Needed: A national hero; Marcos at Libingan: Never!

He brought his ship into port. He sailed by the stars and not by the winds of power, the resources of the planet and the shower of public opinion. Always, he sought the cliff because that is where danger lurks, where life always hangs in the balance. He probably sought death, not because he had a death wish, but because he had a compulsion to expose the cowardice of those who wanted to kill him. Those who wanted him dead were the nation’s tyrants who feared him alive, trembled at his every word. Well, he obliged them by sprawling into an airport tarmac when the dictator’s crazed killers lodged a bullet in his brain.

Ninoy was right. The Filipino was "worth dying for". With his death, a submissive nation came alive. The cobwebs of 20 years of oppression and bloody misrule were cast out. The nation managed to breathe again. The dungeons flung open. Thousands of political prisoners recovered their freedom. Democracy eventually was restored as the people invented a new weapon. This weapon spat neither blood nor bullet but the non-violence of heaving, shouting multitudes. Thus was born People Power.

Everybody knows by now the man I am referring to is Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino Jr.

And I write these lines because even as the tyrants fled the temple 16 years ago, the shadows gather again and darkness creeps. It is really nobody’s particular fault, but the malfunctioning of a defective system whose leaders have yet to awaken to the national crisis. Whose people have yet to grasp the full heroism and historic significance of Ninoy Aquino’s martyrdom. And so this author proposes something that should have materialized years ago after Ninoy’s death.

And this is that Congress officially declare Benigno Aquino Jr. as a national hero. It’s time. We need to dispel those shadows, throw back the darkness. We need the light and heroism of the immediate past to realign our focus. C.V. Wedgewood it was who said "It should be the historian’s business not to belittle but to illuminate the greatness of man’s spirit." And so it should be. On August 21, 1983, history was written not with ink but the blood of Ninoy oozing from his shattered brains.

Ninoy has many friends, many admirers in Congress, particularly the Senate which he once graced as its youngest member. They must now move. They did try to move in 1993, ten years after his death. But the republic at that time was clearing new optimistic pathways to the future and didn’t have much time for Ninoy. But those pathways, with the passage of time, have meandered and surrendered to the wilds. Ninoy is relevant again.

Now the torch must be relit. Now the nation needs a contemporary hero. Maybe it would be timely to remind our people that our 1987 Constitution has a jewel of a preamble and it reads:

"We the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society and establish a government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, quality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate the Constitution."

This preamble is not just a mere flicker of lofty words. It embodies the dream of every Filipino, his hopes, his aspirations. The key word is sovereign. That is what Ninoy Aquino sought to achieve by saying the Filipino "is worth dying for." Give the Filipino the courage to persevere. Others before him also died, as great if not greater, in the never ending quest for freedom and independence for the Filipino. For that is what sovereignty is all about. Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, Aguinaldo, Del Pilar, Jacinto, Lopez Jaena, Jose Abad Santos, Evelio Javier. Theirs were the demise of great men that quickened the sovereignal pulse. Unfortunately, the quickening was short-lived. Our memories seem to be short and fleeting.

That we must correct. The battle songs must descend again, the catch in our throat, the journey in the gloaming lit by the stars. We must always remember.

* * *

The Marcoses, like the Bourbons of yore, want to press their luck too far. And like the Bourbons, they will dance anew in a house on fire and be devoured. The government is again being nagged, for that is the word, by this fossil and impossibly foolish family to bury the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the cemetery for heroes.

Cherry Cobarrubias, president of the Marcos Loyalist Headquarters, is quoted as saying "This is the right time to allow his burial there." Listen lady, for the dictator there is no right time, no wrong time. I don’t want to be irreverent, but his remains should never sully hallowed ground, should in fact be consigned to a modest plot in his native Batac, where many Ilocanos still revere him.

Joseph Estrada made his first big blunder as president in 1998 when he approved the burial of Marcos at the Libingan. He was set upon, insulted, hammered from brow to beltline. He didn’t listen, Well, he finally did when the EDSA forces told him they would block the funeral route, riot if need be, and certainly hurl the Marcos funeral retinue back to Ilocandia. I must warn the Marcoses there will be a greater protest turnout this time if the powers-that-be allow the Libingan burial.

Listen again. I fought at the Battle of Besang Pass. Ferdinand Marcos was nowhere near any of the furious, bloody battles that claimed the lives of hundreds of Filipino guerrillas as they inched up the mountain passes leading to the caves atop the Pass that hid Gen. Tomoyuke Yamashita. Now don’t get me riled up again and lambast the many fake and spurious medals the dictator reportedly amassed as a soldier. I once had a talk with former president Diosdado Macapagal and he told me a slew of Marcos medals were the product of affidavits depicting battles that he never fought. It’s a pity Bonnie Gillego is already dead. It was he who did massive research in the US on Marcos’ alleged war exploits. And it was Bonnie who stamped the final signature that many medals were spurious – peke.

And so what if the present Armed Forces granted Imelda Marcos a military pension as widow. The dictator and his direct heirs were entitled to this pension because he was a soldier – which he was – but not the great war hero he claimed to be. A veteran, I also receive this measly pension monthly.

Cherry Cobarrubias deserves to be slapped in the face for reportedly calling Ninoy Aquino a communist. Communist he certainly was not. Not even a fellow traveller. Ms. Cobarrubias says it is very suspicious that Ninoy was absent at Plaza Miranda August 21, 1971, when the carabinieri of CPP founder Jose Maria Sison hurled hand grenades at the rally of the Liberal Party, almost killing Sen. Jovito Salonga and other LP candidates. Salonga later disclosed it was not president Ferdinand Marcos who engineered the Plaza Miranda massacre but Joma Sison.

Why was Ninoy absent? Lady, I researched on this thoroughly. Ninoy was at the Jai-Alai Keg Room waiting to be called to join the LP rally since he was the last of the speakers assigned to ignite the rally into a hell-raising, rafter-rattling success. There was prior agreement to that effect. Ninoy was that good as a wrap-up speaker.

Now let me stand eyeball-to-eyeball with the Marcos family, particularly Imee who opens her big mouth once too often these days. You want entrée into the Libingan ng mga Bayani? Okay, tell us the truth, the whole and unvarnished truth about how Malacañang Palace, when Marcos was president, planned and executed the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. You know, and don’t pretend you don’t know. Thousands of AFP troopers ringed and positioned themselves at the MIA for several hours, each contingent occupying ground and space networked to the murder. Who was directing operations at the airport? The late Col. Rolando Abadilla? Where was Gen. Fabian Ver? Where was Ferdinand Marcos? Where was Imelda Marcos? And children, you Imee, where were you, playing patty-cake?

I was recently interviewed by Radio ng Bayan to comment on Imee’s reported call for a "calm and dispassionate" debate or dialogue on the Marcos dictatorship. What harm, what injury to the nation did they really commit?

Calm? Dispassionate? How can anybody be calm and dispassionate knowing that Irene Marcos-Araneta reportedly has a $12 billion account in a Swiss bank or has this been transferred for embarrassing reasons? How can anybody be calm and dispassionate when the Marcoses remain silent on Ninoy’s assassination? How can anybody be calm and dispassionate when the people continue to see that revolting face of Ferdinand Marcos on Ilocandia rock, an abomination that was supposed to imitate Mount Rushmore?

Shut up, Imee. You Marcoses should thank your lucky stars you are still alive. You could all have been killed during EDSA I.