Is the Filipino worth dying for?

The late Ninoy Aquino, bearing great faith in the Filipino people, did indeed die a hero and a martyr for his nation

Is the Filipino worth dying for?

“I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying, for? Is he not a coward who would readily yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown?” the late Ninoy Aquino said in his speech on Aug. 4, 1980, at a convocation of the Asia Society in New York City.

He continued: “I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for because he is the nation’s greatest untapped resource.” That was three years before he was assassinated.

Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. didn’t know that Senator Aquino, his political archnemesis, was a tougher nut to crack. The opposition senator was unstoppable in speaking up against the abuses of martial law (1972-86) as he presented himself as the “peskiest thorn in Marcos’ side.”

Once he conveyed his willingness to die for his country with wit and humor: “’I would rather die a glorious death than be killed by a Boston taxicab.”

You see, during martial law, death threats were whispered among Filipino political exiles and Ninoy himself knew the real and present dangers to his life. On the day he died on Aug. 21, 1983, he said in an inflight interview on China Airlines that “if it’s [my] fate to die by an assassin’s bullet, then so be it.”

Earlier, Ninoy drafted a speech he was to deliver on the day of his arrival and a copy of that speech, though undelivered, was kept by The New York Times and published the day following Ninoy’s martyrdom.

“I return from exile and an uncertain future with only determination and faith to offer — faith in our people and faith in God”

In that speech, the icon of democracy in the Philippines recalled that on one of the long corridors of Harvard University are carved in granite the words of Archibald Macleish: “How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms; by truth when it is attacked by lies; by democratic faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always and in the final act, by determination and faith.”

He concluded the speech with these words: “I return from exile and an uncertain future with only determination and faith to offer — faith in our people and faith in God.”

And the world acknowledges that Ninoy Aquino, bearing great faith in the Filipino people, died a hero and a martyr.

Now, during a presidential campaign rally at the Tarlac City Plazuela on April 2, the Uniteam of presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the tyrant’s son, put up a tent that partially blocked the Ninoy Aquino monument from view from the rally stage.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, reacted and said that such an act showed a complete lack of respect, calling it a “desecration” of the slain hero’s statue.

Was Ninoy wrong in believing that “the Filipino is worth dying for?” Bishop David asked as if to challenge the Filipino citizenry, a few weeks before the presidential election.

“If this is how we treat the memory of a man whose death helped save our country from the long dark years of tyranny and dictatorship, and whose blood watered the seeds of aspiration for the restoration of our freedom and democracy,” the good prelate said, “then it must be said that he was wrong in believing that ‘the Filipino is worth dying for.’”

In 1987, Republic Act (RA) No. 6639 renamed it Ninoy Aquino International Airport in honor of Ninoy Aquino, Marcos’ archenemy, who was assassinated in cold blood

Last week the official Rodrigo Duterte Youth party-list representative Ducielle Marie Cardema filed House Bill 10833 in the Philippine Congress that seeks to rename Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to Manila International Airport (MIA).

In 1987, Republic Act (RA) No. 6639 renamed it Ninoy Aquino International Airport in honor of Ninoy Aquino, Marcos’ archenemy, who was assassinated in cold blood.

Little did Cardema know that, in 2004, an act of Congress by virtue of RA 2956 also declared Aug. 21 of every year “Ninoy Aquino Day.” The lawmakers believed that such official declaration of a national non-working holiday was meant “to commemorate the death anniversary of former Senator Benigno ‘Ninoy’ S. Aquino Jr.”

In effect, RA 2956 and RA 6639 sealed the truth that indeed Ninoy Aquino is a Filipino hero and martyr.

When the airport was “named NAIA in 1987 during the time of then-President Corazon Aquino” it was a self-serving and highly politicized act in connection with her late husband,” Cardema claimed in her bill.

Again, little did Cardema know that the late President Corazon Aquino, herself an icon of democracy, “has rejected the renaming of the airport for her husband, or the replacing of a Mount Rushmore-style bust of Mr. Marcos with one of Ninoy.” She was above all petty politics, according to American journalist Seth Mydans, who wrote a special report for The New York Times in 1986 titled “A Martyr Enshrined: The Legend of Ninoy Aquino.”

In his special report, Mydans made this emphasis: Cory Aquino did not allow manifestations of any kind of special treatment for Ninoy or any member of her clan “in line with the president’s strict policy of not favoring her family.”

Second, the present name of the airport was an act of Congress and therefore a legislative act and not an executive or presidential order.

Hence, “there has to be a Congressional action to repeal Republic Act No. 6639 which renamed MIA to NAIA,” Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in an online Palace press briefing. 

He had constantly prepared himself to offer his dear life on the altar of sacrifice, which precisely happened as he stepped off a plane at Manila International Airport. The tarmac itself was a mute witness to his heroism

Third, little did Cardema know that the Supreme Court (SC) in 2020 had junked a petition filed by lawyer Lorenzo Gadon seeking to nullify RA 6639 that renamed MIA to NAIA.

Ninoy Aquino felt something bad would happen to him should he return to Manila from his US exile. Almost touching the future, in a kind of premonition, he decided to come home.

He had constantly prepared himself to offer his dear life on the altar of sacrifice, which precisely happened as he stepped off a plane at Manila International Airport. The tarmac itself was a mute witness to his heroism.

The funeral march that followed was the day Filipinos stopped being afraid of powerful tyrants. Ninoy’s death suddenly transformed the opposition from a minor and negligible action group to a more united and formidable movement of the masses. His martyrdom galvanized the popular resistance to militarization and inspired the Filipino spirit to fight back.

Ninoy’s death started a chain of events that would eventually lead to the People Power Revolution of 1986. And the rest is history, as they say.

In his 2011 State of the Nation Address, President Benigno Aquino III, son of Ninoy and Cory, made known his inner thoughts: “As long as your faith remains strong — as long as we continue serving as each other’s strength — we will continue proving that ‘the Filipino is worth definitely dying for,’ ‘the Filipino is worth living for,’ and if I might add: ‘The Filipino is worth fighting for.’”

* Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano is the author of ‘MCMLXXII: 500-Taong Kristiyano, Volume Two’ (Claretian, 2021) and ‘24 PLUS CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE: God Writing Straight with Twists and Turns’ (Claretian, 2019). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.