EDITORIAL - Same old story

If the soldiers convicted of murdering Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman have a revelation for the nation, they would have given it a long time ago. Yet after 21 years and four changes of administration, the soldiers have not amended their stories, even if it could have meant possible release from incarceration. It was Galman who assassinated Aquino, the soldiers insist, and they were too low in the military pecking order to know who ordered the hit.

Not even the post-EDSA revolutionary powers of Aquino’s widow Corazon and the resources of her six-year presidency could extract the identity of the mastermind from all those convicted of the double murder. Through the years the names of certain personalities have been mentioned — individuals who were allegedly involved in the assassination plot but were not indicted for the crime – but the stories were never pursued.

The 15 soldiers have offered to reveal what they know to Congress. Presumably the offer was made to help the soldiers obtain parole, which was denied them recently by the Supreme Court. Lawmakers are likely to jump at the offer, and the public will also be interested in what the soldiers have to say.

Before lawmakers take up the offer, however, they better be sure that the soldiers have something new to say. What the nation wants to find out is the identity of the mastermind, which the soldiers have repeatedly said they had no way of knowing. What the nation wants to hear is that the soldiers were ordered to execute both Aquino and Galman – something the soldiers insist was not the case. What relatives of the two murdered men will also want to hear is, at the very least, an apology from the soldiers – but none is forthcoming, since they are sticking to their story: Galman, a communist hit man, breached a heavy security cordon at the Manila International Airport on Aug. 21, 1983 and assassinated the leader of the Philippine opposition.

If this is the same story that the soldiers plan to "reveal" to lawmakers, we’ve heard it all before, and any congressional inquiry will be an exercise in futility.