MANILA, Philippines—By the time Ninoy Aquino came home to die, Ferdinand Marcos had eaten up two and a half of what should have been his successor’s terms of office (1973-1983, with elections in 1973, 1977 and 1981, had the 1935 Constitution been retained, as most expected it to be retained, had the 1973 constitutional plebiscite taken place). One shrewd analysis of the Marcos years points to 1975 as the year the New Society ran out of steam. By 1978-79, Marcos had begun to withdraw from the public view as his various illnesses began to manifest themselves. Yet in 1981, he had engineered the replacement of the New Society with the New Republic, officially our fourth.
By 1983, the year Aquino came home to die, Marcos’ illnesses were still publicly undisclosed but privately widely discussed. Three years later, his friend Teodoro M. Locsin Sr. recounted the combination of idealism, pragmatism, patriotism and ambition that made his friend come home to die. Locsin wrote that Aquino made up his mind “against all the warnings: Imelda’s, Ver’s…. Against the advice of friends. What did he hope to accomplish by his return?”
Addressing himself to posterity, Locsin replied: “Why? Because he saw the replacement of the Marcos tyranny with a Communist one in five years if Marcos went on doing what he was doing. He must talk to Marcos and appeal to that residual ‘good’ he believed was still in that man. Because Marcos would not be publishing all those books about his achievements if he did not care for his place in Philippine history, and what would that place be if he went on denying the Filipino people liberties he had so brutally taken away from them? The Filipino people were a forgiving lot and would forgive the wrong Marcos had done them if he would finally let them live and be free. Because….”
You know the rest: “The Filipino is worthy dying for.” And the Filipino deserved his civil liberties—as Ninoy put it in the arrival statement he never got to deliver—“all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the 1935 Constitution, the most sacred legacies from the Founding Fathers.” And because “national reconciliation and unity can be achieved but only with justice, including justice for our Muslim and Ifugao brothers, there can be no deal with a dictator. No compromise with dictatorship.” He would sacrifice himself to inspire the tyrant to sacrifice power.
A generation after his death, we live, again, in a time of troubles, as Ninoy put it. There is talk, if not of outright dictatorship, then a lust for power that longs to put on the jackboots of authoritarian rule; and in Mindanao there is fear, anxiety, and violence once again. Confronting the entire population is a collective question only an individual should have to answer. Who must die? For what? God? Country? Party? Movement?
Locsin, himself a member of the resistance against the Japanese, reflected, “Men go, of course, willingly enough to war. Or more or less willingly. War would be impossible if conscientious objection to it were universal. The generals would be out of work. Peace would reign and mankind would live happily ever after, as the lovers do in fairy tales. But there is war and men go to their death, or possibility of death, some even cheerfully. For love of country: patriotism it is called. Out of blind, unquestioning obedience to authority. From fear of the charge of cowardice—or imprisonment if one did not go. Fear of the judgment of friends who would stay behind, and the contempt of women. Fear of fear. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, men go to war—to die? But death, though possible or even probable, is not certain. Tens of thousands may die, but more thousands survive. And going to war is not an individual decision but a collective one. It is the mandate of the community. Who goes against it becomes an outcast. So, to war.”
The ferociousness of some of our leaders—the demagoguery of those calling for war—is a calculated risk on the part of politicians. Ninoy had his taste of demagoguery; Marcos had mastered it too. One renounced its attractions, became a hero; the other remained a demagogue to the last, in permanent exile unlike Ninoy.
There will be those in whom a burning desire for martyrdom will be ignited by the demagoguery of their leaders. And they will think—because they’ve been told—they are good.
And of this, Locsin observed: “Here is a mystery of human nature that defies solution while humbling us. Evil we know, and understand, knowing our nature. But good is something else. As martyrdom, it has had, history shows, a fascination for some. The cynic would say it is mere inflation of the ego. But how to explain the slow martyrdom of Damien who lived among lepers, ministering to their needs, and finding a mystical fulfillment when he could say: ‘We lepers.’ Ego-inflation still? If that is the supreme desire, then the cynic might try life in a leper colony. He should never think more highly of himself then. But cynicism is only fear—fear of knowing what one is. To debase the good is to rise in self-estimation. If all men are vile, then you are not worse than you might think you are. You just know the human score. To face and recognize goodness is to sit in judgment on oneself. Avoid it.”
Avoid it indeed! As many continue to avoid confronting the “lonely decision” of Ninoy to come home either to be imprisoned or to die. Mere ambition, some still say; no difference between the dictator and him, an entire generation of students has been taught to believe. The wrong kind of martyrdom altogether, those calling for the rifles to be handed out to soldiers, militia and mujahedeen in Mindanao now seem to suggest. Yes, in 1986 Locsin was writing in an era before the suicide bomber became the contemporary image of martyrdom. Yet, there remains the compelling image of the former demagogue turned lamb, the Ninoy who came home to die.
