Hi Everyone!

Twenty-five years ago today, the Philippines started the long journey from a dictatorship to a democratic country. Today, we observe the 25th anniversary of the death of Benigno Simeon Aquino Jr. (affectingly known to Filipinos as Ninoy). Who was Ninoy Aquino and how did he impact the history and future of the Philippines? Mama will be helping me with the posting today and tomorrow.

Ninoy Aquino was born November 27, 1932 and entered politics at the age of 22, after a career as a journalist and war correspondant, and subsequently became the youngest mayor, governor, and senator to serve in the Philippines. In 1954 he married Corazon Cojuangco.  Imprisoned in 1972 when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, Aquino was allowed to move his family to the United States so he could undergo heart surgery. He later served as a research fellow at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1983 he returned to Manila to work in the legislative election.

Despite high security, he was assassinated as he deplaned on August 21. Although one of Ninoy’s soldier/bodyguards did the shooting, theories of a conspiracy remain involving the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. After a mass at St. Domingo Church, an eleven hour funeral march ensued through twenty five miles of Manila streets with an estimated two million people participating or lining the route of the cortege to the cemetery.Although an investigation commission declared that several military allies of Marcos were responsible for the assassination, all the defendants were acquitted in a 1985 trial.The Supreme Court subsequently declared his murder trial a mistrial. In a new trial that ended in 1990, 16 military officials were convicted of his murder.

Aquino’s death proved to be the tipping point in Marcos’s downfall. Aquino’s widow, Corazon Aquino, put the ailing Marcos on the defensive by depicting him as a brutal dictator. In a gamble to regain some political legitimacy, and secure continued U.S. support for his regime, Marcos announced that a “snap,” or unscheduled, presidential election would be held in February 1986, a year before his term was to expire. Marcos fully expected to win the election, considering his well-oiled political machine and the divided nature of the opposition. But Cardinal Sin, head of the Philippine Catholic Church, arranged an opposition alliance, convincing Corazon Aquino to run for president and Salvador Laurel to run for vice president.

We will conclude our story in tomorrow’s posting.

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Technorati Tags: Ninoy Aquino, Philippine hero, Philippine History

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