By Philip M. Lustre Jr.
Dictator Ferdinand Marcos hardly anticipated the costly and prolonged public outrage over the Aug. 21, 1983 assassination of top opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr.
Despite his reputed erudite and wily political ways, Marcos could not stop the escalation of the Aquino’s brutal murder into crisis proportions, threatening his dictatorship for the first time in a decade.
Ensconced in Malacanang after his kidney transplant surgery, Marcos watched helplessly as the Filipino people responded swiftly, overwhelmingly, and decisively on the brazen way Ninoy Aquino was killed while he was with his military escorts at the airport tarmac.
Despite the dictatorship’s tight control over the local media, news about Aquino’s murder spread like wildfire, triggering what could be regarded the start of the downfall of the Marcos dictatorial regime.
It pricked the national conscience, so to speak, as ordinary citizens could not contain their utter shock, disbelief, and disgust over his murder, which was committed in broad daylight.
For them, Marcos had to explain a lot since the opposition leader was killed while in military custody. Moreover, the circumstances of his brutal murder showed a direct military conspiracy.
Hours after his murder, Filipinos from all walks of life – rich and poor, young, old, and the not-so-old - formed long queues to pay their last respect to Aquino, whose body was put for public viewing at the Aquinos’ residence on Times Street in Quezon City.
The Aquinos neither changed the clothes he wore upon arrival in Manila nor cleaned his wound and dirtied face, enabling the world to see what they did to Ninoy. Only when he was about to be buried ten days later did they dress him up and clean his face.
Two days after his murder, wife Cory Aquino and their kids arrived from Boston and decided to transfer his remains to a bigger and spacious venue to accommodate the increasing number of people, who paid daily homage to him – the iconic Santo Domingo Church along Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, which is about two kilometers away from their residence.
The crowd got bigger and the lines, longer, as more Filipinos started to perceive Ninoy Aquino as a martyr of Philippine democracy.
Despite the public anger and polarizing effects of the brutal murder, known supporters of the dictatorship attempted to go to the wake to show some degree of sympathy and condole with the family.
But because of the tense situation, some visitors were shunned. Their rebuff revealed the deep political wounds his murder had caused.
Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, the former foreign affairs minister of the Marcos dictatorship was among them. Burial marshals politely told him to leave, hurting his pride.
Later, that was when he was about to die in 1985, Romulo showed a change of heart by quietly denouncing the dictatorship, claiming that Marcos used his “international stature” to get what he wanted from the Americans.
Ten days later, or on August 31, 1983, the longest funeral procession in Philippine history took place. An estimated two million people participated to bring Ninoy’s remains to the Manila Memorial Park in suburban Paranaque City.
Almost overnight, an alphabet soup of organizations mushroomed to lead the protest demonstrations against the perceived complicity of the Marcos regime in Aquino’s murder.
Younger brother Agapito, or Butz, led in the creation of the August Twenty One Movement (ATOM), to press for the prosecution of the people behind Ninoy’s murder and signal the rise of the middle class and professionals in the protest movement against the Marcos authoritarian rule.
The Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (JAJA), became the broad coalition of opposition forces against the Marcos dictatorship
The Aug. 21, 1983 assassination of Ninoy Aquino drastically altered the political equation. It galvanized the political resolve of the democratic opposition, as they went to the extent of pressing for the resignation of Marcos, whom the opposition leaders thought had blood in his hands.
They demanded an end for one-man rule and a transition to democracy. It served as the single spark to enhance communist insurgency in the country, as rebels recruited more adherents, staged more ambushes against government troopers, and intensified armed struggle.
The assassination also provided the impetus for the middle class to join the protest movement against Marcos dictatorial rule. Business executives and their staff went out of their offices to join protest demonstrations.
The usually placid business district of Makati, or the Ayala district, became the hotbed of activism and protest demonstrations against Marcos. It weakened the ruling Kilusang Bagong Lipunan coalition, as its members began to doubt Marcos.
Overall, Marcos never had it so bad until the Ninoy Aquino murder took place.
Even the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Manila, as represented by intrepid Ambassador Michael Armacost, were so surprised by the public outrage, prompting them to start distancing from Marcos.
Seeing the magnitude and depth of the collective public anger over Aquino’s murder, Armacost avoided getting cozy and warm again with the dictatorship, as he treated them at arm's length and with ultimate formality.
Where before Armacost was photographed dancing with Imelda, the ambassador avoided her except on formal occasions. It was a sharp contrast to the friendship which the Marcoses enjoyed with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy.
Marcos’s response for the crisis was fatally short of any brinkmanship. He failed to convince the people that Rolando Galman was indeed a communist hit man responsible for Ninoy’s death.
The dictator formed a commission led by his loyal supporter in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, to conduct an independent probe of Aquino’s murder, but the people repudiated the commission, raising the public perception that they were appointed to rig the investigation.
Marcos replaced the Enrique Fernando commission with a five man commission led by retired appellate justice Corazon Agrava. The other commission members were Amado Dizon, Dante Santos, Luciano Salazar, and Ernesto Herrera, who rose to national prominence to become a senator.
The commission held daily hearings for almost a year and confirmed the public view that his murder was indeed a military conspiracy that involved Gen. Fabian Ver, the Armed Forces chief of staff and an infamous Marcos lackey.
The protest demonstrations continued. Perfumed elites from Makati and corporate executives like Jaime Ongpin and Ramon del Rosario Jr. joined hands with the great unwashed to press for Marcos resignation and a transition to democracy.
Marcos was forced to call elections for members of the regular Batasang Pambansa, where the political opposition won a quarter of the seats in 1984. In late 1985, Marcos called for “snap” presidential elections, which culminated in the EDSA People Power Revolution.
The ultimate question: Who gave the order for Ninoy Aquino’s assassination?
The late Cory Aquino had put the blame squarely on dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but in the absence of direct evidence and corroborative statements, it was difficult for her to pin down Marcos as the one who gave the order for her husband's assassination.
But pieces of circumstantial evidence showed that it was Marcos, who personally gave the order to Imelda and close confidantes to kill Ninoy if he insisted to come home at the date he was convalescing from his kidney transplant surgery.
In the dictator’s mind during those days, he was only implementing in an extrajudicial manner the death sentence a military commission gave in 1974 on trumped up charges of murder and subversion against him.
In contrast, Ninoy Aquino felt he had to be here to present opposition alternatives for Marcos.
Imelda’s warning against Ninoy that he would be dead if he were to come home indicated that the Marcoses had plans to liquidate him.
What took place on Aug. 21, 1983 was premeditated murder as shown by the clock-like precision of the operations.
It was inconceivable that Marcos did not know it. He not only knew it; he personally gave the order. Hence, his order had emboldened the likes of Avsecom chief Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, a notorious Imelda loyalist, to kill Ninoy.
Their cocky confidence was noticeable.
To whom did Marcos give the order to kill Ninoy?
Imelda knew and implemented it along with Ver and, of course, his younger brother, Cocoy Romualdez.
It is a cause for bewilderment that Cocoy did not bother to return to the country for many years, while others took the gamble to return. He returned only when he was ill with cancer only to die in early 2012.
Nobody could say with certainty his participation, but it has been whispered that he was among those entrusted to carry out that plan to kill Ninoy.
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