Mourning and remembering

Mourning and grief for Ninoy Aquino in 1983 was blunted for me by the abrupt end of my third pregnancy. We already had a son, born in 1979, and then in 1981 lost a second pregnancy. When I got pregnant in 1983, I was elated, relishing the thought that perhaps the fates would grant us a daughter to “round off” our family. But then, working late on a magazine issue, I went to the bathroom and discovered blood in the toilet bowl. I had lost the fetus once again.

I remember lying on the operating table and groggily hearing my doctor and the nurses discussing the massive crowds that attended Ninoy’s funeral. In the days of tumult that followed this display of national grief, I was confined at home, overcome by a private grief that was, so I told friends and family, “bitin.” There was no baby to hold a wake for and then bury—only the “idea” of a baby, an imagined being who for me and the hubby already existed and for whom we had nursed dreams.

A footnote to this story is that, in 1986, just as the campaign for the presidency that Cory Aquino and the democratic forces waged against the full might of the Marcos machinery raged, I found myself pregnant again. When our daughter was born on Feb. 26, 1986 (yes, a day after the Marcoses fled for Hawaii), I was once again sidelined and so missed much of the early days following the Edsa People Power
Revolution.

But we had a living “souvenir” of that period, those days of euphoria and what a foreign correspondent described as “post-coital tristesse,” the inevitable letdown following the incredible success of “People Power.”

Today, we are called to show that we have not forgotten Ninoy’s ultimate sacrifice. And that neither have we developed amnesia over the crimes and abuses of the Marcoses, their cronies and their armed forces that fueled the simmering anger that finally found release on Edsa.

The need to hold on to those memories, including the misdeeds of the Marcoses, is even more urgent today as the Marcos family attempts to rehabilitate its reputation.

Alarming, indeed, is the photo showing Davao Mayor Sara Duterte and Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos smiling and brandishing the closed-fist salute that has become the President’s signature on one hand, and the Marcos “V” sign on the other. The accompanying report says that there is a “relationship developing” between the two women.

The retooling of the Marcoses’ image began long before the merger of political parties sympathetic to Duterte. Even during the campaign, PDuts had said he wished to make former senator Bongbong Marcos his successor, even if he inexplicably named now Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano his running mate. (Likewise inexplicably, Duterte left out Cayetano when he mentioned his preferred successor should he resign from office—Marcos or Sen. Chiz Escudero—instead of the constitutional successor, Vice President Leni Robredo.)

Certainly, we will have no reason to be caught by surprise should a Marcos ascendancy follow on the heels of Duterte’s departure from office. The President has certainly made known his preference for the family of the disgraced dictator, to the extent of attempting to denigrate the memory of Ninoy Aquino by ignoring today’s anniversary of his murder.

What’s left for the Filipino people to do is not just to keep the memory of Ninoy alive, along with the many acts of heroism of countless others in the years before and after his assassination. We also need to give meaning to those memories. It is so easy these days to be swayed and led astray by the army of trolls and apologists who peddle erroneous “facts” and outright lies. What we need to train ourselves in is the skill to discern truth from falsehood, to judge the purveyors of alternative history.

Most of all, we must revisit the events of 1983-1986 even if, at least for me personally, they uncannily parallel personal events that brought so much pain. And for those with no such memories but only second- and even third-hand accounts to depend on, then wisdom will come only after understanding and empathy.

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