Memories from August 1983

The first choice of venue for the wake of Ninoy was the Aquino residence on Times Street in Quezon City. It was late in the morning when the body arrived. A place was cleared in the living room to accommodate the coffin and the expected visitors. 

At first, there were a few mourners, mostly relatives. Then, slowly, the number of sympathizers grew — strangers from all walks of life. The lines began to stretch down several blocks from Ninoy and Cory’s house at Times Street to Quezon Avenue.

Many were angry in their grief. Prime Minister Cesar Virata tried to pay his condolences to the family. He was met by a furious mob that surrounded his car and rocked it back and forth. His car sped away. 

The crowd situation became worrisome. There were just too many. The family had to look immediately for a church. Peping remembers, “When I saw the people at Ninoy’s wake, I thought, ‘My God! We won’t be able to handle them inside the house. We have to move to a church.’ I remembered when my father died in the 1980s on August 21, the same day as Ninoy’s, so many people lined up to pay their respects at Luisita.”

Peping called a family meeting and said, “Imposible na dito sa bahay.” It was Baby Lopa who gave me the task of finding a church for Ninoy’s wake. I immediately went to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Broadway, New Manila. To my surprise and sadness, the parish priest turned me down. Was it out of fear? I remember I cried. Then I went to the University of Santo Tomas to ask for the use of their chapel but I was also turned down because the number of students and mourners could cause havoc in a crowded campus.

The Dominicans though were still prepared to help. Fr. Lucio Gutierrez and Fr. Fidel Villaroel directed me to Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City. The Prior Honorato Castigador and Fr. Ed Nantes agreed to take in Ninoy.

Cory and her family finally arrived from Boston, two days after the assassination. It was Peping who met Cory at the airport. At the sight of the men in uniform from the Northern Police District with General Tomas Karingal, Cory became visibly angry. She turned to Peping and fumed, “Paalisin mo ang mga yan. Ayokong makita ang mga naka-unipormeng yan. (Send them away. I don’t want to see those men in uniform.)” Peping approached Gen. Karingal and politely told the police officer, “Pwede ba? Huwag na kayong makialam dito. Ayaw makita ni Mrs. Aquino ang mga naka-uniporme. (Do you mind? Please leave us. Mrs. Aquino doesn’t want to see men in uniform.)” Karingal reluctantly agreed but advised Peping that he would send plainclothesmen to escort Cory to Times Street.

A few moments of privacy were given to Cory and her family to view Ninoy’s remains. Butz Aquino and I, who welcomed the guests, left the house. Cory remained with her children staring at Ninoy.

There was still a wake to be arranged. Ninoy’s body had to be moved to Sto. Domingo Church. I was in the midst of preparations. I called Len Oreta’s dad, Tessie Aquino’s father-in-law, to help me construct wooden barriers with rope for Sto. Domingo Church. A wooden stage was constructed and put on the right side of the main altar. The next day Ninoy’s coffin arrived and we put it on that stage. It was a disaster! The rope barriers fell. The platform wobbled and almost caved in. We had to transfer Ninoy’s coffin to the center of the main altar. There it stayed throughout the wake.

We had walked to Sto. Domingo Church from Times Street and the crowd following Ninoy was getting bigger and bigger. The Puyats, who owned the Loyola Memorial Chapels, volunteered to help in the funeral arrangements. It had been decided that Ninoy would be buried at the Manila Memorial Park until such time when it would be more convenient to transfer him to his beloved province, Tarlac. The Roxas family, supporters of Ninoy, offered their cemetery lot. I remember that Mely Roxas sent Ninoy and Cory food every so often.

One thing for sure, Peping remembers, Cory didn’t want people to take advantage of Ninoy’s death. She didn’t want the murder to be an excuse for violence by the anti-government elements. Ninoy’s death was a sacrifice. Finally, she had had enough. One day she called Peping aside. “Take over,” she told Peping. “Basta ikaw ang bahala. Ikaw na ang bahala. (I leave it up to you. Everything is up to you.)” Thus the task of handling Ninoy’s wake and burial fell on Peping.

On Aug. 29, Ninoy’s body was brought to Tarlac for a last homecoming. The trip was carefully prepared for. A route was followed and the family made sure that security for the convoy was meticulously planned. Members of the family rode in private vehicles following the funeral car. The plan faltered along the way. Kapampangans poured out onto the street and highways to see the funeral cortege. At Mabalacat, Pampanga, the hearse broke down.  Everyone had to wait until the vehicle was fixed.

The procession entered Tarlac. The family felt safe. It was decided that the coffin should be placed on top of a truck. A 10-wheeler was fetched from Hacienda Luisita and the coffin was placed on top. The people now had a view of their martyr’s remains as it passed by. Ninoy’s body was taken to the Hacienda Luisita Chapel where Tarlaquenos bid their goodbye to their beloved former governor. During that wake, a 10-wheeler truck was spruced up. It was on this truck that Ninoy’s coffin was brought back to Manila two days later.

It took 11 hours for the funeral procession to return to Sto. Domingo Church. People were exhausted. But the patriotic fervor of that moment kept them going.

It was 9 a.m. of August 31 when we exited the church to meet a silent, watchful crowd — thousands and thousands everywhere on Quezon Avenue — under the heat and humidity to ride, march, run and walk Ninoy to his final resting place.

“I was in the lead car with Tommy Henson and Atty. Simeon Garcia in front of the Luisita 10-wheeler truck that hauled sugar cane for our mill and now carried Ninoy’s coffin,” Peping said. “Cory was behind Ninoy’s truck. As we moved away from Sto. Domingo Church people slowly came between our vehicles to join in the march, breaking the cordon and our procession. The lines of cars disappeared as mourners formed their own ranks.”

It was an 11-to 13-hour-long funeral march — the biggest and longest in Philippine history — under a heavy rain and with a thick mass of sympathizers.   We were sharing a common grief for a fallen man who fought the dictator. Everywhere we turned, they were chanting Ninoy’s name with a rhythm. Hundreds sang what was the national anthem of the opposition, Bayan Ko, the song sung by nationalists during the American colonial rule of the Philippines. And what a sight of solidarity: thousands wore yellow, the color of bravery, to join in the fight against the regime of the Marcoses.

It was a wet afternoon that August. Rains had begun and dark clouds blackened the sky, and heavy rains fell and drenched the marchers. Yet they continued on. A warm sun would appear now and everyone was sticky and sweaty. Then the rain fell again to cool us.

Mourners swarmed all around the truck and they kept multiplying. They slowed down the progress of the truck until, at last, at the Luneta, we got stopped altogether, people massing around the 10-wheeler.   The young activists were yelling, “On to Malacañang!” They were demanding that the itinerary be changed and that the march be diverted towards Ayala Bridge.

Using a microphone, Rep. Simeon Garcia said, “Let us not use the corpse of Ninoy to create a riot. Let us bury Ninoy first.”

Well, it took a while to pacify them because at first they wouldn’t listen, and we were held up for a long time. Finally, the procession proceeded on its route.

Peping recalled, “I monitored the length of the entourage. We were at the lead cars on Roxas Boulevard, the funeral truck was still at the Far Eastern University along Morayta St. in Sampaloc, so many kilometers apart. As the hearse entered Luneta, three male Metro Aides climbed the giant flagpole in front of the monument and hauled the flag to half-mast. They were cheered and applauded.”

Other radical groups, however, had other ideas. When the procession reached Luneta, we were told a group of students blocked the road in front of the Rizal Monument to bring Ninoy’s coffin down from the funeral vehicle to place at the foot of Jose Rizal’s monument. The young men were insistent. There was a moment of tension as policemen watched. Atty. Simeon Garcia got down from Peping’s car, talked with the students and convinced them to let the entourage through. The students’ well-meaning idea would have been futile anyway. The crowd was so thick and Ninoy’s casket would have brought the procession to a long halt. We would not reach the cemetery before midnight.

It was 5 p.m. by the time we reached Quirino Avenue. I had never seen such a crowd of people everywhere, on the streets watching from windows and balconies of the buildings along the way. Noynoy and Paul Aquino, standing by Ninoy’s coffin, were soaking wet from the rain.  

Another tense moment was just before the hearse turned right from Quirino Avenue to South Superhighway. Near the junction, lined up in front of the squatter area, there were military troops. A thrill of passion ran through the young activists surrounding the hearse and a cry to attack the military. Whenever the hearse came into view, the waiting crowds on the roadside would burst into wild applause and the cry, “Ni-noy! Ni-noy! Ni-noy!” Voices would be singing Tie a Yellow Ribbon, showers of flowers and coins would scatter on the casket.

The heavy, hard downpour was accompanied by fearful lightning and thunder, yet it failed to stop the march or disperse the mourners. The rainstorm raged for about an hour.

“Even heaven is weeping angrily,” said the people.  

The Marcos “slave press,” of course, ignored that phenomenon of a funeral with an incidental headline — “Lightning Kills One,” the news item about a young bystander in Ninoy’s procession who had climbed a tree for a better view and got struck by a bolt of lightning.

The gaps that appeared between groups and were immediately filled by male and female sympathizers to prevent infiltrators. When the rain poured, spectators opened umbrellas. These drew hoots and shouts from the youth marchers who told the crowd to close them — an umbrella was the symbol of Imelda Marcos who appeared in outdoor affairs under a large umbrella held by a judge or a Presidential Security Group (PSG) member.

Dark had fallen by the time the cortege reached the South Superhighway. And so the folks lined up there with lighted candles, which made a more poignant sight on a hilltop. They waited to hail the casket, then joined in the swell of multitude. Bringing up the tail of the procession was an empty limousine, a truck piled up with floral wreaths, and the media van of foreign TV and movie correspondents.

“There was one remarkable incident I will never forget. One man took it upon himself to act as our point man en route,” Peping said. “He requested people to give way, to let us through. I don’t know who he was but we spotted him from Far Eastern University from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. all the way to the Manila Memorial Park. That was all the stranger did — politely asking hundreds to move aside and they did.” 

None of them meant harm but were getting too near our cars to join in the entourage of Cory, of Doña Aurora Aquino, Ninoy’s mother. They could have gotten hurt by the tire wheels.

The cortege entered the gates of the Manila Memorial Park. Night had already fallen with a soft, sad drizzle. A cement tomb had been prepared. Rope barriers encircled the plot where a canopy was set up. Ninoy’s family gathered around the coffin beside the tomb. A last Mass was said and “Taps” was played. Then the brief ceremony was over.

At the memorial park the actual entombing of the mahogany casket was a private family affair. We watched his coffin being pushed into the tomb and cemented shut for his resting place. 

After the niche had been sealed, the general public lined up to view the tomb. All night long during his first hours in his resting place, Ninoy was accompanied by queues and queues of visitors whom Ninoy had said were worth dying for. Silently, they lined up, moved towards his tomb, paused a moment in front of it to pray, and then moved on.

Ninoy was gone but in his death the unity he prayed for among his countrymen had finally begun.