Everyone who knew Panfilo Villaruel personally says that he was a good person. We cannot, for the life of us, understand what drove him to take over the control tower of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 2 a.m. How could two persons armed with guns and explosives enter the NAIA and penetrate a tower with a steel door? The worse part is that no one really knows what motivated his action. They say that his purpose was to denounce graft and corruption in the government. You don’t have to do that in the NAIA control tower. In a radio interview, Villaruel said he was willing to sacrifice his life just to express his dissatisfaction with the government. But we have freedom of speech. To be effective in stopping graft and corruption, what it takes is to cite specific cases with the evidence to prove there indeed is graft and corruption.
Whenever we confront a problem our first obligation is to be part of the solution. The moment Villaruel forcibly took over control of the NAIA control tower, he was not solving any of the problems he was going to denounce. If anything, he was so desperate for attention: Why did he take control of the tower at 2 o’clock in the morning? The whole thing does not make sense. And to this day, no one has come out with the papers that would show just what corruption cases he intended to denounce.
In a way, the Villaruel case is a repetition of the July 27 uprising. The Magdalo faction took over Oakwood Hotel in the heart of Makati’s commercial district allegedly to call attention to existing anomalies in the government. Like Villaruel, they had explosives which they planted around the area. Has anything come out of their supposed exposé? Nothing! Because they have not provided the evidence that will support their general charges.
Martyrdom is dying for a cause one believes in. Needless to say, the cause must be right. It is useless to die for the wrong cause. That there is widespread graft and corruption in the government is a fact known to one and all. If Villaruel’s intended exposé is going to have any meaning, but it must be on specific cases not known to the public. But no one even seems to know what he intended to expose. What is obvious is that he was sick and tired of all the crimes continuously committed by officials in power. That is what drove him to the senseless thing he did. Frustration! What is tragic is that it cost him his life. The moral is: Don’t try to take control of the NAIA control tower by force of arms. You will be risking the safety of planes coming in and out of the airport. And your own life may be at stake!