EDITORIAL - The truth, this time?

As if on cue, soldiers serving double life terms for the so-called crime of the century have once again offered to tell the truth about the murders of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman. This has become an annual ritual in the commemoration of Aquino’s assassination 21 years ago today.

If the soldiers had anything to say other than the version they gave during their two trials, they would have said it many years ago. Yet even after the deaths of all the people who could have punished them for telling the truth, including dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his favorite soldier Fabian Ver, the convicts have not detracted from the story they told government prosecutors and the Sandiganbayan. Little wonder then that most people, including Aquino’s widow Corazon, are unimpressed by the latest offer from several of the soldiers to tell the truth.

All that Mrs. Aquino now wants is for the soldiers to admit their guilt. Yet even this they are not prepared to do, insisting that it was Galman, described by the Marcos regime as a communist assassin, who had gunned down the former senator as he disembarked from a plane at the Manila International Airport. In recent years some of the soldiers have made noises about the possible involvement of a business tycoon in the double murder. Yet the soldiers have failed to present any solid leads to pin down the businessman. The best they have done so far in this direction, it seems, is to attempt to gather what’s left of a puzzle whose most vital pieces have long disappeared.

Twenty-one years after the murders that would lead to the collapse of the dictatorship in 1986, even Marcos’ eldest daughter is daring the soldiers to tell the truth and put this issue to rest. But the soldiers have already said everything they want to say about this case. No one is expecting to hear anything new from convicts whose only objective is to secure their early release.