Mr. Cojuangco has vehemently denied such accusations. “Valerio is among those who might be able to shed light, but to me, it’s Ochoco whom the government should ask because he was the one who ordered me to bring Galman to the airport,” Martinez said in 2007. Capt. Valerio was the head of the 10-man team of the Aviation Security Command who collected Aquino from the China Airlines plane to the airport’s tarmac, where the former senator and then Galman were shot dead. Valerio and his immediate superior Air Force Col. Ochoco disappeared right after Marcos’ fall in 1986. Valerio was not included among the 16 convicted or the other 18 accused who were acquitted since he could not be arraigned, as he could not be found and arrested. He was reported to be living in the US. Ochoco, for some reason was also not indicted, and has been reported to be living in Australia. Aquino or his officials had done absolutely nothing to get in touch with Martinez or with the other 10 officers and soldiers convicted of the crime to convince them that they would be placed under his protection if they told everything they knew about the assassination. Having given everything the Americans wanted, allowing them to have military forward operating sites here, couldn’t have Aquino asked them for a small favor of looking for Ochoco and Valerio, and extraditing them here to face justice? One would have thought the martyr’s only son would use all the resources at his command as President not just to seek justice for his father, but also to shed light on what is one of the most ruthless but pivotal killings in our nation’s history. Aquino hasn’t. Aquino’s seeming lack of concern over his father’s murder convinces me that either there is something deeply wrong in this person’s psyche, or that there is something terribly embarrassing in the assassination that has been kept so secret that even the victim’s powerful family has refused to uncover its mastermind. Aquino’s mother Cory also seemed disinterested when she was president in getting to the bottom of her husband’s murder. However, this was mostly viewed as an understandable, even laudable, above-the-fray stance of the Saint of Democracy. More cynical observers felt, however, that she was afraid to discover that the mastermind could be Cojuangco, her cousin, or that she even already knew this. For political stability’s sake An interpretation kind to her claimed that if she had pursued Cojuangco for the crime, the oligarch could have joined and funded the many coup attempts against her rule, and that she chose to sacrifice her personal wish—to avenge her husband—for the sake of the country ‘s political stability. The son certainly can’t make such justification now for his disinterest in finding out who ordered his father’s murder. A big lacuna in our nation’s history remains to be filled, as mysterious as why his widow and the son hadn’t lifted a finger to expose who ordered the head of their family killed. In the case of the also mysterious assassination of another president, the US’s John F. Kennedy, the trail had gone totally cold after nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who killed the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in prison four years later in 1967. In Ninoy’s case, Martinez had provided enough leads to solve the mystery, and many of the soldiers convicted are still alive and can be persuaded to tell everything they know. They can even be convinced to disclose who reportedly has been generously taking care of their families financially in the 30 years they’ve been in prison. The crimes’ planners—Col. Ochoco and Capt. Valerio, Martinez alleged—can still be tracked down. (Businessman Gosuico and Gen. Gatan reportedly had died several years ago by natural causes, although I have been unable to confirm this.) How can Aquino keep wearing that yellow ribbon on his chest, when he has done nothing to solve the crime it signifies? How can we be proud of a nation whose two presidents, one the widow and the other the son, had not bothered to bring justice to a hero who had declared that the Filipino is worth dying for? Or maybe it would be more realistic to hope that Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.—who aspires to lead this nation—would provide evidence to prove that it wasn’t his father who ordered Aquino’s murder, as most Filipinos believe the Senior did. tiglao.manilatimes@gmail FB: Rigoberto D. Tiglao Share this: Facebook6K+Email
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 02:30:24 +0000
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