Remembering Ninoy (Conclusion)

Life

by Ninoy Aquino

Life is what you make of it
Comedy, drama,
Tragedy, nothing

All rivers flow to the sea
All human lives reach the same end
The GRAVE

If death is certain
The secret is not in living
But in dying

A minute of heroism
Is better than decades
Of useless life...!

There are moments in your life that, even if they do not have to do with personal milestones — like, say, your first kiss, your baby’s first cry, the death of a patriarch — are nevertheless glued permanently to the scrapbook in your mind.

For my parents’ generation, it was probably the moment they learned JFK was shot, an ocean away from their home, but a shot that was heard throughout the world, nevertheless.

But ask virtually any Filipino who was at least 10 years old on Aug. 21, 1983, where he was at the time, who he was with, and how he and those around him reacted to the news that Ninoy Aquino was killed, and you will get an answer so succinct it seemed like only yesterday.

“Binaril si Ninoy!” my uncle Edward Reyes, perhaps the most politically vigilant in the family, announced with shock one Sunday as the family was gathered for lunch in our home in Las Piñas. We were not the kind of family who marched in Mendiola rallies, but I think we all lost our appetite when we heard the news. 

It dawned on us that if Ninoy could be shot in broad daylight amid thousands, then no one was safe anymore in this country. Before that noontime murder, we had come to grudgingly accept the Marcos dictatorship as something we had to live with and endure, and perhaps, grow old with.

After Aug. 21, 1983, we all realized we did not have to.

* * *

Cory Aquino was in Boston with her five children when the worst of their fears was realized: Ninoy was shot upon his arrival at the Manila International Airport. She consoled her children by saying that their dad got his wish, which was to die for his country.

According to her nephew Rapa Lopa in an essay he wrote for Ninoy: Art and Essays, Cory asked her oldest sister Josephine Reyes to let Ninoy’s body come home to their modest home on Times street, where his wake would be held. According to Rapa, Cory did not expect many to pay their last respects to Ninoy, out of fear of Marcos.

On the flight back home to Manila from Boston, Cory told her children to prepare for something heartbreaking — that their father’s body was badly bruised and bloodied. When they arrived on Times street, she asked for a few moments alone with him. Relatives and other mourners who were in the living room where Ninoy’s body lay in state quietly left the room. Only Dr. Rolly Solis, the cardiologist who operated on Ninoy in 1980, stayed behind.

“I saw Ninoy’s bloodied and bruised body in the coffin and I was telling Ninoy, ‘Ninoy, tell me what I should do.’ When I kissed him, I promised him that I would continue with the struggle, never thinking then that I would become president. I kissed him on the cheek, and it was hard. I did not break down. I held his hair. And it was softer. When you’re dead, it’s really just your hair that would still remain as soft as it was. So I was touching Ninoy’s head, but I couldn’t even stay long because I saw all the people outside waiting to come in,” Cory recalled. In her grief, she saw that Ninoy no longer just belonged to her and her children. By dying for his people, Ninoy now belonged to the Filipino people as well. So she put herself aside and shared Ninoy with the Filipino people — forever.

Before she left the room and gave the signal for the mourners to be allowed to file by Ninoy’s coffin anew, Cory made a vow. She promised Ninoy she would continue his mission, the cause he lived and died for.

Then she wiped away her tears.

* * *

I once asked Cory Aquino if she believes she kept the promise she made to Ninoy when she kissed him goodbye 25 years ago.

I remember Cory Aquino looked at me in the eye and with her face all aglow, said: “Yes. I kept my promise.”

“I think that is why I have so far outlived Ninoy, to see to it that more of his dreams come true.”

Who wanted Ninoy dead?

The answer may be obvious, common knowledge even, but will it stand the scrutiny of time?

On the occasion of Ninoy Aquino’s 25th death anniversary today, a documentary will seek to give you a scientific answer to that question. Beyond Conspiracy: 25 Years After the Aquino Assassination is a 90-minute video documentary that seeks to affirm the historical significance of the Aquino assassination to our youth, many of whom have very little knowledge of this tragedy other than what they have heard or read in school.

Through painstaking research combined with state-of-the-art computer generating (CGI) technology, Beyond Conspiracy recreates the assassination, as we have never seen it before.

Directed by Butch Nolasco, a two-time Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) winner; and written by Ruben Tangco, also a CMMA awardee and an Anvil awardee for another documentary on the incarceration of Senators Ninoy Aquino and Pepe Diokno, Beyond Conspiracy will air on Sunday, Aug. 24 at 10:30 p.m. on ABS-CBN.

Don’t miss it. It may just be the closure the nation has been waiting for.

(For inquiries on the book, Ninoy: Art and Essays by Jiggy Aquino Cruz, please call 840-1122)

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])