Impossible dream?
Justice was ill-served when retired Chief Justice Andres Narvasa said the book on the assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. should be closed. Narvasa said the commission on which he had worked -- at times to the extent that it irked the dictator Ferdinand Marcos -- had already unearthed the truth or come as close to it as is humanly possible. That truth resulted in the conviction of some soldiers, but it never revealed who the mastermind was behind Ninoy’s killing. No point in further trying to find out, Narvasa said.Narvasa recalled that “the burning question at that time was whether it was President Marcos or the First Lady [Imelda Marcos]” who ordered the killing. He even recalled public suspicions concerning the alleged involvement of businessman Eduardo M. Cojuangco Jr. in the murder. That question burns still. But Narvasa said, “I have to be frank. There was no evidence pointing either way… There was no direct evidence. They remained speculations.”
Today, even former President Corazon Aquino has publicly stated she wouldn’t oppose executive clemency for the soldiers who have been convicted for the crime and who remain in jail. They were the only ones caught in the net of justice during her presidency. The late dictator himself died abroad and never ended up being deposed in court or properly investigated about the assassination. Gen. Fabian Ver, too, avoided the long arm of the law until the day he died.
And by 1992, the restoration of the disgraced and dispossessed leaders of the New Society had well and truly begun. It will be recalled that had Imelda Marcos and Cojuangco combined their forces, their combined votes would have defeated all other contenders for the presidency. As it was, their individual votes were remarkable and politically formidable. In a sense, it paved the way for the defeat of the Edsa People Power I political forces with the election of an unrepentant Marcos loyalist, Joseph Estrada, to the vice presidency in 1992 and to the presidency in 1998.
We forget, too, the circumstances surrounding Ninoy Aquino’s return home. Imelda Marcos had gone to see him. She issued a warning: there were people loyal to them and whom they could not control and they might kill him. She offered him financial inducements not to go home. He refused the offer.
And yet today Narvasa maintains, “Doña Imelda, I don’t think was deeply involved ... in such a dreadful thing. Maybe [she knows something] because she’s the President’s wife, she could not have been excluded from conversations by President Marcos.” The record tells us the “something” she knew at the time was quite specific; and that her concern for Aquino could have been feigned. This certainly deserves further investigation, precisely because the dictator is dead.
Explaining his decision to come home, Aquino told his friends: “When we start to feel the pain of those who have been victimized by tyranny, it’s only then we can liberate ourselves… The feeling right now is, ‘Fred was tortured, thank God it’s Fred, not me.’ That’s the tragic part. Society is atomized. Until the Filipino nation can feel the loss of one life as if it was their own, we’ll never liberate ourselves.”
Liberate ourselves we did; the rallying cry of those days was, “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All.” It included demands for his killers to be exposed. That demand has only partially been fulfilled. Now Narvasa, who once zealously sought the truth, whatever the cost, thinks it’s time to declare the quest ultimately defeated.
Were we to adopt Narvasa’s suggestion, the ultimate lesson here would be the ultimate victory of the dictator’s attitude toward the law: that style matters more than substance. Narvasa said the Narvasa Commission did its work, it filed its report and now the case “is finished, functius oficio.” The paperwork may be done, but the case remains ultimately unresolved.
Ferdinand is dead, Imelda lives. Ver is dead, Cojuangco lives. At worst, half of the main suspects do not only remain alive, they are living within our shores instead of in exile. To borrow a thought from Ninoy, so long as his murder remains unsolved, until the public feels that the case has been pursued to its ultimate end, what hope is there that the ever-multiplying cases of political assassinations since then will ever be resolved, too?
