Stark ‘math’

“IF THEY kill me, they’re out in two years.” Exiled Benigno Aquino Jr. offered that stark “math” in Boston to friends spooked by his plan to fly to Manila in a bid to meet the ailing dictator  Ferdinand Marcos. Perhaps a direct appeal to the isolated Marcos could usher in peaceful change, he argued.

Ninoy’s allies were proved right. Tomorrow is the 28th anniversary when a single bullet tore into Aquino, who was being “guarded” by military agents as he descended the China Airlines service gangway to the Manila International Airport tarmac.

A memorial Mass and book launching will recall this “turning point” Sunday, at the same airport, now renamed in Ninoy’s honor. Similar rites will be held elsewhere on what has become a national holiday.

Ninoy’s “math” fell short by three years. Only in 1986 did the fuse lit by his assassination erupt into People Power I, which toppled a 14-year long dictatorship and re-established constitutional rule, despite Imelda’s insistent claim that “the Marcos regime was the most democratic period in history.”

“Forethought we may have,” Napoleon Bonaparte once wrote, “but not foresight.” Ninoy didn’t foresee most of the consequences that would flow from that bloodied tarmac. Neither did Ferdinand Marcos.

Told that the late publisher Joaquin “Chino” Roces and friends mustered one million signatures to prod a reluctant Corazon Aquino to  run, Marcos snapped: “Walang alam… What qualification does she have, except that her husband was killed? She always stands up and asks for pity, making believe that there was no reason for her husband’s arrest.”

“True. I don’t know—how to steal, cheat, lie or murder,” a once-self-effacing Cory snapped. She led a fractured opposition to become the 14th president of the Philippines. She re-established constitutional government, ruled with integrity, spurned reelection and oversaw the transition of power to successor Fidel Ramos. And in private life, she became an icon.

Both Aquinos never sought Libingan ng mga Bayani burial. Massive crowds turned up for their funerals. They are interred in simple graves. Both never anticipated that their unplanned legacy would thrust into the hands of their son, Benigno III, the presidency.

“What if this leader fails?” author Miguel Syjuco fretted in a letter to the International Herald Tribune. “Just as Ferdinand won it for Corazon, Gloria (Macapagal-Arroyo) has made possible our faith in Noynoy. There’s nothing like a despot to simplify choices… In a country where celebrity trumps ideology… nothing comes that easily. Ninety million people are watching, waiting. Please, Noynoy, don’t let us down.”

“History is a vast early warning system,” Norman Cousins often stressed. Sunday’s rites, we hope, will include Ninoy’s arrival address that was aborted by his  murder. “I have returned of my own free will to join the ranks of those struggling to recover our rights and freedoms through non-violence,” he planned to say. “I seek no confrontation.”

Death cut Ninoy down before he could publicly lash at supine Supreme Court justices who had jettisoned the cherished right of habeas corpus into the dictator’s lap. That is a point that the Arroyo Supreme Court may wish to keep in mind. Cases piling up against their patron may end before them. “Memory is the mother of all wisdom,” wrote Greek playwright Aeschylus.

Tragedy is the difference between what is and what could have been, we are told. Is that why our national life seems a never-ending cycle of what ifs?

What if the Marcos regime didn’t deteriorate into a kleptocracy? Suppose Ferdinand ignored Imelda? Imagine he used martial law powers with a Lee Kwan Yew’s austere integrity. This country would have been an economic tiger today. There would have been no objections to a Libingan ng mga Bayani burial.

What if Ninoy chickened? Assume he opted for a cushy “New Society” job. He would have been diminished. An enraged Cory Aquino would not have emerged from a housewife’s concerns. Neither would People Power have erupted, thereafter leapfrogging to Czechoslovakia, Lebanon and the Ukraine.

What if Joseph Estrada kept his pledges in his “Now Power is with the People” inaugural speech? People Power II would not have ousted him. He would have coasted to reelection, instead of becoming the first president ever convicted for plunder.

What if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo kept her solemn Rizal Day pledge not to run for reelection? There would have been no Maguindanao massacre, election frauds, scams from ZTE broadband to overpriced helicopters—let alone a slot on the departure watch list.

What if Eduardo Cojuangco abided by the “Zacchaeus Principle” in dealing with the coconut levy? In Luke’s account, the tax collector pledged four-fold amends for those  wronged. Would thousands of small farmers, given restitution, not be reward enough?

Ninoy’s features today grace our currency and stamps. Babies, schools and streets are named after him. But those jailed for Ninoy’s murder were lowly soldiers and fall guys. Gen.   Fabian Ver went to his grave carrying his secrets. Will our grandchildren know someday the mastermind(s) in Ninoy’s murder?

“Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods, we are like flies that the boys kill on a summer’s day,” Thornton Wilder writes in “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.” “Some say, to the contrary, that the sparrows do not lose a finger that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.”

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