(Condensed version of the narrative of the three years from 1983 to 1986, from the book The Human Tide of History: The Protest Movement from the Aquino Assassination to Edsa, a BusinessMirror publication, to be launched on February 27, 2011.)
AFTER opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated in 1983, his son Noynoy, then 23, faced the heavy burden of people expecting him to follow “in his father’s footsteps.”
Indeed, his lifestyle was something he described as “close to my dad.”
Noynoy looked almost like a carbon copy of the fallen senator, and he couldn’t stand passively by the sidelines in the militant struggle for democracy.
While his mother Corazon “Cory” Aquino had become an inspiration in the protest movement, Noynoy was busy organizing a big coalition of youths from the so-called middle forces.
Like his father, Noynoy also considered himself a “Christian socialist.” His father had advocated for “equal opportunity for advancement and the full development of a human being.” He also considered that the “great legitimizer” of government “is the ballot, not the bullet.”
As the protest movement heightened, the Aquinos were at the forefront of a fragmented opposition—divided by ideologies, but united in their struggle to oust then-strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
At the time Ninoy was preparing to return, the late Sen. Lorenzo Tañada, known as the Grand Old Man of the Philippine Opposition, was already leading militants and cause-oriented groups against the strongman.
The ‘homecoming’
DESPITE the threats, Ninoy insisted on coming home. As early as June 17, 1983, he wrote Tañada, predicting “tremendous difficulties.” Tañada also knew that “a Ninoy, free, and unshackled, posted a clear imminent danger to the stability of the dictatorship.”
Authorities had warned Ninoy they had unearthed an alleged “assassination plot” against him. They refused to issue him travel documents.
Airport security was tight on August 21, 1983, and when the China Airlines plane from Taipei landed at 1 p.m., several men came onboard to escort Ninoy out of the aircraft. A few seconds later, at least two shots were heard, followed by another shot. Ninoy was dead before he could issue his arrival message, which partly read: “I have returned on my free will to join the ranks of those struggling to restore our rights and freedom through nonviolence.”
Thousands swarmed the airport premises on hearing that Ninoy was assassinated. Thousands upon thousands more went to the wake and filed past his coffin—a simple, open wooden casket draped with a Filipino flag.
At least a million mourners showed up in a “people’s march” when Ninoy Aquino’s remains were transferred from his home to the Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City, a 3-kilometer procession that marked the first big public rally since his murder.
In the funeral march that was to bring Ninoy to his final resting place at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque, Pahayagang Malaya publisher Jose Burgos Jr. estimated more than 1 million escorted Ninoy, whose coffin was placed on an elevated platform on a 10-wheeler truck bedecked with yellow chrysanthemums and sampaguita.
Protest
TIRSO SANTILLAN was then the executive vice president of the Union Bank when he decided to walk with marchers to an indignation rally in front of the bank’s headquarters in Makati. “I was upset by what had happened. I felt I must be involved,” he recalled.
He talked to the group of Agapito “Butz” Aquino, younger brother of Ninoy, who had founded the August Twenty One Movement, or Atom, along with other Ateneo classmates. Santillan later became secretary-general of Atom, which organized most of the big rallies in Makati and later, elsewhere in the country. He met Lean Alejandro, the leader of the militant League of Filipino Students (LFS) behind the boycott of several universities and colleges in Metro Manila.
Outraged by government inaction on Ninoy’s killing, alternative lawyers’ groups emerged at the forefront of anti-Marcos rallies. They joined the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag) of Sen. Jose Diokno and Ninoy’s lawyer Joker Arroyo in taking up the cudgels for protesters harassed and detained as the protest movement surged.
The Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity and Nationalism Inc. and the Brotherhood of Nationalist Attorneys for Integrity, Freedom and Against Oppression (Bonifacio) were also organized by human-rights lawyers.
Reli German, an Atom convener, said, “We were considered as a rich crowd and professionals, but we had a common goal with our people: to oust Marcos from power.”
The Pilipino Democratic Party-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), led by Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., whom Marcos jailed five times, called for civil disobedience. Ninoy Aquino ran under the Laban banner in the 1978 Batasan Pambansa elections, which were rigged by the government.
Former senator Eva Estrada Kalaw of the Liberal Party (LP) stressed that their mass actions would remain peaceful so as not to provoke military reaction. “For example, if we will just sit down on the street, what can the government do with the people who are sitting down?” she said.
Political dissent
SEVERAL organizations, notably the United Opposition for Democracy (Unido), the PDP-Laban, the Movement for Nationalist Survival, the Movement for Philippine Sovereignty and Democracy, and student and labor groups urged Marcos to yield the presidency to a collective leadership. This, in turn, will call for a new Constitutional Convention, and subsequently a national election for a new set of leaders.
After a long silence, the LP working committee, led by former President Diosdado Macapagal and deputy secretary-general Abraham Sarmiento, met and issued a statement urging the dissolution, for lack of credibility, of the Fernando Commission that Marcos formed to investigate the Aquino murder.
On September 11, 1983, as Marcos commemorated his 66th birth anniversary, Manila Cardinal Jaime Sin wept openly, saying these were tears for his country. The influential cleric had urged Marcos to “hasten the process of reconciliation by heeding the appeal of Ninoy’s widow that he release more than 500 political prisoners in the country.
That same day, a boycott of Metro Manila daily newspapers Bulletin Today, Philippines Daily Express and Times Journal was launched by a new group calling itself “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All Movement” (Jaja).
Joaquin “Chino” Roces, publisher of the pre-martial law Manila Times chain of newspapers, later asked Marcos’s Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen. Fabian Ver, to resign “in order to restore the faith of the people in the military and pave the way toward real reconciliation.”
In a show of unity, top opposition leaders met on November 15, 1983, to discuss proposals for an interim government if President Marcos dies or leaves office, to prevent a “power scramble.”
Under that scenario, former Vice President Fernando Lopez would assume the presidency in case Marcos becomes incapacitated and Lopez would order free elections “soonest.”
The proposal was meant to “prevent a military takeover, prevent a scramble for power” if Marcos was unable to finish his term, which, under the new Constitution, was to run until 1987.
But Marcos had already dismissed as a “pipe dream” a similar proposal broached some years ago by another opposition group.
Opposition leader Salvador “Doy” Laurel described the meeting as “historic” for showing unity among political and nonpolitical groups which opposed Mr. Marcos but remained fragmented.
Warning of a “bloodbath,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines later urged Mr. Marcos to scrap his “repressive decrees” and reminded the Armed Forces their loyalty is to the people, not to any one man.
Meanwhile, the growing number of businessmen marching in Makati had so angered the regime that Marcos threatened to arrest those he said were videotaped participating in the rallies. But the rallies, made famous by the rain of confetti, continued.
Disturbed by Marcos’s belligerent attitude, Jaime Ongpin, head of one of the country’s largest mining companies, and brother of Marcos’s trade minister, Roberto Ongpin, said the attack on business was “not helping [Marcos’s] credibility.”
Different avenues
SINCE December 1983, there was a snowballing campaign to boycott the Batasan Pambansa election of May 1984.
But while the opposition remained divided on some issues, they were united in their bid to oust Marcos.
By the end of February, opposition political parties stepped up their campaign for the polls, challenging the formidable Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL).
On February 29, 1984, Corazon Aquino announced she would participate in the May 14 elections, as this “may be the only means to avert violence.”
As she made the call, hundreds of her supporters closed ranks with militants for a 265-kilometer People’s Caravan to boost the boycott movement. Former senator Jose W. Diokno said the boycott movement will serve to repudiate the “US-backed Marcos dictatorship,” create a new breed of dedicated young leaders and consolidate community organizing through people’s self-reliance.
Former senator John Osmeña, who opted to support the elections, said the basic thing they need was to ensure that they stick to a unified goal to remove Marcos. He said there was nothing to lose in challenging Marcos’s KBL machinery.
Imelda Marcos played a prominent role in Metro Manila politics, but election results, despite the massive fraud, showed that most of the seats in parliament representing the National Capital Region were controlled by the opposition.
Lito Atienza, an opposition candidate who won a seat in the Batasan, said such a victory was a vital signal that “the circle had irreversibly tightened around the lion, even in his own den.”
Countering repression
AFTER the elections, the regime heightened its repressive tactics, but this did not stop the protests.
Erin Tañada, grandson of the Grand Old Man of the Opposition and vice president of the Ateneo Student Council in 1984, helped organize the Makabayan, a political coalition that included the LFS, Kadena and other militant youth and student organizations.
Also emerging as the main issue against Marcos was the regime’s human-rights record, which had come from heavy attack both from local and international groups. he Church-backed People’s Conference on August 18, 1984, led by the Philippine Conference for Human Rights (PCHR), cited cases of torture, the rash of “salvaging” cases, the hamletting of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the bombing of military-designated battle zones, and increasing incidents of political abductions.
On December 10, 1984, 22 lawyers’ groups led by FLAG, Mabini and Bonifacio launched a two-day boycott of the courts as the country commemorated the International Human Rights Day to protest what they called the “scandalous” subservience of the Judiciary to Marcos and the military.
The road to freedom
ON January 6, 1985, an opposition summit was held, aiming to unify the fragmented opposition. Laurel later announced he would definitely run for president if special elections were held prior to the scheduled 1987 polls.
As the financial crisis worsened, thousands of militants led by the Bayan mounted a people’s strike, or Welgang Bayan. On September 18, 1985, culminating on September 21, the anniversary of martial law’s declaration.
The general strike paralyzed Panay Island but exacted a heavy human toll. Soldiers claiming they acted in self-defense opened fire on strikers, killing at least 27 people and wounding 30 others in Escalante, Negros Occidental.
In Metro Manila, as protesters capped the long-day demonstrations in the capital, those who participated in a two-hour noise barrage were chased and violence erupted on the streets.
As early as May 1985 the notion of fielding Corazon Aquino as a unifying force against the strongman was first floated among the business circles, and on till August of the same year.
In October 1985 the Cory Aquino for President Movement was launched by Chino Roces. But Mrs. Aquino proved evasive and set two conditions for running: If Mr. Marcos called a snap election, and if Roces can produce 1 million signatures expressing a wish for her to challenge him in an election.
A National Unification Council (NUC) was formed to bring together the United Democratic Opposition of Doy Laurel, the PDP-Laban of Nene Pimentel, the Liberal Party of Jovito Salonga and Eva Kalaw, and regional parties bent on challenging the KBL of Marcos and his running mate, former senator Arturo Tolentino.
The clamor for an Aquino-Laurel tandem proved hard to resist and so the others were persuaded to support this ticket.
Atom, which participated the campaign to boycott the 1984 national assembly polls, decided to participate when Marcos later called for a snap election. The so-called Aquinoys like Atom opted to support Mrs. Aquino—a “centrist”—in challenging the strongman, while the left-leaning Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) opted for boycott.
Again, they were divided in their tactics, but these turn of events proved that the “people power” that eventually toppled the strongman after 21 years in power in 1986 wasn’t done overnight.
Many people who had wished for a fairy-tale ending are frustrated today, but the struggle continues long after the first step to restore democracy was made. Filipinos showed the world they were willing to sacrifice—and risk—their lives for the cause of freedom and justice. Theirs is a story of hope in progress.
