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By Johnna Villaviray and Ric Puod
, Senior Reporters
(Conclusion)
“This is the evil of one-man rule at its
very worst.”–Benigno Aquino Jr., 1975
THE bloodied body of former Sen. Benigno
Aquino slumped on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport
symbolized the years of horror under Marcos’s authoritarian rule.
Bringing the violent politics of the provinces
to the national arena, Aquino’s martyrdom triggered a painstaking
upheaval to reform the country according to the vision of democracy
he had conjured up since his 1972 imprisonment up to 1983, when he
returned from a three-year medical furlough in the United States.
This reform movement–highlighted by the 1986
and 2001 People Power revolutions–continues to rage today as much
as the debate on who ordered the murder of the former war
correspondent who rose to become the biggest political threat to
Marcos.
Marcos was never investigated or charged with
the 1983 murder, but the Aquinos and most Filipinos have come to
accept that he was ultimately to blame.
Although the Aquino family may find solace in
the thought that retributive justice has been done, the nation
continues to call up memories of martial law and the oligarchy it
spawned.
The political analyst Amado Mendoza said the
country can’t get over the horrors of the Marcos regime owing to
the lack of closure, especially of the Aquino murder.
“Closure enables everybody to move on and be
unburdened by the past or doubts from the past. Without closure,
people can strut around as if sinless; there is no final
reckoning,” said Mendoza, a former student activist who now
teaches political science at the University of the Philippines.
Prime examples are Imee and Bongbong Marcos, who
now serve as district representative of Laoag and governor of Ilocos
Norte, respectively. Tycoons Eduardo Cojuangco, Lucio Tan and other
businessmen publicly known to be close to the Marcoses enjoy the
same social stature today as they did then.
Aquino’s son Benigno III, or Noynoy,
acknowledges that his family is somewhat frustrated that the freedom
of choice his father’s death helped give the country is now used
by Marcos-time bullies to remain in power.
“We’re still maturing as a democracy.
We’re also trying to get the electorate to mature also,” Noynoy
said to explain the phenomenon.
In a speech given last month before the
country’s business leaders, former President Corazon Aquino
acknowledged that the promise of her husband’s death and of the
1986 People Power Revolution seemed to have been sidelined by
present-day concerns–a feeble economy, political divisiveness and
the threat of the Muslim and communist insurgencies, the same
problems that beset the twilight years of the Marcos regime.
“People power, as I know it, refers to the
collective efforts of individuals and communities to take control
over their lives to pursue the common good for the greatest
number,” she said.
“Now I believe it is time to make people power
work for the Filipino economically and morally, by using it to
create a dynamic, progressive, caring and compassionate society, the
kind our children would be proud of. It is time to equate people
power not simply with a political tool but, more important, with an
ideology of hope.”
On the 20th death anniversary of her husband,
Mrs. Aquino honored 20 nongovernmental organizations that worked to
fulfill the promise of EDSA, a reminder that the freedoms we enjoy
today came at a price.
Benigno Aquino’s life was not the first or the
last to be claimed by martial law, but he was the most popular.
Born to a landed gentry from Tarlac, Aquino had
the birthright to contest control of a nation that traditionally
reserves leadership to the social elite.
He made the best use of his natural charm and
assets and had impeccable timing.
Campaigning in the provinces, he would arrive
and leave in a helicopter, outshining other candidates who stumped
the country in a car. His homecoming on August 21, 1983, supposedly
a secret, was as grand an entrance as possible–he traveled with a
full news crew from Taipei while hundreds of supporters waited
outside the Manila International Airport.
Even his death that day cut short the commotion
Aquino usually stirred up. Thousands of supporters and those merely
curious lined up for hours, sometimes in the rain, to catch a
glimpse of his body. Even more turned up for the funeral procession.
His body was displayed, Mendoza said, as a
testament to “the horror that has been haunting the country for
decades, routinely manifested by the breakdown of peace and order,
economic instability, subversion, graft and corruption, and an
increasing number of abusive elements in what are otherwise notable
institutions in our country–the military and law-enforcement
agencies.”
Mendoza said the country had been ripe for civil
war: the 65-year-old Marcos was losing his grip on government owing
to ill health, discontent was widespread, the economy was shrinking
by 12 percent, the inflation rate was at 60 percent, imports had to
be paid in cash, the communist guerrillas were venturing into the
urban areas and even Marcos’s business cronies were pulling their
money out of the country.
“Aquino’s death was an incendiary device
that inflamed People Power, but it wasn’t everything. Had he died
when the economy was good, the result would not have been the
same,” Mendoza said.
The national unity gained from 1983 to 1986 was
soon squandered by successive blows that deviated efforts from
rebuilding the economy to safeguarding the government from what Mrs.
Aquino called military adventurism. The country enjoyed a level of
stability during the term of President Fidel Ramos, who served as
head of Marcos’s Constabulary, but it was affected by the 1997
East Asian currency crisis that turned the Asian Tiger’s roar into
a whimper.
The term of President Joseph Estrada, the most
popular of post-Marcos leaders, was cut short by three years owing
to charges of corruption. The Arroyo administration is being
challenged by similar evils that hounded her predecessors.
“But [Aquino’s] death has not been in vain.
Whatever [hardships] we’re experiencing today, the overthrow of
the dictatorship was still a positive thing,” Mendoza said. “It
is easy for people who did not go through martial law not to
appreciate what we have now.”
Mendoza, who was arrested and detained for 18
months between 1973 and 1974, said it is not the country’s fault
that the succession of crises–from Aquino’s assassination, the
coups d’etat in the 1980s, the bombings by Muslim
extremists–failed to forge a genuine sense of solidarity.
“We are fractious by geography,” he said.
“But an effective motivation for achieving national unity is an
external threat, which we have never had in recent times.”
“International war unites us, internal war
divides.”
Political turbulence, deep-seated economic
worries, bad governance, and a surfeit of other problems have
brought the Philippines on a drift without a sense of hope to return
to the road of political and economic stability.
The 1986 EDSA Revolution delivered the country
from a dictatorship but then set off a political upheaval–with
many groups invoking people power to deal with any angst or rivalry.
That set off concerns from businesses and
international financial institutions which wanted to see predictable
political change through basic institutions, but nobody had a clear
idea when this People Power mentality would stop and how.
Meanwhile, Filipinos continue to wallow in
poverty and other problems that the 1986 Revolution failed to
address.
Another political analyst, Clarita Carlos, said
Cory Aquino’s shining example of forgiveness and national
reconciliation helped the nation cope, and that the family’s
hesitation to revive the case is a typical Filipino reaction.
“Filipinos have a short memory, and we are
very patient. It’s a coping mechanism. Otherwise, after all
we’ve been through, we’d commit collective suicide,” she
explained.
“It’s a coping mechanism. We make light of
our tragedies and move on.”
But then, in a country ridden with social
inequity, war and infighting, there is no guarantee how long that
patience can hold. Recent history shows that in the Philippines,
gripes can accumulate, boil over, and snap into another popular
revolt.
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