Ninoy’s Specter
August 21st, 2008 by Marocharim“The nation-wide rebellion is escalating and threatens to explode into a bloody revolution. There is a growing cadre of young Filipinos who have finally come to realize that freedom is never granted, it is taken. Must we relive the agonies and the blood-letting of the past that brought forth our Republic, or can we sit down as brothers and sisters and discuss our differences with reason and goodwill?”
- Benigno Aquino, Jr.
August 21, 1983
It’s been a full quarter century since Ninoy said those last words, and sparked the bloodless movement that was the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. Today, Ninoy’s specter looms over us, waiting for the answer to that question: savage bloodshed, or peaceful discussion? Or their iterations: savage discussion, or bloodshed in the name of peace?
It’s often said that war – the way it’s going on now, or some form of it – is the crucible for lasting peace in Mindanao. I disagree: the crucible was supposed to be the peace process. No matter how protracted or how lame it was, the peace process was (at least back then) the only acceptable way of dealing with the possibility of Moro secession. You don’t have newspaper headlines back then of families who escape their homes and go to stores asking for lodging. You don’t have stories of innocent civilians getting their bodies hacked off by rampaging lunatics.
That crucible failed. Incompatibility, misunderstandings, miscommunication, and even incompetence made possible the all-out offensive that threatens to turn a rivulet of blood into a crimson tide of death. In a way, if the bloodshed is not stemmed, indeed we will have to relive the agonies and the blood-letting of a future that, all possibilities considered, may bring forth the Bangsamoro Republic. This may very well be the test of whether or not these 7,107 islands can stand together and preserve its union under one flag, one country, and can build a single sense of nationhood.
Yet to expect something so Lincoln-like of the current Administration – or from the bandit terrorists of the MILF who compromised a prospect for peace and self-determination for its brethren – is too much to expect. It’s one thing to compromise the sovereignty guaranteed and explicated in the Constitution in the name of a MoA. It’s another thing to take the lives of innocent civilians in a mad, unexplainable rampage.
This expectation – as Ninoy himself lived as an example of – falls to the youth of the Philippines. Make no mistake about it, but in the next 10 to 20 years, with the way things are going, we’ll inherit a broken nation that few grown persons will ever take the responsibility for, much less repair.
Here’s to hoping that when the time comes, our generation will not allow this farce and this blot in the history of our nation, to ever happen again.
August 21, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Bravo!
August 21, 2008 at 4:48 pm
…not the MILF Commander btw.
August 21, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Marck,
Thank you for bringing back Ninoy’s words. It heartens me that your generation has young men like with the right sense of history with a nationalistic heart to match.
August 22, 2008 at 12:13 am
Who cares if Ninoy Aquino died 25 years ago? What did he do for the country that makes him such a legend? Nothing!!! The Philippines is still the way as it was many years ago, very corrupt!!! His death did nothing for the Philippines except replace a corrupt president for another corrupt president and so forth. It makes me sick to see that my former country is still in chaos from when I left in 1981. Also, to see that the people of the Philippines are easily brainwashed by political giants and celebrities!
The philippines will always be a corrupt country because of its ignorant people. Ignorant from the idiotic priests who join political movements to the blind followers of the country. It is said that, “If you throw some food at the filipinos, you can make them do anything.”
August 22, 2008 at 2:55 am
i agree with you, mike. i did not like marcos from day one of his presidency and i was thrilled when he fell from power. i mourned the death of benigno aquino and considers him a martyr to the cause of freedom. but a national hero in the same category as rizal, bonifacio or even jose abad santos and wenceslao q. vinzons? i sincerely doubt it.
aquino was an arch political rival of marcos. as a big-time politician prior to martial law, aquino’s name was not pristine. we may never know the real low-down on the man from the perspective of marcos and his allies but many of us have read about the accusations against him by his political enemies.
in any event, from the relative safety and peacefulness of his refuge in boston with his immdeiate family, he insisted on going back home where he knew he would be confronting the dictator. i’m inclined to think that the risk of losing his life was a calculated gamble that he took against his (and his family’s) better judgment. marcos’ health was fast failing at the time, his grip on power was showing signs of loosening, and the u.s. support appeared to be waning. aquino, i believe, thought that marcos would not “allow” his killing because he (aquino) realized it was unnecessary and marcos might have more to lose than gain if he did so. i think aquino believed that he was the “rightful” successor to marcos should the latter die or fade away.
to me, ninoy aquino may be a “hero” but not a greater hero than a private who got blown away in mindanao, while fighting to preserve the territorial integrity of his country.
August 22, 2008 at 7:36 am
Mr. Mike and Mr. Bencard:
That may be what it is to you, but to me, it’s different. Pardon my insolent tone, but it’s people like you who made all *this* possible. So Ninoy isn’t a hero to everyone. So the circumstances behind his assassination are dubious. Big deal: Ninoy Aquino, for a time, stood for something bigger than himself.
I’m 23. As a young man, I’ll inherit a broken country anyways. Not the least of which is because of the actions – and the inactions – of some members of your generation. And you guys don’t care about that? You’d rather criticize and prophesize our doomed nation and you don’t do something about it? You don’t believe that our people are worth the death of men who believe in something bigger than themselves?
You guys have the benefit of the doubt of jadedness because of your green cards, your dual citizenships, your visas, your passports. Some of you don’t want anything to do with this country anyways. Some of you don’t believe this country and its people are worth some ultimate sacrifices – no matter how dubious or questionable it is.
That, Sir Mike and Sir Bencard, makes me sick.
I’m not a hero myself, and I won’t be one. I myself, gentlemen, am questionable. But somewhere down the line, I know – and I believe – that no matter how wrong Ninoy was, he was right: our people are still worth dying for. And the fact that he died 25 years ago, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Thank you, and again, pardon my insolent tone.
February 24, 2009 at 2:02 pm
..,I agree.
Excellent
August 18, 2009 at 10:50 am
marck, man,”they” are a waste of time…continue what you are doing…and writing.