Soapbox Spotlight 1
August 21, 2015
Martin Andanar's Birthday Dinner
Cafe Ysabel, San Juan City
"Martin, thank you and happy birthday. Today is quite important because besides Ninoy’s death anniversary, it is also the death anniversary of my father.
So we look back and only the things that I felt sorry about was the fact that I talked to some people about Ninoy and, unfortunately, a lot of those somehow they’ve heard of Ninoy but they were not born yet when Ninoy was assassinated.
That is why for a long time now, somehow I don’t remember a book that really gave the history of Ninoy Aquino. Who he was and how he was. For me, not that he was my brother-in-law, but the fact that we were together in the political career.
From the very beginning, Ninoy has already told me while he was in politics, ‘Bakit ba gusto mong tumakbong konsehal? Sabi ko eh, hinihingi ng bayan eh.’ When you are in politics and you run for office, remember one thing, it’s a thankless job. Keep in mind the only thing that you should be focusing would be public service. He said, ‘You know, the most important is the people.’
That’s why when he was in the States, he would tell me, ‘the easiest way to remove the dictator, Marcos of course, is through armed rebellion. And in the United States, 'Here, I can recruit easily a thousand Filipinos whose families have been troubled or there have been families that were killed or incarcerated, I’m sure I’ll get no less than a thousand people to join me. I’m sure they will be giving me all the funds necessary, firearms. We land in Mindanao, we start walking towards Luzon, towards Manila, and I’m sure along the way, a lot of people will be joining. I can’t see how it can fail. But the only political motive is that ending unending conflict among the Filipino people.' He said 'I talked to the people in the Middle East, those that were not successful and those that were successful in their revolutions. They all told me, the big loser in any kind of revolution are the people. So stay away from it.’
And so when he came back to the Philippines, he was carrying with him a plan that he uncorked. He said, 'I talked to the MNLF, I talked to the NPA, and I think I have a plan that I should offer to Marcos. We have to do this, we have to do something about it otherwise, I have a feeling, sooner or later if we don’t, we will have a civil war in the Philippines.'
That is why regardless of how I tried to tell him that while you are here in the United States, you are able to be our voice. You don’t have to come home. He said, ‘hindi maaaring hindi umuwi eh. Kasi kailangang-kailangan na.”
Well you know, from the US going back to the Philippines, according to the people who were with Ninoy, they were very joyful and they were all laughing, joking except on the last night.
On the last night, Ninoy received a call. From whom, nobody knows. I concluded anyway. You know Ninoy was like this, regardless of how it was, for solitary confinement, he was still able to get used to it. So I figured one of his contact probably must have told him, ’if you come home, they will most likely kill you.’
I can’t conclude any other than that because why would Ninoy be wearing a bullet proof vest on his way back to Manila unless he was told that he was gonna be shot. Inspite of all that, he was very intent in coming home just to make sure that there will be no armed revolution. But I guess his sacrifice was answered by God.
We were successful in posting or holding the very exemplary and well known people power revolution. One of its kind in the world. It’s so unfortunate, nothing has been written about him, not too many people know about him, others have claimed more about the revolution than him. As far as I am concerened, without Ninoy, we will never have had a restoration of our democracy.
Kaya nalulungkot ako. Tayo ngayon, what are we watching? We are watching a movement now of some people to destroy that democracy. What is democracy if you can’t have free elections? What is democracy if the elections are fraudulent. We are now in that kind of predicament. The only thing we can only do is to keep on praying and maybe God will continue to help us solve this situation that we are facing in the Philippines which I really feel is very critical at this point. Above all, anything you could do to remind people around you about the sacrifice of Ninoy and how he really thought of so much and gave his life for the country. Thank you and good evening.
(applause)