Jack The Scribbler

Aquino's picture on Wikipedia

The first time I heard about Ninoy Aquino he was already dead for a few hours.

My mother, my brother, our longtime helper Adeling (whom we called Sister out of respect for her and her strong Catholic faith), and I were trapped inside my aunt’s two-storey house in Sampaloc. (At that time, my father was abroad, spending the first of his only two-year stint in the Middle East.)

All four of us were invited to the fiesta that day—a Sunday—and at around seven or eight in the evening, the heavy rain forced my aunt to extend her welcome.

Having nothing else to do, I turned on a small color television set located near the living room and tuned into RPN channel 9.

It was showing the last half of a movie that I would find out later was Murder by Death. (How could I remember? I was a fan of the Pink Panther movie series, and by extension, Peter Sellers, who was cast as a Chinese detective in the film. I just added Google into the mix decades later.) [See: Murder by Death, Peter Sellers, Pink Panther]

While seeing the film’s last few scenes—a large suitcase being snapped shut by Truman Capote who played the eccentric millionaire—Sister ran up to me and told me that Ninoy Aquino was shot.

“Sino siya?” I asked her.

She gave me an explanation so colorful and detailed it must have been riddled with half truths and rumors.

But it was enough to keep Ninoy Aquino in the periphery of my imagination until next year.

In November 1984, I wrote a letter to the editor about Ninoy Aquino to Mr & Ms Special Edition, a weekly newsmagazine that was part of the mosquito press. [See: Mr & Ms]

The letter was handwritten on a lined piece of paper that I used for school. The document was folded, stapled, and was deliberately sent without an envelope—a tip I learned from a special portion of the GMA News program that asked viewers to send in their money-saving strategies which, at that time, was read on the air by Tina Monzon-Palma.

I then gave the letter to my mother who, now that I think about it, must have gotten a kick from sending stuff through the mail. (She forced us to write letters to our grandparents who were staying in California.)

The letter was later published, copies of which were shown proudly to relatives every time they visited.

It was the first time I saw my name in print.

Too bad the event was associated with someone who had to be assassinated, if only to bring us where we—as a country—should go.

We’re not there yet.

But I do hope that we get there wherever “there” is. [See: Raissa Robles’ take on Ninoy Aquino]

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From the On Another Note Dept. Been re-reading “The Public Has The Right to Know,” a book written by Bienvenido A. Tan, the public coordinator of the Agrava Fact-Finding Board, the body that investigated the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. Tan, father of Jose Ma. Lorenzo, who heads the World Wildlife Fund Philippines, would later become Cory Aquino’s tax chief. Tan’s book is candid, describing how certain individuals even said they were able to communicate with Aquino in the afterlife. And at one point during the proceedings, he became so frustrated with the assertions of Butz Aquino, Ninoy’s brother, that he bought himself a new set of golf clubs. [See: Tan on buying a new set of golf clubs.] Since we’re already on the topic, try visiting [Five things Donald Draper and Ferdinand Marcos have in common].

It’s highly unlikely.
But a published account written by Cory’s speechwriter, newspaperman, and Makati City congressman TeddyBoy Locsin Jr. said that Kris Aquino was named after the word that has singularly defined the state of Philippine society (and arguably, her personal life).
“We’re gonna call her Krissy, for crisis,” Locsin wrote in page 320 of the book, Cory Magic: Her People’s Stories, citing Ninoy.

The book, Cory Magic: Her Peoples' Stories, remembers the former president and her funeral. (Picture from starmometer.com)

The remark was made over a dinner in August 1971, when Locsin was covering Aquino’s career for the Philippines Free Press.
“Ninoy and I immediately hit it off,” Locsin added, remembering the event more than three decades ago when the senator’s youngest daughter was just “a chubby, little baby girl” held by Cory whom he met for the first time.
In the meantime, Ninoy’s remark — as reported by Locsin — may have been flippant.
After all, it was uttered hours after grenades were thrown into a crowded Liberal Party (LP) campaign rally at Plaza Miranda in Manila, an event that Ninoy — an LP senator — begged off from attending at the last moment. The decision may have prolonged Ninoy’s life although he would later be assassinated exactly twelve years later to the day at the airport now bearing his name.
Now, more than thirty years later, Ninoy’s words about Kris sounds prophetic.
Just this week, Kris reportedly cursed and caused a scandal when she visited the house of her husband’s fan, a certain Mayen Austria, in an upscale village east of Metro Manila.
But Aquino immediately denied the incident in a text message.
She only expressed her feelings about Mayen’s “actuations” toward her husband, basketball player James Yap, she said.
The incident could have been easily set aside.
Except that Kris’ brother Noynoy is running — and is the leading contender — for the presidency of the Philippines.
And no spin doctor worth his bag of tricks will miss this opportunity to reduce Aquino’s popularity.
This explains why political operators of all shapes, shades, and sizes are working overtime, only to make sure that the incident — no thanks to Kris and her husband — renders the most maximum damage possible to his campaign.
Already, a text message supposedly from Austria, has been making the rounds, accusing Kris of being “very mad, berating us, saying I always text and call james” and of “passing by the house to make me sugod [confront me].”
The lengthy text message ends with the question, “Do you want Kris to be in Malacanang?”
Whether the message came from Austria or not, Aquino’s political rivals are stopping at nothing to create — what’s that word again? — a crisis big enough to dent his lead in the surveys.
It enough to make you think whether Ninoy had the power to predict the future.
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From the Acknowledgments Dept. Altered pic of Kris and Noynoy was copied from Karl Kaufman. Thanks, man. Picture of the book came from Starmometer.com.

They got lucky.
On Tuesday morning of August 4, Pricella O. Gealon and Elizabeth S. Tundag were able to book reservations and fly to Manila on the same day.
By 8:30 in the evening, the pair was already bound for the Philippine capital, somewhat pleased with themselves after getting good prices for their tickets.
But they weren’t exactly in the mood to relish their good luck.

Tundag (L) and Gealon (R) take a break after leaving the queue to view Cory Aquino’s remains during the last day of her wake.

The pair – volunteers of the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) in Cebu during the 1986 snap elections – looked forward to paying their last respects to the late president Corazon C. Aquino.
“She was my idol,” Tundag told GMANews.TV during the wee hours of Wednesday in Manila. “She set out to do what she promised to do when she became president.”
An hour after take-off, Gealon and Tundag were already at the Ninoy Aquino airport, waiting for a taxi to bring them to the Manila Cathedral.
After a short stop at a nearby apostolate office – where they dropped off their overnight bags — they were able to join thousands who lined up to get a glimpse of the late president during the last day of her wake.
But the flight, the traffic, and the long wait during their departure and arrival took their toll.
At about one in the morning, after enduring cold winds and intermittent rainshowers, the two women decided to leave the queue.
No one could exactly blame them.
They were wet, exhausted, and were nowhere near the cathedral entrance.
At that time, the queue snaked around the block where the church stood, extending anywhere between three to five kilometers from the entrance, depending on various estimates.
The line even became longer at two in the morning, reaching the back of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) building, which was still at a distance from the cathedral.
By this time, both Gealon and Tundag were already seeking refuge at the Palacio del Gobernador, a nearby building.
While sitting at the building’s lobby steps, they tried various strategies to stay up the whole night, if only to keep vigil during the last day of Tita Cory’s wake.
Besides watching the continuous stream of people who stayed in line with a mix of envy and amusement, the two women also listened to stories exchanged between the building’s security guard and various other visitors.
There was a teacher who complained about the snooty family ahead of her in line. “I even spoke to them in English,” she said.
Or the middle-aged woman who was torn between heading back home on her own since she lost her companions (and, for some reason, her cellphone signal).
For their part, Gealon and Tundag swapped stories during the time they accompanied Cory Aquino in her presidential campaign in Cebu more than 20 years ago.
“When I saw her for the first time, I immediately got the impression that she was very close to God,” she said.
And even though they failed to get their last look at Cory, they will never forget the day they decided to go on a sudden, unplanned trip to Manila one gloomy day in August.
“We’ve already seen her in person,” they said. “It’s enough that we came over to attend her burial and pray for her.”
(Written for the blog section of GMANews.TV)