by Arturo P. Garcia, AJLPP
Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 at 2:20 PM
cdir_usa@yahoo.com 213-241-0906 337 Glendale Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
Twenty-five years ago today, August 21, 1983, the armed minions of the US-Marcos dictatorship shot and killed Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. after arresting him inside the plane that took him home from his exile in the United States.
Many articles have been written and will be written singing paeans to the late opposition leader and extolling him to high heavens but without understanding the reasons he went back to face his death in the Philippines.
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The Aquino Assasination, August 21, 1983
By Arturo P. Garcia. AJLPP
Los Angeles—Twenty-five years ago today, August 21, 1983, the armed minions of the US-Marcos dictatorship shot and killed Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. after arresting him inside the plane that took him home from his exile in the United States.
Many articles have been written and will be written singing paeans to the late opposition leader and extolling him to high heavens but without understanding the reasons he went back to face his death in the Philippines.
Aquino was afraid, He was afraid that he will pass to obscurity, He was afraid of losing his touch with the masses and his people. On the other hand, this matter made him unafraid to face his death at the hands of his executioner.
He knew while he was currying favor from his imperialist masters, his use to him is also fading away. That time, the State Department is after his hide and the Republican president –Ronald Reagan, who was a friend of the Marcoses- do not want him to stay any longer and was exerting pressure to throw him out of the United States.
Like Jose Rizal. Ninoy Aquino was a reluctant patriot. He wanted reforms. He wanted to avoid a bloody revolution. An unexpected hero.
But still we pay tribute to him for having the guts to come home. He knows the more he stays away from the fight, the more he will be forgotten by his countrymen. Aquino was a newsman. He is a newsmaker. And he love to make news. By dying he became the news. By being a martyr for his people, he became a hero.
The Aquino family and his kin made political capital out of him. His death helped to topple a dictatorship. His wife, a simple housekeeper became the president with the help of the people’s uprising called “ the EDSA One Revolution”.
The United States hasten the fall of the US-Marcos dictatorship by oppressing the exiles and the anti-Marcos forces in the United States. They turned a bad thing into a good thing.
Later they catered to the Marcoses by exiling them to Hawaii. A reverse situation with the Cory Aquino assuming the presidency and Marcos going to exile and dying in exile.
Lessons will be learned from this tragic assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, the reluctant hero of the Filipino people.
