I wanted to get even – Noy

BOSTON – After keeping his peace for 31 years, President Aquino yesterday said he had planned to get even with the Marcoses for allegedly masterminding the Aug. 21, 1983 murder of his father, former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

“As the only son, I felt an overwhelming urge to exact an eye for an eye. Mr. Marcos and his ilk were like rabid dogs who had lost all reason,” said Aquino, who was then 23 years old, as he recalled his rage, but now in calm retrospect.

“There was no longer any potential for dialogue; the only solution when confronted by a rabid dog is to put it down,” Aquino told the audience at the Robsham Theater in Boston College here, where he delivered a speech coinciding with the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of martial law by former President Ferdinand Marcos.

“I knew that (Marcos) was a formidable foe, but regardless of this, in those moments, all I wanted was to do to Marcos as he had done unto us,” Aquino said.

He still vividly remembers the oppression suffered by his family under the late dictator.

Speaking at Boston College near the house where the Aquino family spent years in exile during the early 1980s, the President recalled that it was in Boston where he gained strength and mustered the courage to fight evil.

“It was here in Boston that I learned the value of introspection. I remember thinking then that here we are in exile, while the dictator is partying in Malacañang, raping the economy and oppressing our people,” Aquino said.

“I consider my time here as among my formative years, fortifying me for the continuation of the struggle, and arming me with relevant experiences,” said Aquino who was a 21-year-old economics graduate from the Ateneo de Manila University when he flew to the US with his family.

He said the assassination of his father was the family’s lowest point, not knowing that the brutal murder of the former senator would spark a people power revolution that would oust Marcos and catapult his mother Corazon to the presidency in February 1986.

Aquino had lunch with close friends of his late father, 31 years after they left their house at 175 Commonwealth Avenue in Newtown.

After that, a mass was held at nearby St. Ignatius of Loyola church beside Boston College.

In behalf of his family, he thanked the couple Mario and Norma Bucal, spouses Steve (deceased) and Cheri Aguilar and the Buenaventuras, among others, who helped the Aquinos recover from the trauma of the senator’s assassination, and for the memorable years in exile as well.

“It was in Boston, thanks to all our friends, that my family was given a haven from the persecution of the dictatorship; it was here where we were given a sense of normalcy in what can only be described as abnormal times back home,” he said.

He said in Boston he got to wear many hats, including that of dog-handler, carpenter, plumber, baggage-carrier, mechanic, driver, et cetera – and expressed gratefulness for being afforded a semblance of normalcy.

Aquino also recalled how the Boston Globe reported then that it was “one of the coldest conditions and heaviest snowfall in decades,” and he was forced to sleep in thermal underwear and a tracksuit.

He put this in a “sleeping bag under various blankets and sheets, and which I topped with a comforter. I learned to take a shower in two minutes flat, using ice-cold water in the dead of winter after hot water ran out,” he said.

Remembering martial law

Aquino also recalled the abnormal times they experienced then, even before his father was forced to leave Manila to undergo a heart bypass operation in Dallas.

“Every aspect of life was controlled there by the dictator, and unless you belonged to the favored few, you had limited rights,” he said, citing the curfew, the travel abroad requiring official permission and the absence of free speech and freedom of assembly.

He even shared one anecdote that his father told him, about a director of the mental hospital whom Marcos promoted after he instructed all of the patients to clap their hands, stomp their feet and cheer loudly as soon as they saw the dictator.

But Marcos was surprised when only one person refused to join what the crowd did.

“So he asked: ‘Mr. Director, who is that person over there?’ To which the director responds, ‘Mr. President, please excuse him. That person has been cured and is on his way home, he is not a patient in this mental institution anymore.’”

Tarlac victims seek help

Meanwhile, more than 300 Tarlac residents who were victims of martial law appealed on Sunday to the President to help them get justice for their hardships during martial law.

The martial law victims walked for 10 kilometers from Capas, Tarlac and held a simple program at a gate of Hacienda Luisita owned by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan in Tarlac City.

Their leader Edith de Guzman said they came from different parts of Tarlac province and hoped that the President can help them seek justice.

“He is from Tarlac, we are also Tarlaqueños. His parents were also victims of torture and judicial killing,” one of them said.

Belen Manzano, 84, said she was 55 years old when a soldier mishandled her and slapped her.

Manzano said she is still angry with the military enforcers but she had already forgiven them.

Eufracia Santos, 74, recounted how two trucks of soldiers ransacked her house and destroyed everything in 1976.

Santos said her brother Narciso Mallari, then 23 years old and a security guard at the Voice of America compound in Concepcion, Tarlac, was abducted.

She said she never heard from her brother again, and thinks he could have been killed by soldiers.

Luz Tamayo said she was 10 years old in 1972 when her father Eladio Estabillo was found dead in the river.

After the program of the martial law victims, members of Bayan Muna burned an effigy of President Aquino, Marcos and US President Barack Obama.

The demonstrators held placards that said: “Never again to martial law.”

Former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said President Aquino should watch his actions or else he might find himself doing what Marcos did.

Ocampo said that Aquino’s hint of extending his term could lead to another authoritarian regime.

He also joined the members of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Anak Pawis in a demonstration at the Plaza Miranda in Manila to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of martial law.

Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said the world and the Filipinos would not allow Aquino to seek a second term.

“He is delusional and a fool if he thinks there is a clamor for him to stay in office beyond 2016. Aquino is the problem. He cannot be the solution. He is no champion of change. He is a staunch defender of the corrupt status quo,” Reyes said.  – With Evelyn Macairan, Ric Sapnu