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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Who Killed Ninoy? By Antonio C. Abaya Written August 24, 2004 For Manila Standard August 26 issue Even after 21 years, it can be said with certainty that Ninoy Aquino was not killed by the communists, nor by Rolando Galman, who was positioned under one of the engines of the jetliner, dressed as a maintenance mechanic, as Ninoy was led down the stairway by his military escort. Some nine hours after Ninoy�s assassination, President Marcos announced that Galman had been hired by the communists to kill Ninoy, but he was believed by no one. That Macoy was telling an obvious lie merely reinforced public perception that the assassination had been masterminded by someone in or close to Malacanang. The forensic evidence submitted to the trial court established that the trajectory of the fatal bullet was �forward, downward and medially�, the bullet entering Aquino�s skull near his left ear and exiting at his chin. This was consistent with the gun being fired at Aquino by someone behind him who was at a higher plane than he was, such as someone who was one or two steps behind him on a downward flight of stairs. Since they were of similar height, if Galman had indeed shot Aquino at ground level, as claimed by Marcos and his military, Galman would have been jumping up in the air, or holding his revolver above his own head, at the moment that the shot was fired. A ridiculous firing position for anyone, especially a cold-blooded assassin. So there is absolutely no doubt that Aquino was shot by one of his military escorts as he was being led down the stairway. Galman was shot as the fall guy so that Marcos would have his �communist� hit man to blame for the dastardly deed. And Galman was shot, not once like Ninoy with a pistol, but several times with assault rifles. They really wanted to make sure that Galman was daid. Dead men tell no tales. But live ones do. Interest is being fanned to re-open the Aquino-Galman double murder case, largely on the written testimony of one of the convicted conspirators, M/Sgt. Pablo Martinez, submitted to the Public Attorney�s Office. In his affidavit, Martinez claims that he had personal knowledge of the Aquino-Galman murder plot. He said he was tasked by Col. Romeo Ochoco, then deputy commander of the defunct Aviation Security Command or Avsecom; Brig. Gen. Romeo Gatan of the Constabulary; and Herminio Gosuico, a civilian businessman from Nueva Ecija, to escort Galman from a hotel near the airport to the tarmac, to await the arrival of Ninoy from Taipeh. Martinez said that two of the three men (not all three, as reported in some media) were associated with businessman Danding Cojuangco. (The records of the Agrava Fact-Finding Commission showed that Gosuico, along with Air Force Col. Arturo Custodio and two others, fetched Galman from his house in San Miguel, Bulacan, on Aug.17, 1983.) This is not the first time that Martinez has made public his involvement in the plot. In March 1995, in one of a series of eight articles by Raymond C. Burgos in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Martinez revealed that his mission, as spelled out by Col. Ochoco, was, in the event that Galman failed to shoot Aquino, to kill Galman and then finish off Aquino. Martinez said he and Galman were briefed on the assassination plot at the Carlston Hotel near the domestic airport on the night of Aug. 20, 1983. Present at that briefing were Gen. Gatan, Col. Ochoco and Gosuico. That evening, Ochoco gave Galman a .357 Magnum revolver, while Martinez was given a Smith & Wesson .38 cal .revolver. (There is no space here to go into all the details. Watch out for them in www.tapatt.org.) Martinez said that on the morning of Aug. 21, two female friends of Galman dropped by to have breakfast with him and Galman. It was the first and last time that he, Martinez, saw the two women. Several days after the assassination, he saw their pictures in the newspapers; they had been reported missing. The two women turned out to be Galman�s girlfriend Anna Oliva and her sister Catherine. They were snatched by unidentified men from their workplace on Sept. 4, 1983 and were never seen alive again. Their remains were later exhumed from a sugarcane field in Capas, Tarlac in 1988. Galman�s wife Lina Lazaro was picked up by two men from her house on Jan. 29, 1984 and was never seen again. During the Agrava Fact-Finding inquiry, Gosuico was identified as one of those two men by Galman�s son Reynaldo and stepdaughter Roberta Masibay. Clearly, Martinez� mention of Ochoco�s and Gatan�s participation in the assassination plot constituted new evidence since the two were never indicted in the Agrava Fact Finding inquiry nor in the Sandigambayan trial that convicted the 16 soldiers. But the case was not reopened in 1995 despite the efforts of then Sen. Blas Ople and then state prosecutor (now Justice Secretary) Raul Gonzalez. In another series of articles by Burgos in the Inquirer in August 1995, Gonzalez was quoted that the government could have won more convictions if then President Corazon Aquino �had shown as much enthusiasm and interest in her husband�s murder trial as in her libel case against (then Philippine Star) columnist (now dead) Luis Beltran.� This statement must be taken in the context of Rep. Noynoy Aquino�s repeated demurrals over the past few years that his uncle Danding Couangco had anything to do with the assassination of his father Ninoy, while no less than one of the convicted conspirators has issued statements and signed affidavits, apparently without anyone pressuring him to do so, that Danding had something to do with it. Are we seeing here an attempt to hide � or at least to prevent from being made public - some dirty linens in the interconnected family closets of the Aquinos and Cojuangcos? After all, some of those who knew him well say that despite his well-deserved status as hero and martyr, Ninoy was no saint or angel. In a letter to then President Fidel Ramos dated Jan 19, 1994, and quoted by Burgos in his Inquirer story of March 13, 1995, M/Sgt. Martinez wrote �The men who engineered the assassination were Gen. Romeo Gatan, Mr. Hermilo (sic) �Boy� Gosuico (who) were both men of Danding Cojuangco, while Col. Romeo Ochoco was the man of Gen. Fabian Ver, AFP chief-of-staff, during that period��I wrote this handwritten testimony of mine to reveal some cover-up information which were not revealed during the inquisition in court�.� Needless to say, President Ramos did nothing to reopen the case despite the new information from Martinez. According to Burgos in the Inquirer of August 21, 2004, Gen. Gatan died of a heart ailment at an unspecified date. Col. Ochoco stayed in the Air Force even after Edsa 1, but left for the US shortly before the Sandigambayan convicted the 16 conspirators and has lived in California (Stockton, if I recall) since. Gosuico died �a few years ago.� He was one of the original 26 principal suspects but was acquitted by the Sandigambayan. Acquitted? The man who was one of those who fetched Galman from Bulacan on Aug. 17, who was present at the last-minute briefing of the designated assassin on Aug. 20, and who was one of those who picked up Galman�s wife Liza on Jan. 27, 1984����.this man was acquitted? What do Filipino investigators and prosecutors have between their ears? Taho? Whether or not �millionaire businessman� Gosuico was really a �man� of Cojuangco, as Martinez claims, he appears to be THE key element in this puzzle. And yet no one in media, not even Burgos and the Inquirer, seems to have been inquisitive enough to inquire what a civilian like him was doing messing around with military gorillas, how he amassed his alleged millions, who his business principals and customers were, what his connections were with Cojuangco, if any, and why he was involved in an assassination. Did he die of illness or accident, or was he eliminated because he knew too much? A perfect project for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Unless they are afraid of losing their endowment from San Miguel. This seems to be part of our Freedom of Depress. I have always been convinced that Ninoy was assassinated because he was seen as a spoiler of someone�s plans to succeed the dying Marcos. According to Today of August 20, 2004, Martinez stated in his affidavit that Ochoco talked to him one month before Ninoy�s arrival. �Ochoco allegedly said that Ninoy would be the next president of the country, being Marcos� choice as successor. However, he was told by Ochoco that people around Marcos were displeased by his decision, and wanted Aquino assassinated upon his arrival�.� In 1983, only two individuals were in place and ambitious and powerful enough to aspire to succeed Ferdinand Marcos: his wife Imelda and his crony Danding, with Fabian Ver a very unlikely third. Who killed Ninoy? Col. Ochoco knows. An in-depth profile of the late Gosuico would likely also show. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Who Killed Ninoy?� Dear Mr Abaya, You raised many intriguing points in your article. May I add some more to make it more interesting? First is we seem to be accepting the line of the forensic experts as to the trajectory of the bullet etc. What would have been the result if an independent study was made by an independent forensic expert. The line of the investigation, after all, was pusued along the lines of this very crucial report. WHo were the forensic experts and what were their affiliations, that we would base an entire course of action on their study? From what I understand, the family if the victim did not get their own. There were many references about deaths of persons who appeared involved in the plot. Circumstances of their death were vague. Why was Col Rolly Abadilla not mentioned? If I remember correctly, during that episode he was among those sighted at the airport. From my knowledge of how he operated he never operated alone - always thru his deputies....... And one day he was gunned down. Is there a pattern? (Name and email address withheld) August 27, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww . Dear Tony, Interesting piece you've got on who killed Ninoy. My take on this is that the Cojuangcos, with the consent of Cory, would rather avoid implicating Danding for this could rip the entire Cojuangco family apart. FVR would not do anything to reopen the case during his term for this may affect his business ties with Danding and his dealings with former military men of Marcos. Again, Ninoy could be sacrificed for the Cojuangcos' material needs and political ambitions. In hindsight, this strategy to assassinate Ninoy was not only well conceived but brilliant; it provided enough reason to give Marcos the boot; Marcos wanted to remain as a dictator for life. Ninoy did not become president but a Cojuangco did! Dr. Nestor Baylan, [email protected] August 27, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya: Thank you for this daring article. But I think that there are some other questions that must also be answered. In that widely distributed video in beta about Ninoy Aquino inside the China airplain that already landed at MIA, there is a part there where Ninoy says that "I am wearing a bullet proof vest, but if they shoot me in the head I am a goner..." Now, why was Ninoy already wearing a bullet proof vest? Did he know that there was already an assasin waiting for him at the Tarmac to shoot him presumably in the back or in the chest where the bullet would not kill him? And going further back. Why was Ninoy Aquino allowed to leave the United States when the U.S. authorities very well knew that he no longer had a passport since this was ordered cancelled by Marcos? Who provided Ninoy with a fake passport under the name of Marcial Bonifacio? How come the U.S. airport immigration officers allowed him to exit from the U.S. in a hired China Airlines airplain? Was it the influence of the CIA or the State Department or some high American authority that ordered his exit allowed? And who arranged the hiring of an entire airplane from the China Airlines when it should be known by the U.S. airport authorities that the one boarding it had a fake passport. Why all this connivance with Ninoy? Is it not possible that arrangements were made between Ninoy Aquino and the CIA so that he may pass or freely exit throught the U.S.A. airport without anybody questioning and stopping his exit when he was doing just that with a fake passport and a hired China Airline airplane? Are all these not a clear involvement of U.S. authorities in a clearly political intramural between Marcos and Ninoy Aquino? How come the MIA authorities allowed the landing of Ninoy Aquino's airplain when they knew very well that in it was a political figure coming in with a fake passport? Did the AGILE assets take over the MIA in spite of Marcos and his followers? Did those "secret agents", possibly foreign, who planted Rolando Galman at the Tarmac, and so vissibly at that, receive last minute orders on how to shoot Ninoy Aquino to ensure that he is killed in spite of his bullet proof vest? Indeed, how could Galman shoot Ninoy Aquino from the place where he was standing if he had not been killed 48 hours earlier due to his already boalted body? Is the mastermind of the assasination of Ninoy Aquino such a powerfull person, or so protected by no less than a foreign power, so as to even make it impossible for Cory Aquino, who was in Malaca�ang more than six years, to find out the matermind of this killing? Is it possible that Cory Auino does not still know, up to now, who reazlly masterminded the killing of Ninoy now that it is obvious that Marcos can not be that stupid to have Ninoy killed at noon and in an international airport at that? Is the killing of a hero like ninoy Aquino going to be unsolved as the Killing of Andres Bonifacio and Geenral Antonio Luna when it is evident that Emilio aguinaldo did not mastremind these killlings but another power that did not like Filipinos like these the moment they took over this country. On the other hand, the killing of Jos� Rizal is clear. And this is so because the Spaniards did not have him secretly assasinated, ---somethig they could have resorted to considering their power over these Islands. But they arrested Rizal publicly. They tried him publicly. They sentenced him publicly. They paraded him from Fort Santiago to Luneta publicly. And they shot him publicly. And we all know who killed Rizal. AND THIS IS SO BECAUSE THE SPANIARDS DID BELIEVE IN THEIR LAWS even if the execution of Dr. Rizal, as they admit today, was a terrible error, they went on with it in so transparent a manner. But right in the 20th century with all the "freedom and democracy" we have, with all the tchnology we have, we can not pinpoint who killed Ninoy Aquino or who ordered him killed and for what purpose. Now, is this progress or is it because our country is so thoroughly enslaved now more than ever before and so backward even if supposedly English speaking, that it can not even CREDIBLY solve a killing like that of Ninoy Aquino? Guillermo G�mez Rivera, [email protected] August 27, 2004-09-03 MY REPLY. You should not compare the execution of Rizal with the assassination of Ninoy. The trial and execution of Rizal was an official act of the Spanish Government and was therefore out in the open. The assassination of Ninoy was a Mafia-style execution and was carried out in the shadows even if it was done in broad daylight. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: I have my own theories about this question? If you like, we can discuss these sometime. Jose Osias, [email protected] August 27, 2004 MY REPLY. Let�s first have an outline of your theories by email. Then maybe we can discuss them sometime. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, You and I might not be old enough then but the Japanese collaboration issue was swept under the rugs because too many "repectable" Filipinos were indeed collaborators. Ross Tipon, [email protected] August 30, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww All very interesting stuff... I find this part hard to believe though: �Ochoco allegedly said that Ninoy would be the next president of the country, being Marcos� choice as successor. However, he was told by Ochoco that people around Marcos were displeased by his decision, and wanted Aquino assassinated upon his arrival�.� Maybe I was too young to understand at the time, but why the hell would Marcos choose Ninoy as his successor?? Paolo Reyes, [email protected] August 30, 2004 MY REPLY. Maybe, just maybe, Marcos, who nursed a grudging respect for frat-brod Ninoy, believed Ninoy would make a better president than Imelda or Danding. But I�m just guessing. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Forwarded to Tapatt) To : Debbie DuralizaAddress : The FREEMAN From : Delia A. Jurado Re : Article for FROM MY PLATEAU For: Aug. 25, 2004 Knowing Something We Don�t I can never forget a column written by one female columnist (either by D.M. or M.M.) of Philippine Star sometime back. The topic was about an article written by the present Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalez who wrote about his stint as the Tanodbayan of the Cory administration. Leading the government investigative body tasked to go after not only the killers of Ninoy Aquino but also the "brains" behind it all, Raul Gonzalez related that there was a potential witness who had some crucial evidence and was willing to testify but she would only do so under certain conditions. Gonzalez said he went up to see President Cory in Malacanang to discuss the terms this potential witness wanted-not only protection for herself but also that her three children be sent to the US for their safety and asylum. Pres. Cory then asked whom the potential witness was naming as behind the assassination of her husband Ninoy Aquino. Gonzalez mentioned the name and Pres. Cory immediately answered "Impossible. It cannot be." then refused the demand of that potential witness who eventually disappeared. Gonzalez was said to have lamented the fact that Pres. Cory exerted more energy in the libel case against Louie Beltran than finding the real killers of her husband. When Imelda Marcos had just arrived from the US and was eventually floating the idea of running for President in the 1992 elections I happened to be in Manila so I made an occasion to visit her at her Philippine Plaza Suite. The stalwarts of the KBL from all over the country were there, standing around trying to see Imelda. She was inside the connecting series of rooms somewhere but was taking some time to come out. After some time, it was getting to be lunchtime; I did not see the usual hospitality to prevail upon the visitors to stay for lunch. Dra. Disini, who is Imelda�s cousin, spotted me and we chatted. Finally, I leaned against her and whispered, " Of course you noticed that all the people in this room are waiting for money." In consternation, she pulled me into one of the rooms and shut the door, then whispered "There is no money. The times are still uncertain and Imelda�s sympathizers are being watched. One fast food company who regularly sends up meals suddenly is being investigated by the BIR." The leadership of the KBL at that time was taken over by Danding Cojuangco, who ahead of everyone else already announced his intention to run for President. The other KBL party leaders were not so comfortable with the prospect of Imelda running because it would effectively split the KBL voters and weaken their strength. As an astute politician, Imelda Marcos knew this but she still went ahead and run as a presidential candidate knowing quite well that she couldn�t win. She went into a campaign dogged by scarce logistics and a weak senatorial slate. The postmortem of her campaign has been described not so much that she lost but that she effectively drew KBL votes from Danding Cojuangco, who at that time was a strong contender for the presidency. Imelda Marcos must also know something we don�t. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |