by JOEL C. PAREDES

WE DIDN’T even hear the shots. Someone had to tell us about the gunshots outside, and then I saw Doña Aurora Aquino stand up and start praying. Roberto Coloma of Agence France Presse, meanwhile, quickly grabbed the nearest phone and began breaking the news to the world.

THE DAY HE DIED. With apparent rush, soldiers of the Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) load the body of opposition leader Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino Jr. onto a van at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983. This, one of 12 sequence-shot photos, was taken by Times Journal photographer Recto Mercene. Even as a soldier (2nd from right) pointed a gun at him, Mercene said he just let his camera roll. “It was as if they were just loading a log or a mannequin.” Journalists were restricted to the airport Visitor's Lounge, even as Aquino was led off the plane straight to the tarmac where he was shot dead.

A few minutes later, foreign TV correspondent Ken Kashiwahara managed to slip into the airport VIP lounge, which was by then packed with people. As he slumped into a couch, he cried, ”Ninoy was shot! Ninoy was shot!”

An anguished cry leaped from the lips of lawyer Joker Arroyo, followed by sobs from other people inside the room. Doña Aurora nearly fainted and former Senator Lorenzo Tañada, who was holding on to his cane, offered to assist her to a couch in one corner of the room. There she sat, quiet at first, before she buried her face on Senator Tañada’s shoulders, saying, “I just couldn’t believe that my son was killed because we need him.”

To think that when I learned what my assignment was for that day 25 years ago, I had considered it just an ordinary one, having perhaps been used to covering the political opposition that hardly mattered in our paper. Surprisingly, however, our city editor, Rolando Estabillo, told me this was one coverage I shouldn’t miss. True enough, it would later not only lead mediamen like me to question what it was we were doing, it would also change the course of the entire nation.

I was then working for The Times Journal, one of only three national broadsheets at the time. But it was also known as an administration mouthpiece, being owned by President Ferdinand Marcos’s brother-in-law, Benjamin ‘Kokoy’ Romualdez.

YELLOW RIBBONS

My assignment that Sunday, August 21, 1983, was to cover the arrival of opposition leader Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. After three years in exile in the United States, Ninoy — Marcos’s acknowledged political archrival — was returning home on board a China Airlines flight from Taipei. From our office near Port Area in Manila, I noticed that there were yellow ribbons tied onto the trees along Roxas Boulevard; my driver to hummed “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” all the way to the airport.

Security was tight at the Manila International Airport near Pasay City. All of us who were covering Ninoy’s arrival were asked by Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) officers to proceed to the VIP Lounge, at the far end of the airport’s left-wing side. Only the regular airport newsmen were allowed to enter the arrival area. But our airport reporter Recto Mercene told me later that even there, they had no view of the tarmac.

At the lounge, I found Ninoy’s mother, Doña Aurora, praying the rosary as she sat beside Tañada and Arroyo, who was Ninoy’s legal counsel. Then opposition Assemblyman Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel was also there. He looked restless, and complained to one of the security guards that we “all looked like prisoners here.”

In a way, we were, because the security officer assigned to the lounge would not let us leave the room. At one point he told us that Ninoy’s plane had already left Taipei, but offered no other details. He also promised we would be allowed to meet the charismatic opposition leader once his plane landed, but until then we had to stay put.

SPRAWLED ON TARMAC

That’s where Ken Kashiwahara had found all of us. The husband of Ninoy’s younger sister, Lupita, Kashiwahara had accompanied the 50-year-old former senator on the trip home. He said that shortly after their plane landed at one p.m., several armed men came and escorted Ninoy out of the aircraft. Kashiwahara said he and the rest of the passengers were not allowed to disembark. “A few seconds later,” he told us, “we heard at least two shots followed by another shot.”

Kashiwahara said he peeked through a plane window and saw two men sprawled on the ground. He said he was sure one of them was Ninoy.

But the authorities were not issuing any statements even after an hour had passed. Recto Mercene also told me that he and other airport beat reporters were not allowed to go to the tarmac, while the photographers were threatened that their cameras would be confiscated if they insisted on taking photos.

We decided to follow Doy Laurel, who rushed outside the arrival area, which was now teeming with people. Many of them had gone to the airport after hearing the news about shots being fired, and that Ninoy could be the man who lay dead on the tarmac.

There had also been people who had gone there earlier to welcome Ninoy. Those who lined the road leading to the airport reportedly came from as far as Northern Luzon and Mindanao. Several of them brandished placards and wore pendants and shirts with the slogan “Kay Ninoy pa rin kami (We remain with Ninoy).” They all wore yellow armbands.

For once the loquacious Doy Laurel was at a loss for words. He finally said, “Ninoy has fulfilled his promise to arrive, but something happened inside and that there was shooting.”

He refused to say that Ninoy was killed, and merely appealed to the restive crowd to calm down and pray for Ninoy’s safety. He then directed the people, who had grown in number to about 20,000, to proceed to the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran.

Laurel, Tañada, and former senators Eva Estrada Kalaw and Francisco ‘Soc’ Rodrigo also brought the distraught Doña Aurora to the Baclaran church, where they staged a prayer rally. I had to return to the office because the editors were readying a story conference, and Recto and I had to brief them on what had happened. I noticed that our editors were frantic and angry over what had happened to Ninoy. I then got a call from reporter Cecilio Arillo, who had just arrived at Camp Crame. He, too, was complaining that they could not get confirmation of Ninoy’s assassination from the Constabulary.