ON PALACE'S CUE

Later I saw the helplessness in the faces of our editors as they waited for instructions from the Palace on how to handle the story. The deadline for our provincial edition came and went, but there we were, still waiting for the edited version of our reports. 

It was Arillo’s byline that appeared the next day (Aug. 22) in the Journal’s banner story “Aquino shot dead.” The story quoted then Metrocom chief Maj. Gen. Prospero Olivas as saying that Ninoy was shot dead by an “unidentified gunman,” who, in turn, was killed by the Avsecom.

Olivas also said, “Aquino was being escorted to an Avsecom van when the gunman dressed in the blue uniform of an airport maintenance man, slipped through the security cordon and shot him from behind with a cal.357 Smith and Wesson Magnum revolver.”

The government had warned Aquino about possible plots on his life, Olivas said. ”We asked him to defer his trip because of this reported assassination attempt,” he added. “We did not give him travel papers precisely to discourage him at this time.”

My report, “'I can’t believe it,’ says Ninoy’s ma’,” and Recto Mercene’s “Newsmen hear shots as ex-solon debarks” also hit the front page. Yet while our Malacañang reporter Vicente Tanedo’s report “Marcos condemns Aquino killers” was on Page 1 as well, it merited only one column.

BLOODSTAINED SUIT

Ninoy’s body was finally brought to the Aquino residence at 25 Times St. in Quezon City shortly before 6 a.m., August 22. As suggested by his sister, the film director Lupita Kashiwahara, he lay in state in his bloodstained white leisure suit. Thousands upon thousands filed past his coffin — a simple, open wooden casket draped with a Filipino flag — in eerie silence.

Ninoy’s widow Corazon and their five children had yet to arrive from the United States. Lupita said her brother had intentionally left his family in Newton, Massachusetts, because of the threats to his life. “He was so concerned with his children more than anything else,” she told reporters.

I was pleasantly surprised that on Tuesday — the day Ninoy’s family was scheduled to land in Manila — the Journal’s banner story was my report on the opposition’s call for a non-violent political struggle. The press conference had been held late Monday afternoon, and I thought that since it was coming in late, it would be relegated to a less prominent spot in the paper.

At the presscon, Laurel, speaking as president of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (Unido), had challenged the government to work for “genuine national reconciliation founded on justice which Aquino had advocated.” The opposition also criticized the lack of security for Ninoy.

By Wednesday (Aug. 24), however, the Journal was back to giving Malacañang stories priority on the front page. That day’s banner story: “Foreign media urged: Be fair.”

President Marcos had appealed to the foreign media to be more fair and objective in reporting on the Aquino assassination. The strongman was quoted as saying, “For the best interests of all concerned, this attitude of objectivity will better inform the people and tone down any partisan passion.”

Above the banner was an "umbrella" on how the Washington Times said in a Monday editorial that jumping to conclusions over the killing of Ninoy Aquino “would be as stupid as the crime itself.”

SURGE IN PROTESTS

Malacañang was reacting to the sudden surge in street protests, with tens of thousands of people paying homage to the slain opposition leader. It even saw it fit to black out the news in the major dailies about the protests and the throngs visiting the dead Ninoy.

It took Ang Pahayagang Malaya, a hard-hitting fortnightly alternative paper, to come out with the headline “Nation mourns.” The lead was, “Benigno S. Aquino Jr. now belongs to the people.” The story went on to detail how thousands of mourners “came from all over the Philippines to claim him as their own, these solemn, grieving, dejected Filipinos, at the Aquino residence…where the body of the martyred former senator lies in state.”

The Journal put the story of the arrival of Ninoy’s family in the inside pages on August 25, or two days after Cory and her children landed in Manila. But it did recount how Cory Aquino refused the VIP service offered to her and the kids. The story noted that like the other passengers, the Aquinos lined up to have their passports checked.

The widow did not utter a word. Only the youngest Aquino daughter Kris, then 12 and the only one in her family dressed in white, spoke up, telling a reporter that her mother could not answer questions because she was tired from the long trip.

Sharing the page with that story was my piece on the transfer of Ninoy’s remains from the family home to the Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City. I reported that the Aquino family would lead the three-kilometer march that would start at eight a.m. that day.