Not everybody believes, I was to discover, that President [Ferdinand] Marcos personally authorized the murder. At the time, one is assured, he was having one of his relapses. A man who was involved in the design of the presidential dentures told me, meaningly, that at the time of Ninoy’s death Marcos’s gums were very swollen – which was always a sign. And he added, intriguingly, that whenever Marcos’s gums were swollen, the gums of General Ver, the Chief of Staff, swelled up in sympathy. Marcos was in the military hospital at the time, and I have it from someone who knew one of his nurses that, when he heard the news, Marcos threw his food-tray at his wife, Imelda. Others say he slapped her, but I prefer the food-tray version.

— James Fenton on The Snap Revolution as published in Granta 18