Thursday, August 21, 2008 Sula: Touched by a hero By Jun Sula Commentary
ON THAT fateful Sunday afternoon, I was having a lively discussion with my pastor uncle when my cousin's husband sounded hysterical as he called me to come at once.
He was unnerved by a breaking news on TV that Ninoy Aquino was shot at the airport. An hour later, the next bulletin confirmed his death from an assassin's bullet.
At dinner, I nearly choked as I read the customary devotional Scripture.
The one I read was on Isaiah and said something about innocent martyrdom. Ninoy did not perfectly fit the martyr in Isaiah's verses but his unexpected tragic fate dawned on me as something bigger than life and, surely, for something just as noble.
I tried to sleep that night, but couldn't. Ninoy was not just another popular public figure to me.
I knew him personally, and he was writ large in my personal history. At early dawn, I drove to Quezon City and got at the Aquino house at Times St. after an hour.
It was around 2 a.m., and as soon as I entered the gate, a handful of familiar faces were already on hand. Mayor Jun Feliciano of Concepcion, Tarlac was in forlorn huddle with others at the porch. He walked toward me and grabbed my hands, having probably recognized me from way back, and started to talk about Ninoy's tragic end.
The air was cold, and the din outside grew louder as people started to trickle in.
When Ninoy was still alive and in prison at Fort Bonifacio, we went to Feliciano's house at Apo St. a number of times for the traditional mass on Ninoy's birthday.
Cory would lead the celebration, along with relatives, select guests and friends, including Ninoy's former Senate staff that included me.
At one time, the late actor Vic Vargas, Feliciano's brother-in-law, joined us.
Ninoy's body arrived at Times St. shortly before daylight.
By that time, a multitude had already filled up the street, all the way up to Quezon Boulevard and down to West Avenue.
I joined the endless line as I viewed the serene and ashen face of the late senator in his open coffin.
He wore his blood-stained katsa-like shirt and there was an ugly hole on his chin, outrageous testaments to the brutal end that wickedly blindsided him at the Manila International Airport.
His coffin rested on the same spot where, about two years ago, we had a sort of a reunion with him following his release from the Philippine Heart Center after he was diagnosed with a heart ailment.
He was due to leave for the United States in a week's time for a by-pass, and he asked to see his Senate staff before he left.
When we arrived, he was engrossed in an animated exchange with the late Teddy Benigno near a backyard grotto.
Cory welcomed us and alerted Ninoy about our presence. Ninoy, leaner and younger in his white-and-blue Fred Perry shirt, abruptly broke up his engagement with Benigno and greeted us like a long, lost family.
He solicitously asked us how we're doing. Everyone was excited and emotional.
When it was my turn, an older officemate spoke proudly of me.
"Jun here is taking up MBA at Ateneo," he told Ninoy "and is writing speeches for a politician from the South." He dropped the politician's name, and at the mention of the name, Ninoy quipped: "That's nice to know but be careful that you don't become her boyfriend." Then, he broke into his signature mischievous laugh we had heard so many times before.
It was a brief reunion as Ninoy wanted to catch up with Benigno. As he walked us to the door, leading to the porch where earlier two Metrocom soldiers had politely asked us to sign on a logbook and had our pictures taken, Ninoy put his arm on my shoulder, gently tapping it and, in a fatherly voice said, "You've come a long way, baby." His parting words to us were grave and lofty: "A man must not only be brilliant but must also have a heart," he said. Afterwards, he waved at Cory to take pictures of us with him - for the last time, it turned out.
On the day he was buried, I lost myself in the sea of sorrowing humanity that gathered to march from Sto. Domingo Church to the Manila Memorial Park, his final resting place.
The atmosphere was eerie, poignant and surreal.
I was prepared to walk all the way. But, as soon as the funeral procession reached Quiapo, it started raining heavily. Past Plaza Lawton, we heard that someone was hit by a lightning.
When we reached the former Congress Building near Intramuros, I was already drenched and shivering slightly. So, I decided to stay behind.
For one infinite moment, in the blinding rain and cold wind I recalled in a flash the time I spent in Congress when Ninoy was still a senator and looking forward to becoming the next President of the Republic.
I thought he came close but for a bullet that mercilessly snuffed his life out at the tarmac stairs.
On a hopeful day in 1971, I walked into his office and asked his social secretary if I could see the senator. I told her I needed a job so I could go to college, and that I was hoping the senator could help me. The secretary said she wasn't sure Ninoy was coming, and if ever, it would be next to impossible for me to see him.
Undaunted, I waited for the impossible. In a moment, a big, stomping man walked right into my path, past the secretary and straight into the senator's private room. It was Ninoy. When his entourage of burly bodyguards and assorted visitors momentarily stopped close to where I was seated, I smarted up and joined it. That got me safely into Ninoy's room and a seat at a wooden roundtable.
When Ninoy emerged through an opaque curtain, he immediately noticed the oddest visitor in the room. "You want something from me, boy?" he greeted me.
I said I wanted a job so I could go to college. I showed him my high school record. He was impressed and egged me on to go to college. I told him my parents were too poor. He asked where I was from. I told him, and then volunteered that my grandmother knew the Aquinos so well. He looked at me in the eye and paused for a second. He asked my grandmother's name, and as soon as he heard it, he bounded in two gigantic steps to where the secretary was and told her to give me a job in his office right away.
It was all fond and exceptional memories from there and until we met for the last time 25 years ago.
