THE MOUNTAINEER

Edison L. Baddal
Recollections: 1983 onwards (1)

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- On that fateful day, August 21, 1983, life in the Metropolis was grinding as usual without any hint that a cataclysmic event was in the offing. I remember vividly that the day was hot and humid.

Being a Sunday then, I watched a movie in downtown Rizal Avenue as was my wont. It was past 4 p.m. when I got out of the theater. At the lobby, an acquaintance sidled up to me and told me almost in a hushed voice that Ninoy was gunned down at the NIA tarmac by a civilian assassin while he was being escorted down a plane.

Later, while walking along Quezon Boulevard, the radios in all the commercial establishments lined up there was blaring the shocking news as all radio commentators were earnestly commenting on the assassination. Some political has-beens, whose careers were stupefied by the Marcos political juggernaut, suddenly came out of their hibernation and lent a word or two on the occurrence in the media.

The whole Metropolis seemed to have been shrouded in a pall of gloom as most people I encountered looked dour and cheerless. The young ones, though, because of nescience on the bearing of the event on the economic, political and social spheres of the country, were raucous as befits their insouciant nature.

The news was also hyped up on TV as well on the night of the fateful day. The slumped body of the fallen senator was also splashed on the headlines the day after and several days during the vigil. The ten-day wake was held at Ninoy’s home on Time St., Quezon city. His bereaved widow and children enplaned to Manila a few days after the murder. Curiously, Malacanang was deathly silent while people form all walks of life trooped to Times street to pay their last respect to the man who could have succeeded Marcos had not martial law derailed it. Only Carlos P. Romulo, among Marcos’ cabinet members, appeared during the wake. He was regarded then as the most decent of all Marcos officials having not been involved in any political shenanigan unlike his confreres.

I also recalled that a national daily, which was regarded as Marcos’ propaganda organ due to the closeness of the publisher/owner to Malacanang, never underscored the murder during the 10-day wake. This was highlighted by the fact that when Ninoy’s body was marched from Sto. Domingo church in Quezon City up to the Manila memorial park where he was buried on August 31, 1983, the throngs of people that accompanied the burial march wasn’t given a space in the newspaper.
As if to sniff at the significance of the burial march, a tree struck by lightning during the march was highlighted on the front of the newspaper’s building the day after the burial. Fortuitously, it rained so strongly drenching the marchers of the funeral cortege while the hearse moved slowly along the route.

People lined the thoroughfare where the procession passed and when it finally reached the cemetery, the throng swelled to estimated 2 million. Forming the advance party were a ragtag group of cars ridden by sympathizers.

I positioned myself at the foot of the Jones Bride to have a good view of the funeral cortege. After the group of cars passed, a tall, bespectacled man, surrounded by a group of men who formed an arc around him passed by. His cordon sanitaire prudently announced that he was Butz Aquino, the slain senator’s brother.

On the topmost floor in one of the buildings by the street where I was one of the curious onlookers, a man with a megaphone kept on declaring, “Ninoy, hindi ikaw ang pinatay kundi ang pag-asa ng bayan. Mabuhay ka, Ninoy! Tandaan mo, hindi ka nag-iisa.” He kept on sounding this spiel everytime a part of the cortege passed by the spot.

Butz raised both his arms in acknowledgement of the appreciative remarks. He later became a fixture in anti-Marcos rallies and demonstrations and was even considered a presidential timbre in the event that Marcos calls for an abrupt election. He never became a president but was elected Senator twice in 1987 and 1992 then congressman in 1998.