EDITORIAL — Remembering

Who ordered the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.? The answer may never be known. Until yesterday, the eve of the 23rd anniversary of his death, the soldiers convicted of killing him and the man tagged by the Marcos regime as his assassin, Rolando Galman, were insisting on their innocence. The top military officers implicated in the twin murders, led by former chief of staff Fabian Ver, are no longer around to reveal the truth. And even if they were still alive, they would probably stand by the Marcos regime’s official version of the assassination, as several of them did long after the collapse of the dictatorship.

If we can’t establish the whole truth, we can at least try to stop those in power from using an assassin’s bullet to silence political enemies. Twenty-three years after the Marcos regime silenced its most prominent opponent, people in positions of power across the country are still assassinating their enemies, including political rivals and critical journalists. This culture of violence has held back the country’s development and made a mockery of our democratic system.

If we can’t establish the truth about Ninoy’s assassination, we can at least carry on his fight against the abuse of public office for personal gain. Ninoy battled corruption so massive it warranted a new word — kleptocracy — with a conjugal dictatorship stealing the nation’s wealth. The country has not yet fully recovered from the dictatorship’s depredation, and the failure to punish those who amassed ill-gotten wealth has institutionalized corruption. Eradicating graft is a continuing battle that the nation cannot afford to lose.

And if we can’t establish the truth about Ninoy’s assassination, we can at least nurture the freedom that his death helped restore. Events in the recent past show that protecting freedom requires eternal vigilance. Each time there is an attempt to subvert civil liberties, Filipinos should remember the price Ninoy Aquino was willing to pay in the name of freedom.