressing that Ninoy should return to the Philippines now in order to prevent the Imelda or Ver power grab or else never be able to do it anymore at a later time? So what if Imelda or Ver succeeded Marcos in three weeks time.  Ninoy was having a grand time delivering speeches in the US lambasting Marcos. He could shift his attacks to whoever would take Marcos’ place and stay on track in his campaign against the dictatorship meanwhile that, as he complained in his LA speech, “the Filipino people loved their slavery, if the Filipino people have lost their voice  and would not say no to a tyrant.” But no, he must return to the Philippines that August 21 of 1983  -- like a journalist rushing to meet a deadline. What deadline did Ninoy have at that stage of his life which prompted him  to return to the country that day or else forever fail in his resolve to dismantle the Marcos dictatorship?

Records of Ninoy’s Secrets

From the way Psinakis and Ninoy punctuated their phone conversation with an exchange of  pleasantries, Psinakis sounded one who shared intimate things with Ninoy. But would Psinakis be willing to share further with the public the secrets he shared with Ninoy?

 In any truly objective inquiry into the person of Ninoy, accessing intimate family records and those of close associates who must also protect his hero-image is, if not eliminated outright, given the least priority.

            For instance,  Dr. Rolando M. Solis, the doctor who operated on Ninoy in Dallas, Texas for a triple heart bypass, admitted in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer his being made privy to many of Ninoy’s confidential undertakings to such an extent that he wondered why Ninoy was that so trusting to him.

            “Well,” recalled the doctor of Ninoy’s answer, “if I could trust you with my life, I can trust you with anything.”

            But would Dr. Solis reveal anything?

            “I will carry his secrets to my grave,” declared the doctor.

On the other hand, certainly nothing bars one from sourcing information from public records, particularly newspaper stories and various other media accounts. But in the specific period of the Marcos-Ninoy conflict, media reportage almost always suffered from having to take sides in the struggle, and in this respect, Ninoy enjoyed a great deal of advantage all the way. In his testimony in the joint Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and Committee on Justice and Human Rights investigation in October 1989 on the Plaza Miranda bombing, Communist Party of the Philippines central committee member Ruben Guevara described the media character at the time quite succinctly, if aptly: “…ang buong mass media ay kritikal sa administrasyon (the entire mass media was critical of the administration).”

The demonizing Marcos was subjected to reverberated not just in the tri-media but also in such underground fora as discussion groups (DGs), teach-ins, rallies and demonstrations, ODs or operation dikit (posting of slogans) or OPs or operation pintura (writing out graffiti with paint brush) all over city walls, and in every forum shrieked the singular slogan: “Marcos! Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!” And that was just the First Quarter Storm at the advent of the 70s, a long way off to Martial Law. 

It would be dangerous to rely purely on the media for data in drawing a truthful picture of Ninoy, not only because on the scale of parity it would be unfair to Marcos but, more importantly,  also because the need for objectivity would be the ultimate loser. What could result from such an endeavor would be, at the very best,  a rehash of  pieces already written, many of which may even have by now been  archived in libraries and in cyberspace, or at the very worst a futile attempt to straighten out what have been crooked depictions of the character of Ninoy.

Far from being a dry chronology of events, history is a living thing. It does not stagnate, must not be allowed to stagnate. It is to the misfortune of the Filipino people that in that very crucial period – the end of Spanish colonialism –  when Philippine history needed to be presented in its utter reality, what dominated the undertaking were works that accommodated the desires of the new colonizers, the Americans. In that accommodation, gaping blanks in the story of the Philippine nation were created. Only at the advent of a few exceptional historians who dared unshackle from American-sponsored  strictures did writing of history take on a determination to fill in those blanks  – setting the records straight, saying what had not been said before, and more importantly, undoing what had been wrongly done.

Such, too, is the task facing anybody desiring to put Ninoy now in the correct perspective.  No such a writer would be sufficed by the clichés and concoctions that though in time of tumult effectively sucked multitudes into the grand spectacle of deifying Ninoy, this time around those multitudes urge a redoing of history in the face of the realization that from the time of his “martyrdom” 28 years ago, things have not gotten any better.

Acquisition of Hacienda Luisita

The ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor is no more dramatically demonstrated than in the continuing struggle of the Hacienda Luisita farmers to regain the land taken away from them by Cory’s branch of the Cojuangcos by virtue of a government deal facilitated with President Ramon Magsaysay by, yes, Ninoy in 1957.   As special emissary of President Ramon Magsaysay, Ninoy successfully brokered in 1954 the surrender of Huk Supremo Luis Taruc and the entire Huk rebellion.

According to the arrangement that emerged out of Ninoy’s effort, ownership of the 6 thousand-plus hectares of the Hacienda Luisita together with the sugar mill, Azucarera Central de Tarlac,  was acquired by Jose Cojuangco, Sr., Cory’s father, through dollar loans from the Manufacturer’s Trust of New York as well as from the GSIS amounting to P16 million on guarantee by the Philippine Central Bank. The condition for the CB guarantee was that within 10 years, the hacienda would be distributed to the farmer tenants.

            As history would have it, Ninoy eventually became the manager of the hacienda. Under his watch, the largest sugar land in entire Asia was converted into a commercial corporation in which the farmers’ claim were converted into shares of stocks.

Though it looked good in one respect, for that seemingly placed the farmers on equal footing with the Cojuangcos in owning the hacienda, it nonetheless brought about the effacement of the tenancy relationship between the Cojuangcos and the hacienda peasant toilers: no tenancy, no land, no farmers. Thus did the 10-year period lapse but no distribution ever take place of even a square inch of the land.

In December 1985 the legal battle waged by the farmers had resulted in a favorable court ruling ordering the enforcement of the original condition of the Central Bank-guaranteed loans used for the Cojuangco acquisition of Hacienda Luisita. But that was the period of upheavals resulting from Cory’s contesting Marcos’ win in the 1986 snap presidential elections. With Cory’s installation in power by virtue of the EDSA people power revolt just two months after the promulgation of the court order, nothing had been heard of the ruling ever again.

The next time the Hacienda Luisita farmers figured again in the news was in the infamous Mendiola Massacre on January 22, 1987. Led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, farmers marched to Malacanang, where now sat Cory as president, to press for genuine agrarian reform, the distribution of the Hacienda Luisita to its farmers being among the demands. Courageously breaching the police and military containing forces, the protesters were fired at mercilessly, a carnage that, along with the scores wounded, resulted in the killing of thirteen – Hacienda Luisita farmers included.

One familiar with the events of the First Quarter Storm in 1970 cringes with horror at recalling that at no instance on Mendiola at the time did Marcos ever unleash such monstrosity. Of course what this comparison with Marcos should reckon with is Ninoy; the one sitting at Malacanang at the time of the Mendiola Massacre was not Ninoy, it was his wife. But then, as their marriage vow in 1955 went, “for better or for worse”, and Ninoy having borne all the “worse”, Cory now enjoyed all the “better”.

Cory was no longer president on November 16, 2004 and having rid herself of national worries –  except perhaps persistent threats to touch her 1987 Constitution – she could have made more focus on the domestic concerns of Hacienda Luisita. On that day, 3,000 sugar mill workers and  hacienda farmers went on strike demanding better wages and  improved working conditions as well as the implementation of the Central Bank and GSIS loans condition to distribute the hacienda to the tillers and farm workers. The strike was broken up with Simba tanks from which came the heavy fire that wounded over a hundred and killed 14 strikers.

That carnage had gone down in history as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre, doing a lot better than the Mendiola Massacre, but at any rate, as far as Cory was concerned, doing herself one better in terms of protesters killed and, well, a lot better, too, in terms of wounded. Until that time, no other personally-motivated killings in the people’s memory could match the Hacienda Luisita incident, so that for Cory it should be a pity that the Manguindanao Massacre took place which with the murdered numbering 57 bettered her record fourfold – nay, counting the Mendiola Massacre victims, just two-fold. But nothing to worry about, her son is aspiring for exactly the same post Ninoy had lain his life for, which she got anyway, and with the hacienda farmers’ struggle going unceasing and Noynoy’s victory at the 2010 polls anchored on the demise of her parents, the number of dead Hacienda Luisita farmers could go up… and counting.

One trembles with horror at Cory’s remark made sometime after taking over Malacanang: “Now I know why people would kill for this position.”

Shattering Public Bias

One great obstacle to knowing Ninoy is the massive wall of public bias that has been built to protect seemingly for posterity Ninoy’s hero-image -- from the early years of his combat with the Marcos dictatorship to his solitary confinement capped by a forty-day hunger strike in protest of a military tribunal ruling finding him guilty of subversion, murder and illegal possession of firearms and sentencing him  to die by firing squad; to his sojourn in the United States for a heart operation, and, surviving the operation, to his continued battling of Marcos from the “land of the free”; and finally, to his “martyrdom” at the MIA tarmac upon his return to the country.

How does one write anything adverse to somebody so glorified as to have his image embossed in the country’s  Five Hundred Peso Denomination, his name supplanted for  that of the airport of his downfall and superimposed on the showcase of the nation’s parks and wildlife, and to top it all, countless monuments erected almost overnight in celebration of his “greatness”, each memento inscribed with the words: “The Filipino is worth dying for?”

Uttered as a punctuation in  one of his speeches while in the United States, the quote itself has been en route to immortality as a statement of the “sacrifice” of Ninoy. And the words are ironic, considering that two years to his death in 1983, in the same MFP freedom rally in Los Angeles, Ninoy, voice crackling with ache, had intoned:

“I am a human being, my friends. I have suffered eight years of imprisonment. I have suffered loneliness like no other man has suffered loneliness in my life. I’ve been away from my children. I’ve been away from my family. And I’m financially ruined after eight years. It is only instinctive for a man to look for his peace. And I debated with my mind. And I debated with myself. And I debated with my wife and my children whether I should go back to the arena of combat. I felt I have already earned my peace. I’ve done my best. I’ve waited for seven years and seven months and the Filipino people would not react. They would even give me the impression that they loved their chain and their slavery. What can one man do if the Filipino people love their slavery, if the Filipino people have lost their voice and would not say no to a tyrant…”

So now, which? The Filipino is worth dying for? Or the Filipino is a coward?

Actually, there is no contradiction. It simply smacks of the political genius of a man who consistently advances his agenda every which way he goes. Every word Ninoy spoke, every action he did, every thought he conceived sprang from an insatiable desire to project the man’s god-image of himself. And to a people whose cultural upbringing has not quite shaken off the mysticism of old, Ninoy’s posturing fit perfectly into their gullibility for all sorts of prophets and heroes.

“So long as each one of us will be willing to take on the struggle, even if I’m in prison… even if I die in prison, so long as you will continue the struggle and carry the torch, then I think we will have a better Philippines. Rather than one carrying the torch, we will have many,” said Ninoy in answer to another question in the open forum following his celebrated LA speech.

In any case, Ninoy’s  speeches are a brilliant showcase of  his great oratorical gift. And it is something that should make Ninoy truly fearsome. He had this easy way of making people believe what he said – whatever it was. If he called Marcos “Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!”, the people, particular the youth and students of the 70s, repeated after him. If, by some stroke of lunacy, he asked the people to jump from a skyscraper, the only question people, particularly the youth and students of the 70s,  would ask is: From which floor?

Ninoy had often been labeled by Marcos a communist, but without having to determine whether he was communist or not,  one does discern the workings of Marxist dialectics in his methodology. Surely his Hate-Marcos campaign perfectly conformed to a Marxist dictum: “Theory itself becomes a material force once absorbed by the masses.” By repeatedly calling Marcos “Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!” he succeeded in transforming propaganda into material truth, lies into reality.

This is not to deny that Marcos committed atrocities, though this is not to confirm it either. The point here is that even admitting, for the sake of argument, that Marcos did commit atrocity in one form or another, he never did it to one who was not his enemy.

In the campaign for the Batasan in 1978 when Ninoy was allowed to guest in the television show Face The Nation as an opposition candidate for an assembly seat, he aired his grievances against people supporting Marcos, then particularized his castigation to Ronnie Nathanielz, who was in the show: “Like you, Ronnie. You would not say anything bad against Marcos because you are a member of the NMPC.” At which Ronnie squirmed: “Why would I say anything bad against Marcos. I don’t have any quarrel with him.”

Nathanielz hit the nail right on the head. A war was ongoing. On the one hand, Marcos, on the other, Ninoy. It’s but natural that Marcos would hit Ninoy and all those supporting him, just as Ninoy would hit Marcos and his supporters –  as Ninoy, indeed, did take the opportunity to do in the TV program. Under those circumstances, let the rules of war operate. The problem arises when an antagonist is so afflicted with megalomania that he identifies his personal fight as the fight of the people and so, therefore, his adversary’s attacks are attacks against the people. And that’s precisely the way Marcos became an enemy of the people – for simply being an enemy of Ninoy.

   In an interview by Pat Robertson on the popular 700 Club television program in the United States, Ninoy talked of  a chance encounter aboard a plane to Washington with  Chuck Colson, author of a book titled “Born Again”, which, according to Ninoy, had “shown him the way”.

“Chuck, I want to make a confession, too,” Ninoy recalled his talk with the Christian fellowship worker. “God gave me a gift, I said. A gift to articulate that brought me to the pinnacle of political power. I promised Him in prison, I said, that if and when I regain my freedom, I would like to use this gift now to witness for Him.”

It sounded a much-mellowed Ninoy relating the story, imparting the picture of somebody grown deeply spiritual and repugnant of the belligerence that was the hallmark of his long drawn-out war with Marcos. And that was good.

But on the other hand, Ninoy’s confession should  send shivers down the spine of somebody who had gained a good measure of knowing Ninoy not just in theory but in practice.  Here was a guy, quite conscious of his power  to sway people’s minds yet  at the same time unyielding in his  obstinacy with the presidency of the land. What awesome stories can he tell and awesome deeds can he do just so in his obsession to become president people are convinced his stories about Marcos are true.

In a video presentation made  years after Ninoy’s death, Cory admits thus: “Ninoy was, as we all know, very ambitious. He really wanted to be president. His whole life was politics.  He was… nasa twenty three siya (he was about twenty three) when he became mayor. Everything was just planned for the 1973 elections.”

Plan for the Presidency

It would appear that Ninoy’s political career was one grand plan for his ascension to the presidency. At 23, he became mayor of Concepcion, Tarlac. At 27, he was the youngest to become a  vice-governor of a province; he took over the governor’s post of Tarlac in 1961 from the incumbent who resigned. In the succeeding gubernatorial elections, he won in all 17 municipalities of Tarlac, scoring the biggest majority win by a gubernatorial candidate. And in the senatorial elections of 1967, he became the youngest ever – at 35 – to be elected senator of the land. That was two years into the first presidency of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In 1969, Marcos won his second term as president, something Ninoy could have effectively contested due to his already immense popularity at the time. In his 700 Club television program interview in 1981,  Ninoy already called the  heights he had reached in Philippine politics as “the pinnacle of political power”. The only problem was that under the 1935 Constitution, the age requirement for the president is at least 40 years old, which he would exactly be in 1973. So as Cory confirmed, for Ninoy everything was just planned for the 1973 elections.

Early on, therefore, the stage was set for the classic confrontation between Ninoy and Marcos – a strife that would drag on for the next two decades, with each side digging into his treasure chest of tricks, dirty or otherwise, to gain the upper hand.

Here’s how a  voiceover on a video presentation on Youtube makes a comparison between the two.  “Bago nag-martial law, si Ninoy ay isang tradisyunal na pulitiko. Isang  henyo sa larangan ng pulitika, pero tradisyunal pa rin. Tulad ni Marcos, eksperto siya sa paggamit ng mga tradisyunal na instrumento ng eleksyon sa Pilipinas: guns, goons and gold. Tulad ni Marcos, isa siyang balimbing. Umalis siya sa Partido Nacionalista at lumipat sa Partido Liberal noong nasa kapangyarihan ang Partido Liberal. (Before Martial Law, Ninoy was a traditional politician. He was a genius in the field of politics, but just the same, traditional. Like Marcos, he  was an expert at the use of the traditional instruments in Philippine elections: guns, goons and gold. Like Marcos, he was a turncoat. He bolted the Nacionalista Party and joined the Liberal Party when the Liberal Party was in power.)

Curiously enough this narration would have perfectly answered the question posed at the start of this piece: Would Ninoy have acted exactly like or even worse than Marcos if he were elected president?

In his speech proper in the Los Angeles MFP gathering, he admitted early on his use of the “gold” element in his electoral campaigns.  He said, “For the past 25 years I have been a politician, we used to pay people to hear us.” The statement is self-explanatory; Ninoy was used to paying money to electorates. But of course, that was a prelude to a jest, which he uttered thus: “This is the first time people paid to hear me.” And the gallery cheered. But whether jest or not, the admission was a statement of fact.

As to “goons and guns”, Ninoy admitted in his speech that he had had at least  liaison with  groups advocating the use of arms for the attainment of political ends. He narrated an incident when a group of young men and women “from the better families in the country” and “from the better schools” took him to their training camp outside the United States and showed him their stockpile of weapons and ammunition and told him “they were ready” and they wanted him to lead them.

Ninoy admitted telling this revelation to Marcos, who, however, reacted by declaring that Ninoy should have been operated on not in his heart but on his head, the implication being that Ninoy was insane. Soon after, as Ninoy related, bombs exploded in Manila.

Says Tina Monzon Palma in her narration  for a video presentation titled Beyond Conspiracy: 25 Years After by the Worldwide Foundation for People Power: “But if one were to confront him with guns, he (Ninoy) would not hesitate to meet violence with legitimate force. Some theorize that pushed to the wall, Ninoy could be just as ruthless as Marcos.”

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