Ninoy’s Testament From A Prison Cell

What is history? The simple answer is that it is a study of the past in order to find out the real truth about it. There are those who study history in order to look for the root causes of the conditions of the present. The most ideal way to look at history is to say that remembering the past will help us build a better future.

Martial law, under Marcos, has been a much written about topic. But life under martial law has never been really appreciated especially by the present generation. Perhaps, the most gut wrenching and most enlightening way is to encourage those who lived under martial law to tell their stories.  Certainly one of the most moving is the book Testament From a Prison Cell written by Ninoy Aquino while in prison. The prologue to the book, written by Corazon Aquino, is also a remarkable story:

“The book was first published in 1984. Ferdinand Marcos was in the fullness of his power, more so since his most fearless critic, the writer of this book, had been seemingly silenced by a bullet.

The heart of this book was a legal brief. It was Ninoy Aquino’s defense in the trial of his life before a military tribunal, one appointed by Marcos to try Ninoy on charges that boiled down to criticism of an opposition to his corrupt and cruel regime. Ninoy wanted to explain why he opposed the regime and why he would not relent.

Every word of this book was written by Ninoy, himself a journalist and an avid political writer. He pounded it out feverishly on his old manual typewriter in his cell at Fort Bonifacio. He knew what the verdict of his tribunal would be and the sentence it would mete out. In a dictatorship of lies, soon to add his murder to its repertoire of crimes, it was imperative that a memorial of the awful be left behind by its best witness so that there would be some faint hope that the truth would survive, and God willing, triumph in the end. My children and I smuggled out his manuscript page by page, during our periodic visits to his prison cell.

As Ninoy had predicted, the verdict was guilty. Commuted to foreign exile, the sentence of death was carried out by elements of the military upon his arrival to Manila. In the midst of the demonstrations that erupted after his brutal assassination – the beginning of the end of the Marcos regime – I turned his papers over to Teddy-Boy Locsin to prepare them for publication.

This, then is Ninoy, writing in white heat, burning with indignation, and not just the constitutional violations of the regime but at the cruel and painful sufferings inflicted by the dictator’s torturers on those who followed their consciences.

Read about the mutilations and indignities inflicted on the young, the best of their generation, who fell into the clutches of the regime. Wonder how even hospital staff allowed themselves to be used in turning places of healing into places of unspeakable pain, just to preserve a dictatorial regime, from which only a few drew themselves profit. Read, and understand  why, having been released from prison into a safe exile in the world’s greatest democracy, Ninoy should still choose to forsake the congenial atmosphere of its most distinguished university and return to a certain death. He had to hasten the end of everything he had denounced in his testament; by persuasion if possible, by his sacrifice if necessary.

Read and understand why the fight will never end, the threats will never fade and vigilance cannot ever be relaxed in the protection and defense of our freedoms.”

There are those who continue to deny that there was suppression of human rights during the Marcos regime. In Chapter 8: Evidence Tortured Into Existence, Ninoy Aquino cited specific cases of victims including descriptions of their torture. Among the cases he wrote about: Reverend Cesar Taguba, a Protestant pastor arrested March, 1974; Jose Lacaba, a newspaperman and Bonifacio Ilagan, a student arrested April 25, 1974; Charlie Revilla-Palma, a driver electrician arrested Dec. 12, 1974; Reynaldo Guillermo and his wife Isabelita arrested Dec. 12,1974; Julius Giron arrested Dec. 11, 1974; Wilfredo Hilado a civil engineer arrested Oct. 7, 1974; and Romeo Tolio arrested July 13, 1974.

How did martial law endure for so long? Ninoy Aquino wrote in his opening chapter: “ In these dark times, when even the mildest criticism is taken by the powers that be as a form of treason, the pervading atmosphere of fear makes calm thought most difficult. Even a whispered protest calls for a measure of bravery. How much more a defiant cry?

It is a melancholy time in our history – a time when truth is heresy and heresy truth. The truth is mauled, twisted and bent on the way to a ‘greater freedom’ accept it mutely and find themselves deeper into slavery. But how else can they take it ? Martial rule assaults the senses, numbs the mind, drives a sense of overpowering doom into those who would disagree. Fear is the key instrument, as Mr. Marcos has said so cynically – and the people do fear.”

But the darkest period of a nation’s history can also be a time of heroic challenges.  Ninoy also wrote: “ But this is also a time when a summons to do what right is a summons for men to be like steel, to shed their fears, to sort things out, to recognize their moral duty and demand what they must: a rule of law, not rule by man, and only one at that; and then their freedom! “

Creative writing classes

a.) Young Writers’ Hangout for Kids & Teens: October 1 and Oct. 22 (1:30pm-3pm)

b.) Fiction Writing for Adults with Menchu A. Sarmiento: Oct. 8 (1:30-5:30pm)

Classes at Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street. For registration and fee details text 0917-6240196 or email [email protected].

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