(The writer stood by Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. throughout his incarceration and struggle until his assassination as lawyer, fraternity brother and kindred spirit.)

PART I
"It would always be the same crooks, the same money interests who would take fullest advantage of democracy or any kind of government in the Philippines, while the poor and the brave would always lose out. The batters change in the game of Philippine politics, but the baseball team remains the same and the game remains fixed," Ninoy Aquino once said.

How prophetic.

When Marcos imposed martial law in 1972, he claimed that he wanted to save the country, then a functional democracy, from chaos to anarchy. At that time, the Philippine economy was more advanced than our East Asian neighbors - Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, all ruled by autocratic governments.

With Martial law, the Philippines joined the ranks of totalitarian governments in East Asia. But did the economy improve? No. By 1981, the Philippines under martial law was already financially ruined, barely able to service our debts. The economy of other East Asian countries, which in 1972 were laggard compared to the Philippines had surpassed us in no time. This experience gave the lie to the Marcosian thesis that a developing country like the Philippines cannot move fast economically unless it had an autocratic government.

Although the country was mired in debts, the people took everything in stride, relying still in the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. It took Ninoy's assassination two years later, on August 21, 1983 for the Filipino people to awaken from their stupor and complacency. Ninoy's sacrifice served as a whiplash on the national conscience. People began to ask what guilt they bore for allowing Marcos to plunder the nation. The assassination of Ninoy unleashed a torrent of pent-up resentment against the dictatorship that led the country to penury, perdition and ruin. The shock of August 21 turned to hurt, outrage and quiet courage.

Ninoy's death was the catalyst that led the nation to EDSA two and a half years later, which made us the center of world attention and admiration.
Ninoy once said, "the Filipino is worth dying for." The pertinent question is - have we imbibed the values for which Ninoy sacrificed his life?

Mr. Marcos meticulously planned the imposition of martial law because he wanted to remain in power beyond 1973 when his second term would end. He could not run for a third term because the 1935 Constitution forbade it. With martial law, he rammed thru the 1973 Constitution that enabled him to remain as President and dictator.
To achieve that objective, Marcos contemptuously padlocked Congress, closed down media facilities, and placed the entire country under martial rule.
Marcos ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and journalists, and men of consequence that would stand up to him. Leading that arrested group was Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr.

It would have been most expedient for Ninoy to collaborate with the dictator. Marcos was just waiting for that. But Ninoy refused. So Marcos ordered him tried on false charges of rebellion, murder and illegal possession of firearms by a military commission under the rules and procedures that govern Court-Martial proceedings for officers and soldiers.

That started Ninoy's defiance against Marcos and a war of attrition between the tormentor and the tormented. It was a battle of wills all the way. Neither one gave the other any quarter, no matter the lopsided situation between the dictator and his prisoner.

Ninoy's first act of defiance was when he challenged the jurisdiction and independence of Military Commission No. 2 composed of generals and colonels who were appointed by President Marcos as the Commander-in-Chief. Marcos had already pre-judged him guilty as charged. How could the Military Commission rule otherwise? The Articles of War that govern the proceedings of the Military Commission, Ninoy further argued, are designed only for men in uniform and not for civilians like him when civil courts were functioning.
Because of that, Ninoy refused to participate in the trials. Convict me if you must, he told the commission, but I'll not dignify your illegal trials with my participation. Military Commission No. 2 responded by having him dragged from his prison cell where he was held in solitary confinement to the gymnasium in Fort Bonifacio, the venue of his trial.
Ninoy staged his second act of defiance by going on a hunger strike. On My 13, 1975, the 40th day of his protest fast, Ninoy's condition became critical. He was forcibly rushed from his solitary confinement to V. Luna General hospital to be medically revived. Marcos would not have the blood of Ninoy on his hands. For Marcos to anoint Ninoy as hero with his bloodied hands would have been sheer folly! History would later prove this right.

Military Commission No. 2 resumed its proceedings when Ninoy regained his health. In his third act of defiance, he challenged the individual competence and impartiality of each and every member of the commission. On November 25, 1977, two days before Ninoy's birthday, the Commission, in a supreme act of sadism, sentenced him to die by musketry. International outcry prevented Marcos from confirming the death order.
In 1978, President Marcos allowed the election of the members of the Interim Batasan Pambansa. Ninoy made his fourth act of defiance by filing his certificate of candidacy to lead the opposition slate, LABAN. Ninoy launched his campaign from his prison cell, in solitary confinement. The unprecedented success of the noise barrage on the eve of elections clearly showed that LABAN would win in Metro Manila so Marcos cheated by proclaiming all his KBL candidates as winners with only 25% of the votes having been canvassed.

In 1980, Ninoy was afflicted with a heart problem while in the stockade. Believing that he would be rid of his most potent rival, Marcos allowed Ninoy to go to the U.S. for a heart by-pass. After his operation, Ninoy energetically barnstormed the U.S. and other countries to denounce the Marcos regime.

By 1983, he felt he had to go home even if he had to leave the comfort of hearth and home and family in Boston. He felt that having been acknowledged as the leader of the opposition forces to the Marcos autocracy, his place was in the Philippines where the fight for freedom was. He knew the risks, he knew he could be arrested and killed. But he felt a leader worth his salt should be where the fight was.

In his fifth and final act of defiance and in the face of possible death, he came home. Indeed he was shot. The Filipino people responded by showing up by the millions in his wake and in his funeral.

It was the beginning of the end for Marcos.

In 1985 or 2 years later, Marcos called for a snap election. Ninoy's widow took up what could be called his sixth act of defiance. She took up the challenge against Marcos. Marcos cheated as he did in the 1978 elections. The people responded with resounding defiance in EDSA. Marcos fled.

Democracy and freedom were restored.

PART II
The Filipino is wroth dying for, Ninoy said. But did the Filipino learn the value of his martyrdom?

President Marcos railroaded the 1973 Constitution just so he would remain in power. Yet Cha-Cha and the Concorde were initiated under two Presidents. The people resisted the change, they remembered Ninoy, their leaders did not die.

10,000 human rights victims, approximately only a third of those who were tortured, tormented, detained and salvaged, joined in a class suit to collect damages for their sufferings from the Marcos heirs. A U.S. Federal Court awarded the victims over $2 billion to be paid for by the Marcos heirs. The victims were ready to accept a much-reduced sum of $150 million, but even the Philippine Government confesses to its inutility to enforce and satisfy the judgment. Up to now they have not collected a centavo.

Meanwhile the Marcoses, unrepentant, are strutting around looking very much that they have over $2 billion.

Ninoy's murder is exhibit no. 1 for human rights violations. Yet only the small fries were convicted for his killing; the masterminds have not been tried. Other than that, no one has been convicted criminally for human rights violations.

The police of late behave like clones of the deadened security forces of Mr. Marcos. They bludgeon and clobber even fleeting demonstrators, in a manner that is more savage than during the martial law years. What was EDSA if not a massive demonstration of defiance and people power. Even Marcos did not order his loyalist armed forces to fire upon them, but lesser men nowadays do not hesitate to order their men to beat up demonstrators.

Nobody knew, until after EDSA, the unbelievable extent of the ill-gotten wealth and plunder by the Marcoses and his cronies. We had recovered some, but the startling thing is that the Marcos cronies are back with their economic clout only after a brief forced vacation. Worst, a new set of cronies have risen, some more brazen and callous than the Marcos cronies. As Ninoy said, only the batters change, the baseball game remains the same, rigged, in favor of the favored.

No big fish of the Marcos era has been convicted for ill-gotten wealth. That encourages the bigger fish of the present crop of cronies to covet more and more big deals.
Meanwhile, many of the well-off who fought Marcos and lost their fortunes during martial law were not able to recover after EDSA.

Marcos, with his eyes set on the verdict of history, authored books explaining his New Society while his supporters likewise wrote book after book justifying martial law and martial rule. The school textbooks in Philippine history published during the Marcos regime extolled the virtues of Marcos' New Society. Public funds were spent for the propaganda.

After EDSA, were they expunged from our history books? Empirical data indicate that they were not. On the contrary, passages in these textbooks echo the Marcos' propaganda and justification for the declaration of martial law, that it was imposed to save the Republic from anarchy, and the exigencies for the use of authoritarian powers. References to the "vision" of Marcos peddle the "myth" that the New Society was benign if not desirable. The Philippine textbooks are confoundingly mute on the extent of political repression, the widespread human rights violation, the corruption and veniality during the Marcos regime.

The subtlety of the distortion of the truth is alarming. The systematic revision of history is masked by vain attempts by the textbook writers at attribution to Marcos' claims, but this is buried in the acceptance of propaganda as truth.

It is nothing short of tragic to note that today, the significance of both the Marcos dictatorship and the EDSA Revolution seems to be lost on the current generation of high school students and probably even the general public.

Taxpayers pay for the publication of these misleading texts? How can the government prosecute Marcos and at the same time pay for the books that make them look good?
The government, in effect, is undermining the teaching of the values that Ninoy stood for. Not only are education officials involved in the payola scandal, they don't even have the good sense to review the contents of history books they order for distribution and reading by high school students.

The opposition to Marcos could be classified into roughly two distinct classes, namely, the armed struggle carried out by the Communist Party of the Philippines through its military arm, and the New People's Army and the Muslim secessionist movement of the MNLF on the one hand, and the unarmed parliamentary struggle on the other.
Ninoy led the parliamentary struggle to dismantle the Marcos dictatorship and restore democracy, along with the other advocates and defenders of freedom and justice.
But those were the days of living dangerously. The freedom fighters were few. Quite a number were arrested and detained on orders of Marcos. But for 14 years they doggedly persisted in their opposition to the dictatorship. After EDSA, they laid down the legal foundation of the government.

The lesson of history is clearly imperative. There can be no true representative of democracy without an opposition party. So, has there been an opposition after EDSA? What has happened since EDSA is that we have had opposition parties that operated like company unions?

After elections, winners just join the party of the elected President. Parties have thus lost their meaning. We see careerism and crass opportunism in politics, the kind that has impoverished politics and given it a bad name.

Politicians have not learned from Ninoy, the quintessential politician. He detested martial law and all that it stood for. So he refused to collaborate even if that meant solitary confinement in his prison cell.

How do the poor fare now? Those who were poor during martial law strikers were clubbed and died in the hands of the constabulary when they dared form picket lines. Today, the no-strike dictum of Marcos is being revived by the elitist cabinet members for the sake of fast-tracking development.

Ninoy the politician did not hide his ambition to be preside

nt. But he was ready to forfeit his dream and the business of politics for a legacy. Perhaps he had in mind the verdict of history. After all he knew that the legacy of a hero would endure more than the politics of a president.

Our memories of the past should reconcile with us with the discontents of the present. Forget the past and we libel the present. A sense of history gives our leaders and us a sense of limits.

Ninoy had a bigger dream, that from his example, we as a people will draw the newfound strength that will rouse our national spirit and build a creedal nation.
In that respect, Ninoy failed in his dream.

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