Enrile ready to talk on Ninoy murder

Former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile indicated yesterday his willingness to participate in another proposed investigation into the still-unsolved assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. on Aug. 21, 1983.

"If I know the answer to their questions, then I will answer (them)," Enrile told reporters after a weekly forum in a Manila hotel. He was the defense minister during the administration of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Enrile’s statement came on the heels of a call by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel on former President Fidel Ramos to shed light on the Aquino murder.

"I suggest that he owes it to the Filipino people to come clean, tell us what he knows about the killing of Ninoy and identify who masterminded the murder," Pimentel said in a challenge to Ramos, who was chief of the Philippine Constabulary and concurrent Armed Forces vice chief of staff during the martial law years.

Returning from exile in the United States, Aquino was shot dead as he disembarked a China Airlines plane that landed at the then Manila International Airport.

Aquino’s assassin was initially identified by Marcos administration officials as Rolando Galman, "a lone communist hit man," who was also shot dead at the airport tarmac along with Aquino.

The first commission to investigate the Aquino assassination was headed by then Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, who was best remembered for holding a parasol over the head of then First Lady Imelda Marcos in her outdoor public engagements.

After only two hearings, the five-member Fernando Commission dissolved itself due to domestic and international pressure.

The dictator Marcos was forced to convene another fact-finding panel led by retired Appellate Court Justice Corazon Juliano Agrava, the first woman judge of the Court of First Instance and the first female Bar examiner.

The Agrava commission issued two different reports.

Agrava’s own report did not blame then Armed Forces chief Gen. Fabian Ver for the death of Aquino, while the members’ report found him liable.

The then Tanodbayan court acquitted Ver but convicted Gen. Luther Custodio and 15 other soldiers for the Aquino assassination.

The political turmoil that accompanied the Ver acquittal, the decision of Marcos to hold a snap presidential election, the claim of Aquino’s widow – Corazon – that she was robbed of the presidency were among the elements that culminated in the February 1986 people power revolt that ousted the strongman and propelled him into exile in Hawaii.

Rep. Benigno Aquino III had urged that mysteries surrounding his father’s death be solved for the sake of future generations of Filipinos.