The man who knew too much

Today is Friday, Aug. 23, to which the Aug. 21 commemoration of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.’s martyrdom 41 years ago was moved, the lame reason being that people should have a four-day weekend to enjoy, with Monday, Aug. 26, National Heroes’ Day, added. Not everybody is happy with this casual moving of an important day to remember.

But we always remember. Mainstream media still come out with the yearly remembrances in varied forms partly because many in our sector were very much around in their reportorial beats when bullets felled the homecoming Aquino and fall guy Rolando Galman on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. The gunshots reverberated and caused an unstoppable conflagration that would culminate three years later in a people power uprising that stunned the world and toppled the Marcos dictatorship that lasted 14 years.

Countless stories, books, and documentaries have been written and aired, two major government investigations had been conducted and the main suspects in the Aquino-Galman murder case—soldiers mostly, who were in the crime scene—had been convicted, imprisoned, and, after serving time for more than 10 years, had been released.

On the 20th death anniversary of Aquino in 2003, I did lengthy interviews with the double-murder convicts at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa. As expected, everybody declared themselves innocent. (One would later be stabbed dead in prison.) The crime was always pinned on Galman, the man who was himself shot dead under the China Airlines staircase on which Aquino descended. But who was the mastermind of the double-murder case? The why is obvious but not the who.

Forty-one years later, no one has come up to reveal the answer and prove it. But during the hearings of the Agrava board shortly after the assassination, several witnesses and their lawyers had come up with what they knew but there was never ”enough” corroborating evidence to establish the who. The rest were considered mere conjecture, suspicion, or gossip. The disappearance from the face of the earth of what might have been key persons in the investigations became mere footnotes in a crime that shook a nation.

There was more outside of the Agrava board hearings. An interview in the Philippine Panorama magazine (of the Manila Bulletin today) between writer Mauro Avena and Lupino Lazaro (counsel for the Galman and Oliva families and in the search for the missing Oliva sisters) was so leading that Avena and editor Domini Torrevillas-Suarez and their publishers were slapped with a P120-million libel suit by business tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. and a P100-million libel suit by Gen. Fabian Ver, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff. The Panorama interview, “Is the Agrava Board Afraid to Know the Truth?” (Panorama, 7/1/84) is included in my book “Press Freedom Under Siege: Reportage that Challenged the Marcos Dictatorship,” (University of the Philippines Press, 2019).

Here is a peek into that interview. The rest you can read in the book or in libraries.

“Mauro Avena: What do you think now of the Galman theory of both the government and the military?

“Lupino Lazaro: I think the Galman theory has been completely shattered. There is no doubt at this stage that the board has made up its mind that Galman was not the killer. Of course, if it was not Galman, that leaves only one other possibility. This was a military operation and one of those soldiers, officers, shot Aquino … The problem really is the ability of the board to go after the big fishes …

“[L]ook at the search for the missing Lina Lazaro (Galman’s girlfriend). The board was informed in a public hearing that it was a certain Hermilo Gosuico who took Lina Lazaro last Jan. 29. First, if you were the investigator trying to locate a missing person, whom will you ask? It is the last person seen with the missing person, correct? It’s Gosuico … But they didn’t do that … When [General] Ver made a report about Lina, quoting only certain immoral escapades … there was no report on her whereabouts, suddenly, Justice Agrava said the report was very satisfactory. Remember that Gosuico, from the testimonies of the Galman children, had allegedly committed major crimes—kidnapping with murder in the case of Galman, and kidnapping in the case of Lina Lazaro …

“Avena: Attorney, you mentioned the linkage to the Aquino case of Eduardo Cojuangco. What is your basis for that?

“Lazaro: There are witnesses who said that the resthouse where Rolando Galman was brought on Aug. 8 is owned by Eduardo Cojuangco. I have some people who also said that some men of Cojuangco were looking for Lina Lazaro right after the assassination in her own place in Bagong Silang as well as in Pampanga. I also have information—this was relayed to the board—that Lina Lazaro is being kept in a plantation somewhere in Bacolod. And these witnesses have seen more, but the point is that the board does not want to talk to them.”

Someday, history’s footnotes might yet lead to the big, incontrovertible truth. In God’s time, what is hidden will be laid bare.

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