In a lot of ways, I was the individual manifestation of what my country was all about. Stilled in progress because of self-inflicted wounds. An apathetic young country rotting away at the core and needing a new sense of direction. The trouble being, it had no idea on which way to go.
I would normally start with music. Any kind of music. Played stupefyingly loud. But on that given Sunday, I felt like a little bit of visual might go well with the first of many cups of instant coffee and cigarettes for the day. So I turned on the TV. And as the image from the screen of our ancient television set began to clear and focus, I saw two men surrounded by a press scrum. Two military men providing a briefing, then purposely answering questions. One was Prospero Olivas, commanding general of METROCOM-the metropolitan police body in charge of security for the capital. The other gentleman turned out to be Luther Custodio, commanding officer for airport security. AVSECOM. Such was the life under military rule. What should normally be under civilian police jurisdiction in a representative form of society was all in the hands of the military. Even the Police Service was heavily integrated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines. With the exception of the uniforms, you could not tell the difference. And it was clear for everybody to understand and see. The state was the police.
As I listened intently on the press briefing of the two military officers, it became clear that something had gone wrong on that 21st of August. Something horribly wrong. Two men had died on the airport tarmac that day, shot dead just mere minutes before I awoke that Sunday. And one of the dead was Benigno Ninoy Aquino.
I knew very little about Ninoy Aquino before that day. I can sort of remember reading a newspaper article about him leaving for the US a few years before. And on August 21st, 1983, he ended his own enforced exile in America and made his way back to his homeland. The little knowledge I had about him was padded by the military government narrative about the man. A former senator with aspirations to the presidency. Vehemently opposed to the sitting president of the republic, Ferdinand Marcos. A subversive. A terrorist with communist symphaties. An enemy of the state. A man not to be trusted. But even in my uninformed and disinterested state of being at the time, I knew most of what was said about him, particularly by the government was not true. What I did know was true in those times was that very public criticism of the Marcos family or any of their cronies would result in dire consequences. I knew that I was not a free man living in my own country, which in itself wasn't free.
It was impossible for me to know what life was like before fascism. Martial Law was proclaimed on September 21, 1972, nine days before my 9th birthday. I was simply too young to know the consequences then. As I got older, I eventually began to understand the real effects of iron hand rule. Far from it's stated goal in instilling national discipline as a path to national progress (as those countless TV propaganda commercials would have us believe), Marcos' New Society instead achieved the opposite outcome. The rich became even richer. The poor even beyond poor. And the growing Philippine middle class began to disappear, both figuratively and in some cases, literally. Power, both political and economic, was consolidated among the privileged few of the New Society elite on the backs of the powerless. I, as with a great many of my countrymen became a slave in an enslaved nation.
That is why my initial reaction to the news of Ninoy's death was that of muted shock and resignation. For he represented the last symbol of redemption from the brute reality that was the Marcos regime. It seemed to me that I was destined to live in a reality that I would forever try to escape from. In whatever way. In whatever fashion.
As I witnessed with my own eyes, the outpouring of national grief throughout the streets of Manila during Ninoy's funeral procession, ten days after his assassination was slowly percolating into indignation. Punctuated by the heavy monsoon rains that came early that year, as if to signify that the skies above were crying with the Filipino people, the sadness was turning into resentment. And in a little while, just minutes after the internment of the dead legislator's body, full blown anger. Defiance. In front of the UST. And in Mendiola. In total darkness. The Filipinos, my countrymen, disengaged for a long time had suddenly awoken from the stupor. Ninoy, Hindi Ka Nag-iisa. You are not alone. The battle had been joined.
Less than three years later, I found myself on the streets of EDSA. In the very early morning hours of February 23rd, 1986. I was a part of a group of responders, heeding the call of Ninoy's younger brother, Agapito Butz Aquino on Radio Veritas. The call was for members of ATOM-the August Twenty One Movement, to come to Camp Aguinaldo and show their support for Marcos' breakaway lieutenants, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos as they withdrew their allegiance to the fading dictator in protest of the massive fraud that occurred in the just concluded presidential election. There I was, not far from the gates that symbolized fear for many, finally finding a reason to be. To be part of something bigger than me. To be part of a whole. Armed only with hope. And clad in my armour; a yellow shirt-the colour of change. Hindi Ako Nag-iisa. I was not alone anymore.
In that unusually warm early morning, the first hours of what turned out to be a historic revolution, I realized that LOVE was and will always be stronger than FEAR. Despite persistent rumours of an impending attack by the fascist forces of Marcos, I never felt fear. In fact, it never quite felt like a revolution to me. It was more like a never ending street party. A communal event for rich and poor, nuns and frat boys, believers and non-believers, famous and not so famous, filipino and fellow filipino. Nothing and no one mattered. Except for the will to be FREE. In less than 72 hours, it was all over. The Marcos nightmare was finished, at last. There would be a new order, headed by Ninoy's widow, Corazon Aquino. It was now time to dream a new dream. An impossible dream, perhaps. For better or for worse.
As I heard word of the Marcos era finally coming to an official end, I looked up to the dark sky. The same sky that I had constantly gazed upon in many times during my life. As a boy, wondering what happens to clouds when it gets dark. As a troubled teenager, high on whatever substance I had induced and staring blankly into the stratosphere of nothingness. As a young revolutionary EDSA-style, waiting for the proverbial shit to fall, to signify an all-out war for Philippine freedom. Only this time, I thought of August 21. And the supreme courage of one man. Love had indeed conquered fear.
In early November, 1987, almost two years removed from the heady days of the EDSA Revolution, I was at the same place where Ninoy Aquino spent his last few remaining minutes alive. The airport that by then had been renamed in his honour. I was there to catch a flight that would bring me to Canada, where I would start a new life. I no longer had the need to escape reality. All I needed to do was forge a new one.To dream a new impossible dream. For better or for worse.
Looking around rather restlessly, excited for the future and at the same time, heartbroken for the past; I began to wonder just exactly where the right spot was when the events of August 21, 1983 took place. But then the call for boarding was announced. As I walked in to the passenger tube, I looked out the window. A bright sunny day and blue skies all around. The same bright sky that many described on that fateful day in August, more than 4 years earlier. As I approached the last of the tube windows, I blew a kiss goodbye towards the blue sky. My beloved Philippine sky.
Thank you Ninoy. Hindi Ka Nag-iisa.
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