Are We Worth Dying For?
August 2nd, 2009 by Jose C. Camano
Corazon C. Aquino died and so was Ninoy, while we remain alive and myopic of their sacrifice and missed the golden opportunity to draw strength from their death. We remain fractious, immature and greedy and offered cypress leaves to honor their graves instead of living out the ideals of their dreams and a vision for a prosperous country. Alas, we have chosen to live a meaningless life than seek a glorious death. In ‘Termites from Within’, I wrote:
“One of finest 20th century heroes of the country went home in August 1983 from a 3-year exile from the US with a prophetic candor that the Filipinos were worth dying for. Few minutes after his plane had landed, his military escorts shot him at the back of his head, few stair steps before his tired and weary feet longing for home touch the drab and irreverent dusty tarmac. A commission was formed to investigate the murder and it was headed by a woman jurist who was loyal to Malacanang Palace. As expected the commission found the military escorts not responsible for Senator Aquino’s death and pointed to a lone communist diehard, Rolando Galman, as the assassin. The nation had wailed “cover-up” and a “whitewash.”
Another Commission known as the Narvasa Commission had been constituted and it found that it was Senator Aquino’s 26 military escorts who killed the former Senator. On the basis of this finding, all the military escorts were charged with murder in 1985 but were all acquitted. After Mr. Marcos fled to Hawaii in 1986, the Supreme Court declared a mistrial and another trial was conducted and found his 16 military escorts guilty of the murder. The SC which had been subservient to Mr. Marcos had found its spine back under Cory’s skirt of newfound freedom.
The mastermind was never known, but the people had the right suspect in their collective minds. Before Marcos was forced out of power by the EDSA Revolution in 1986, he has called for a snap Presidential election. He was pitted against Senator Aquino’s widow, Cory, a nickname she was fondly called by her supporters. She was backed up by the powerful Catholic Church under Cardinal Jaime Sin. After the nation has voted, both had claimed victory. Marcos was declared the winner by the Batasang Pambansa while Cory was declared the winner by the tumultuous crowds on the streets of Metro Manila. While the nation was polarized, ambitious members of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement under Gregorio Honasan tried to stage a coup.
One of his underlings spilled the beans over to Mrs. Marcos. She wanted to preempt the coup by looking for its most likely patron, Secretary of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile who, meanwhile, had talked with PNP Chief Fidel Ramos into staging a mutiny at Camp Crame at EDSA. Cardinal Sin called on the faithful to go to EDSA and lend support to the mutineers. It was during this time that Secretary Enrile when interviewed by the media said that Cory was robbed of her victory as President of the Republic because of the massive cheating during the snap presidential election. Cory meantime was in the Visayas under the care of some catholic nuns. Civilian protesters shouting “Cory, Cory” along EDSA had paralyzed Metro Manila while in the provinces were glued to their televisions or their radios waiting with bated breath of what could happen with massive civilian protesters confronting military tanks and armed soldiers of the Marcos government in the streets of Manila.
Time Magazine writer Pico Iyer wrote on January 5, 1987:
“Finally, the improbable became the impossible. Marcos’ tanks rolled toward the crowds, only to be stopped by nuns kneeling in their path, saying the rosary. Old women went up to gun-toting marines and disarmed them with motherly hugs. Little girls offered their flowers to hardened combat veterans. In the face of such quiet heroism, thousands of Marcos loyalists defected; many simply broke down in tears.”
The nation had a sigh of relief when Mr. Marcos, his family and cronies fled to Hawaii on February 26, 1986. Cory said after Marcos had fled the country that paved the way for her own rule over a very fractious society:
“We have achieved our freedom with courage and determination, and most important, in peace. A new life starts for our country tomorrow. A life filled with hope and, I believe, a life that will be blessed with peace and progress.”
Peace and progress that proved to be elusive as her six year term as President had been plagued by a series of military mutinies which had been staged by military personnel who had been sidelined from their previous lucrative assignments and have lost the their lifestyles under Marcos. These coup attempts had sent the economy in yet another tailspin.
The nation was hopeful that the country would have moved towards economic prosperity under Cory because she owed no one political debts to pay. She was catapulted to power by the people and only the people she must listen to. But the
adventurous segment of the military had denied our nation the opportunity to achieve stability, progress and peace.
Cory should have taken power as a popularly elected president of the Republic but the ambitious military who would like to be seen as part of Cory’s triumph would like her to serve as a President of a provisional government. Either as a provisional president or a regularly elected eleventh President of the Republic, Cory was sworn nonetheless as President by the Justice of the Supreme Court.
The military mutineers were seen by some of us as heroes of EDSA while others saw them the way they should be seen: “plain opportunists.” These personalities were martial law architects and implementers for 12 years who have seen the upsurge of civilian support for Cory and had decided to abandon their commander-in-chief in a fast sinking ship.
Instead of looking at these coup plotters as villains we see them as the saviors of the Republic. We elected some of them to high government positions and they continue to derive benefits from the very institutions they had subverted in favor of a Marcos one-man rule and from the institutions they tried to subvert in favor of a military junta. On the other hand, the coup plotters against Cory were punished with ten push-ups by her Chief of Staff, Fidel Ramos and some of those prominent coup plotters found their way back in the corridors of power as senators or as executives of lucrative government corporations.
The perception that most of those in power were guilty one way or another of subverting our democratic institutions had prevented us from imposing the full measure of punishment to those who openly committed acts of treason and subversion against the republic. To our minds, only the members of the New People’s Army, the members of the Moro National Liberation Front and the members of other left-leaning groups deserved to be punished by death or by outright execution. The most sinister plotters that had destabilized the nation and ruin our economy and the raiders and plunderers of our treasury do not deserve the kind of punishment meted out to other subversive elements of our society when in matters of degree, the latter wrongdoers have wrought more havoc and destructions to our motherland. This is the reason why after Mr. Marcos and his family had fled to Hawaii in 1986 and most of his kins and his retinue of crony capitalists had come back, we have yet to see them go to jail.
Filipinos have short term memory and a very forgiving race. We do not know exactly whether it is our vice or our strength as a nation.
Guest Writer: Jose C. Camano is a lawyer blogger. You can visit his blog at http://jcc34.worpress.com
August 2, 2009 at 6:41 am
So what is the last word with regards the soldiers who were tasked with providing escort to Benigno Aquino?
I thought that the principle against “double jeopardy” had always been recognized in the Philippines :
August 2, 2009 at 7:13 am
By the way, one of your sentences is questionable:
At least one major Pinas institution namely the CBCP (and therefore a number of Pinoys-in-Pinas) stands firmly against punishing anyone — soldiers turned bank robbers, rapists, enemies-of-cell-towers and Kidnap-for-ransom Muslims — with death.
August 2, 2009 at 8:18 am
Why are Pinoys mostly stuck on stupid?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102289.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
The stupid and wacko crowd will always gain credence as they are the result itself of the constituencies created by weak economic structures and systems.
President Aquino is no saint. However she in her own simple way showed us the power of her faith in an ideal. That seed is ingrained in every human whose frequency is turned on. Once turned on there is no going back.
There will always be a few on the margins who will remain idiots. That is what makes the democratic space critical in strengthening popular broad based representative government.
She restored that space and it holds till today in spite of many attempts to trifle with it.
August 2, 2009 at 9:18 am
jcc, shouldn’t your question be: is the philippine presidency worth dying for? if i remember right, benigno aquino insisted on leaving the relative safety of boston to confront marcos head to head in the “snap election” called by the latter. he was evidently aware that some harm awaited him so he tried to protect his body with a bullet-proof vest. i think it’s fair to say that he didn’t plan on dying, rather, he planned on winning the presidency.
August 2, 2009 at 10:44 am
“benigno aquino insisted on leaving the relative safety of boston to confront marcos head to head in the “snap election” called by the latter”
Ninoy was shot in 1983 or three years before Marcos called for a snap election.
How can you say that he was to confront marcos in that snap election.
I think that it is also unfair to think that the only motivation for
Ninoy’s coming back was winning the presidency.
After all, in 1983 nobody in the Philippines thought that Marcos can be defeated electorally.
Please do not change what has actualy happened.
August 2, 2009 at 11:36 am
punona, looks like you are right about the “snap election”. i stand corrected. i should say, ninoy aquino returned to philippines knowing that marcos was gravely ill and was dying. as the opposition’s favorite to replace the dictator, he had to be on deck to make that possible.
August 3, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Ninoy knew he was going to croak one way or another – the cake was whether he stayed in the US or returned to the Philippines a cardiac problem was going to get him; however, the possibility of assassination as the icing on the cake, made the return trip a journey he can’t refuse.
why settle for cardiac arrest when you can have martyrdom? true enough, the rest is history.
August 2, 2009 at 9:39 am
“Filipinos have short term memory and a very forgiving race. We do not know exactly whether it is our vice or our strength as a nation.”
Jose, thank you for the historical perspective. I found it very informative.
I suppose one must understand why Filipinos are “forgiving”. If it is a generous and kind forgiving, that is one thing. That is biblical. If it is a frightened forgiving, that is quite another. Frightened, because one never knows who is behind the door listening or spilling the beans or ready and willing to shoot one’s mother or kids in the head.
The whole Losada affair seems to me emblematic of a style of forgiveness that is found in running from hard truths. The messenger is shot. The message is torn up. The wrongdoers are forgiven and justice is nowhere about.
Forgiveness in the Philippines always seems to flow upstream, toward the most powerful. Capital punishment may be outlawed, but it’s partner, suppression of truth through violence and intimidation, thrives. This seems to me to be the wild-wild-east, people running around with six-shooters, influencing by intimidation, extracting forgiveness by force.
I’m reminded of Willy Nelson’s line from “Poncho and Lefty”, a lament about the underhanded demise of Poncho Villa in Mexico. In his heydey, Poncho was not to be messed with.
“He wore his gun outside his pants for all the world to feel.”
Poncho got lots of forgiveness.
Joe
August 2, 2009 at 9:41 am
Curious lang.
Whatever happened to the concept of a President embodying the true sovereign?
In a republican democracy the people elect the President don’t they?
August 2, 2009 at 9:58 am
maybe we asked our yoouths, if they are worth caring for?
August 3, 2009 at 12:25 pm
maybe we should ask ourselves, if we should be caring for our kids.
August 3, 2009 at 12:27 pm
to bogrit lee : many of the philippine youth (under 35), it is their income that are used to pay for their younger siblings’ education or even medicine for their grandparents. Some of them are doing the caring, not the “being taken care of”.
August 2, 2009 at 9:58 am
to JoeAmerica: Click here for a “What If?” that would have resulted in history not being history.
http://philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com/2006/08/20/if-editorial-august-23-1986/
August 2, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Up n,
Thank you. I appreciate the perspective. History in the Philippines is so very rich with drama. Time for a boring stretch of stable productivity . . .
Joe
August 2, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Hey, the rats started fighting amongst themselves when they saw their game was almost up. Led by Enrile and his godson Honasan. Honansan hijacked the RAM movement and put under the disposal of Enrile.
The U.S. then had to salvage the situation as the NPA then was at its height. The CCP was solidly united. In any serious vacuum they stood to gain the upper hand. The armed forces and police were divided.
The opposition was united under Cory and then Joma committed his strategic mistake. He ordered the CCP not to participate in Edsa I. There it was the CCP had their united front and their arrogance led them to abandon the fight at the tipping point. They then split down ideological grounds.
At the other end of the spectrum the right consolidated their economic power under Jobo Fernandez with the neo-classical technocrats and put the country on the road to perdition. They threw away the golden opportunity to repudiate and restructure the foreign debts. From 1983 till 1989 the Philippines had stopped paying its foreign debt and was in default. Fernandez and company flushed the country down the toilet….Just think that the total foreign debt then was $25 billion or Php 250 billion. He then agreed to debase it to Php 20 to $1 or Php 500 billion. Inflation based taxation became official monetary policy.
Enrile was forgiven all his sins. No one was brought to trial for the murders and disappearances. The elite simply changed places.
There was no regime change. We simply changed heads but allowed for a narrow democratic space. We then gave away our economic sovereignty by going to a dollar reserve system for our domestic banking system as part of the Brady package.
In the name of free trade we reverted back to colonial status.
August 3, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Enrile and FVR bristled at the playmakers’ playbook at that juncture in history – a transition from Marcos to Ver was unacceptable.
August 2, 2009 at 9:31 pm
We have a short memory since as like the English have it, we have lost sight of Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem is not the physical city in Palestine/Israel but the metaphor of what our nation ought to be. We need our prophets to lead us back to the city.
August 3, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Bayani Fernando and Jamby Madrigal volunteer to be prophet to lead Pinas back to “…the greater good”.
August 3, 2009 at 1:31 am
jcc nice piece pero parang bitin. Well, for me it is,Filipinos are worth dying for. But I cannot be a hero, for I have no qualities to become a hero…anyway none of us here at FV has it. For me the qualities of becoming a hero should always do a Sacrifice or Self-less acts, and meeting danger without fear (fear of losing jobs or family, fear of hunger or sickness). I grew up unknowingly that the Government we had at that time was not in a normal state, I was born in 1972, my Parents enjoyed in having the curfew because my parents never had a hard time calling us on streets because when sirens goes up in the air, we always pop up automatically in front of our door. I was on a 3rd grade when Martial Law was lifted, then stories/frustration about martial law that my parents tried to hide from us has begun to flow freely to our hearts and mind. That the President we always answered on test papers for 3 years was a cheat and corrupt. But, to my observations, all after EDSA, all administration never touched in reforming the most benefactors of EDSA revolution, which are the Armed Forces of the Philippines. EDSA 1 ( Ramos gets lead of AFP, Enrile maintained the Defense Secretary position) then coup attempts one after another…why?…ask Enrile why he was removed from DND after the military junta’s, because after he was removed…coup’s stopped…and now coup’s against GMA…what are the reasons…sentiments/frustrations of idealistic young & senior officers, with few Generals…one of those…promoting a multiple of GENERALS…kumbaga sa Private company…A manager managing a manager which supervising a manager. Well as a general rule of thumb, sa Private company…the more you go up, the more compromises you have to make ( di na pede awa…kailanagn pro administration ka, kundi sibak ka agad kinabukasan)…sa MILITARY pa kaya gawin ito? the higher a soldier goes up in his/her rank, the more they become involved in unethical conduct and corrupted by the same system we had from MARCOS time…kung i-reform ni GMA ang AFP sa idealistic na paraan…the GENERALS that she had recently promoted or the existing GENERALS that become her secretaries will be subjected to accountability in the process…for human rights abuses, criminal acts, corruption, etc…at kung magkakaroon na naman ng EDSA revolution, ganoon pa din scenario ang mangyayari…pero paano magwawagi ang revolution ng walang partisipasyon ng MILITARY?…i have a few good friends in the military…i never failed to asked them with same question…how the insurgency will be stop in Philippines specially referring to NPA’s, MILF’s, and Abu’s…ang nag-iisang sagot…NEGOSYO YAN eh…mawawala na ang kita pag nawala sila. Naalala ko tuloy si HUNYANGO ng TAYONG DALAWA TV Series hehehe.
August 3, 2009 at 2:47 am
FYI lang, I have no question about your comment.
Enrile stepped out of DND Nov 23, 1986.
Coups 1987-89
Rafael Ileto replaced him,but the men who remained at DND were still Enrile’s men . Ileto would not have wanted to rock to boat, that is why 1987 hapen where the issue used was”insurgency eradication promises, were left unfulfilled” .
Ileto stayed until 1988 till his death, then that is when FVR took over, a year later the bloodiest dec 89 coup happened.
Hunyango talaga si alam mo na.
BTW,Nice piece JCC.
August 3, 2009 at 8:35 pm
thank you kg, i stand corrected. :)
August 3, 2009 at 3:49 am
kg, nosi, thanks.. :)
August 3, 2009 at 5:56 am
If our Military Personnel uses their power to support a Dictator,
or would be Dictator grab for power. Then, we are not worth dying for…
If Members of Congress sell their votes to a Dictator, or would be
Dictator. So that she can perpetuate herself in office. Then, we
are not worth dying for…
If anyone elected in the Office of the Presidency. Corrupts people
by bribes to change the present Constitution of our country. So that
she can stay in office till she dies. Then, we are not worth dying
for…
If the Citizens are apathethic to bring out graft and corruption in
the government. The court like the Ombudsman, sits and delay such
cases to prosecute. Then, we are not worth dying for…
To preserve the DEMOCRACY that Ninoy Aquino had died for. And, her
widow, the late Pres. Corazon Aquino has given us as legacy. Will
show to the world that they did not die in vain. And their efforts
were not wasted.
August 3, 2009 at 7:33 am
“Has there been a greater test of national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through? You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it, and here you have a people who won it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.”
It was a homerun with the bases loaded and she took $200 million US aid. But the military adventures sank our economy further.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ZbsEUUrg&NR=1
August 3, 2009 at 8:16 pm
jcc,
What military adventures? I know the Philippines was in Iraq for a short time, but that little fleet-of-foot bail-out was hardly an adventure. The fight against terrorists hardly seems an adventure; it seems pretty serious, if you look at what is happening all over the globe in secular countries with large, poor Muslim populations. I know there are a lot of generals, so there must be a lot of perceived threats, or maybe some engagements of which I am unaware. Training exercises with the US are hardly adventures. To what do you refer?
Thanks.
Joe
August 3, 2009 at 8:21 pm
joe, military adventures used in the context above are “coup de’ tat” attempts against the cory government.
August 4, 2009 at 2:11 am
jcc, ahh, the domestic adventures. Of course. That all makes sense now.
Thank you.
Joe
August 3, 2009 at 7:56 am
and the bases run away with it ( or driven out, to put it more realistically). and it was all downhill after that for a lot of filipinos.
August 3, 2009 at 10:36 am
jcc,
From where you stand, who do you think really killed Ninoy – commie die-hard Rolando Galman or Ninoy’s 26 military escorts? Bottomline, isn’t it a bit of a contradiction when you say the ‘mastermind was never known’ but the ‘people have the right suspect in their collective minds’?
Also,is it your honest view that the military mutineers or coup plotters should be seen as “plain opportunists”, this despite the Reform Armed Forces Movement of the Enrile-Ramos tandem could be said to have toppled the Marcos regime?
So is it quite the case that you would look at the coup plotters more as villains than they are saviors of our Republic?
August 3, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Primer,
Andres Narvasa in an interview said:
“Better left closed. No sense anymore in trying to find out (who ordered his killing). If anything could be found out, it would have been revealed by this time. If we haven’t found out by this time, we will never find out,” Narvasa told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
So there was an unknown mastermind. But I take exception to his statement. The case is better closed if the mastermind is revealed to the public. There are still living military escorts who could have been privy to as to who ordered the assasination. The public is entitled to know the truth.
Besides, a ganglang execution style in this magnitude is beyond the level of authority of these military escorts. It was rumored that Ver ordered the assasination, or it was Imelda or even Danding Cojuangco, or it was Mr. Marcos himself. Who knows?
From my standpoint, the coup d’etat in Febraury 1986 was an attempt at a “power-grab” not from Mr. Marcos but from Cory. These plotters were military people who had seen Mr. Marcos’ popularity waning and Cory’s popularity on the rise. They tried to be a part of the upheaval and be recognized as the leaders who toppled Mr. Marcos and thus early on had contemplated for a “junta” to rule the country. And I think they had abandoned the idea of a “junta” because it would not last long considering that the people outside Camp Crame were shouting “Cory, Cory”.
August 3, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I’d say the Filipinos should themselves think whether they are worth dying for. Sounds rhetoric, but would you die for yourself? Are they willing to themselves die for what they believe is good? Is what they believe in really good? Sure is crap if people think they are worth dying for by other people.
August 3, 2009 at 5:15 pm
On second thought, is there any need for someone to die? Just live right!
August 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Dying for a cause is over-rated – I don’t need heroes – http://filipinovoices.com/i-dont-need-heroes
August 3, 2009 at 10:15 pm
chino,
The idea that someone dies for other is not crap. JC died for us.
August 4, 2009 at 2:06 am
jcc, a soldier who dies in battle dies that others might live. a politician dying in the pursuit of his political ambition dies for himself. JC was not a politician, nor a soldier, but He did it for love.
August 4, 2009 at 2:12 am
bencard,
And what makes you think that Ninoy died for himself and not for his desire to make the country free? – not at all trying to convince you that he did die for that aspiration, but my caveat holds true: “we are a divided and fractious people”. I believe he did die for that aspiration while you think he died to serve his own vainglory. As ding would always say, different folks, different stroke. :)
August 5, 2009 at 9:57 pm
i agree with you CF in some point…weighing things before anything else must be done…but its not a crap dying for other people… i would say Jun Lozada, cannot be a hero, because he’s not dead yet :)…sandra cam nor rosebud cannot be called a hero for they were surrounded by people with personal vested interest…and where are they now, do we still see them? nahhh!…but Lozada is still in the circulation, still have faith (maybe he is still surrounded by the nuns and priests)that the self-less acts he did will not go in vain.
August 4, 2009 at 3:06 am
jcc, what makes me think? wasn’t he a politician who coveted the presidency, and a marcos “arch rival”, before and during the marcos’ presidency? wenceslao q. vinzons and jose abad santos wanted to see their country free and actually died for it by not collaborating with the enemy. are they accorded with more than a token honor and remembrance as “heroes” like ninoy?
August 4, 2009 at 3:42 am
I don’t know why one’s ambition to become president voids him of any genuine desire to work for the welfare of the Filipino people and free them from a fascist regime of Mr. Marcos.
August 4, 2009 at 3:54 am
you asked me what makes me think, so there you go. as lawyers, let’s just say we are both indulging in “educated” speculation, o.k.?
August 4, 2009 at 4:15 am
bencard,
he is already dead.. i cannot speculate. he died with his ambition to become president so he can free us from the tyranny of mr. marcos and save the republic from the Imelda-Ver dictatorship after mr. marcos.
you can speculate that he committed suicide knowing the danger of coming home, and yet he persisted in coming home. nothing will blame you for that kind of speculation. everyone is free to believe on anything that suits his fancy. this is the beauty of a free society.
August 4, 2009 at 7:26 am
Jcc, you know as well as i do that intentions of people in history who are long dead are speculated about all the time. washington, lincoln, kennedy, rizal, bonifacio, among many, are subjects of conjectures by “historians”, whether positively or negatively. there is such a thing as “circumstantial evidence”, you know.
August 4, 2009 at 9:53 am
Sad for Ninoy’s and Cory’s fight.
Cory passed away when we Filipinos are dying!
When will we wake up again?
August 4, 2009 at 9:59 am
Sanay na sanay tayong magpasa Diyos at
tinatapaktapakan at ok na lang.
We never took our rights seriously.
Ang tama ay tama never magiging baka or mali.