The full text of the speech delivered by Manuel V. Pangilinan before the School of Humanities & School of Social Sciences at the Ateneo de Manila University on March 27, 2010.
Continue Leave a Comment April 5, 2010
NINOY AQUINO’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY
Church of the Gesu, Ateneo de Manila University
On behalf of our family, I would like to thank the Ateneo de Manila University for offering this mass for our parents today.
For twenty-five years, we have celebrated my father as a hero. On August 21, every year, we remember Ninoy Aquino as an exceptional individual who made an extraordinary sacrifice on behalf of his country and its people.
In many ways, however, Ninoy Aquino was very much like any other person. He was but an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary times. He was, like many of you here today, a father, a brother, a son, and a husband. He struggled with fear and uncertainty. During his long incarceration, he felt anger, despondency and desperation. At one point, he questioned his faith.
My father was not born a hero, but the choices he made would slowly set him apart from others who chose a less difficult path.
He could have chosen to be silent to escape those years of incarceration.
He could have allowed himself to be co-opted by Marcos and accepted a senior position with the ruling Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.
He could have remained in exile and in doing so, been spared the fate that awaited him at the airport upon arrival.
He could have lived a life of comfort, wealth and perhaps even power.
But as he wrote in the arrival speech that he did not get the chance to read on August 21, 1983 – my father made these difficult choices because he felt “it was my duty, as it is the duty of every Filipino, to suffer with his people especially in times of crisis.”
My father once said, “Pity the one who succeeds Marcos because of the enormity of the problems that he will inherit. He will be lucky if he is not booted out of Malacanang.” Little did my father know that this successor would be a she, his own wife, Cory Aquino.
After my father’s death, my mother could have chosen to remain in the background instead of inheriting the problems left by Marcos.
As president, she could have engaged in envelopmental journalism, agreed with the expediency of salvaging her violent oppositors, and accepted offers of collaboration from political survivors of the Marcos regime.
She could have extended the period of revolutionary government, ruled by fiat and enforced cooperation from difficult sectors.
However, to do so would have made her a traitor to everything she felt was true and right.
And so, she chose to stand in one of the most danger-fraught elections our country has seen, and survived a tumultuous and difficult term as president.
At the end of her term, she relinquished her post without hesitation, despite those who insisted she stay on.
Today, she can choose to be a simple grandmother, to enjoy her grandchildren and live a quiet life.
But time and again, my mother has chosen to stand up and speak out, even when many choose to keep silent.
Why does she do it? She has always answered me with a question often propounded during the 1978 elections:
“Kung hindi tayo, sino pa? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?”
Ninoy and Cory Aquino are the persons we celebrate today because of the way they decided to live their lives – to remain grounded in what is right, instead of what is merely convenient.
We have constantly been blessed with leaders who have led the way during times of darkness, provided answers to hard questions, and solutions to unresolved problems.
We celebrate those who have done so in the past, and remember them for what they have contributed to our collective memory, experience, and history.
In the years of martial law, this institution provided me the moral grounding to understand my parents’ actions. It stood tall despite persecution and, true to the tenets of liberation theology, championed the cause of the oppressed in defiance of their oppressors. Indeed, it has played a vital role in molding me into the person that I am today.
Doing right by our fellow men should be most natural to us, but somehow it has become something difficult, and to some, almost unthinkable.
Today, twenty-five years after my father’s death, a quarter of a century after we overcame one of the darkest periods of our country’s history, I had hoped that choosing the difficult right over the convenient wrong would be easier, almost instinctive, or even unnecessary.
However, it saddens me to find that this has not been the case so far.
The deafening silence from many whom I look up to has made me question the existence of absolutes as taught to me by this institution, and to ask whether these have now been replaced by changeable parameters of that which is considered true.
I am thankful for the likes of Bishop Lagdameo, Bishop Cenzon, Ateneo’s own Fr. Arevalo, Fr. Magadia, Fr. Manoling Francisco and Fr. Joaquin Bernas, whose clarity of actions have been both heartening and inspiring. Their continuous and consistent pronouncements in support of what is true and what is right have revitalized my faith and belief that we are a truly universal Church, one that does not change its truths as quickly as the wind changes its direction.
I am told that my father was an extremely precocious child – one that was able to enthrall members of his household with his oratory skills at 7 years. At that young age, everyone already envisioned that he would be a good politician like his own father.
What they – nor he – did not envision, however, was that he would, one day, seemingly carry on his solitary shoulders the problems created by the nightmare that was martial law.
He faced each challenge that came his way squarely, confident that God would provide all that he would need to succeed.
He did this, not out of a fierce ideological or fanatical belief.
He did this because it was his dream that future generations would be spared from the trials and tribulations that he had to face.
Ikinalulungkot ko na sa halip na tayo’y sumulong matapos ng dalawampu’t limang taon, eh tila yata umatras tayo.
Ang dapat malinaw ay parating pinalalabo.
Ang panlilinlang at kasinungalingan ay pilit na ipinapalit sa katotohanan.
Sa halip na tao at bayan ang pagsilbihan, marami ang nag-aalay ng sarili sa altar ng salapi at kapangyarihan.
Sa halip na tularan natin ang mga tao na tinuturing natin bilang bayani ay tila yata tinutularan natin ang tatlong matsing na walang na—tang masama, walang naririnig na masama, at walang nasasabing masama.
Tayo ang lumilikha ng ating kasalukuyan at ng ating kinabukasan. Kaya’t sa pagkakataong ito, nais kong ulitin ang tanong na namayagpag noong 1978:
Kung hindi tayo, sino pa? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?
Maraming salamat po.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
The speech that Mr. John Gokongwei delivered at the 20th Ad Congress.
Before I begin, I want to say please bear with me, an 81-year-old man who just flew in from San Francisco 36 hours ago and is still suffering from jet lag. However, I hope I will be able to say what you want to hear…
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Thank you very much for having me here tonight to open the Ad Congress. I know how important this event is for our marketing and advertising colleagues. My people get very excited and go into a panic, every other year, at this time.
I would like to talk about my life, entrepreneurship, and globalization. I would like to talk about how we can become a great nation.
You may wonder how one is connected to the other, but I promise that, as there is truth in advertising, the connection will come.
Let me begin with a story I have told many times. My own.
I was born to a rich Chinese-Filipino family. I spent my childhood in Cebu where my father owned a chain of movie houses, including the first air-conditioned one outside Manila. I was the eldest of six children and lived in a big house in Cebu’s Forbes Park.
A chauffeur drove me to school everyday as I went to San Carlos University, then and still one of the country’s top schools. I topped my classes and had many friends. I would bring them to watch movies for free at my father’s movie houses.
When I was 13, my father died suddenly of complications due to typhoid. Everything I enjoyed vanished instantly. My father’s empire was built on credit. When he died, we lost everything—our big house, our cars, our business—to the banks.
I felt angry at the world for taking away my father, and for taking away all that I enjoyed before. When the free movies disappeared, I also lost half my friends. On the day I had to walk two miles to school for the very first time, I cried to my mother, a widow at 32.
But she said: “You should feel lucky. Some people have no shoes to walk to school. What can you do? Your father died with 10 centavos in his pocket.”
So, what can I do? I worked.
My mother sent my siblings to China where living standards were lower. She and I stayed in Cebu to work, and we sent them money regularly. My mother sold her jewelry. When that ran out, we sold roasted peanuts in the backyard of our much-smaller home. When that wasn’t enough, I opened a small stall in a palengke.
I chose one among several palengkes a few miles outside the city because there were fewer goods available for the people there. I woke up at five o’clock every morning for the long bicycle ride to the palengke with my basket of goods.
There, I set up a table about three feet by two feet in size. I laid out my goods—soap, candles, and thread—and kept selling until everything was bought. Why these goods? Because these were hard times and this was a poor village, so people wanted and needed the basics—soap to keep them clean, candles to light the night, and thread to sew their clothes.
I was surrounded by other vendors, all of them much older. Many of them could be my grandparents. And they knew the ways of the palengke far more than a boy of 15, especially one who had never worked before.
But being young had its advantages. I did not tire as easily, and I moved more quickly.
I was also more aggressive. After each day, I would make about 20 pesos in profit! There was enough to feed my siblings and still enough to pour back into the business. The pesos I made in the palengke were the pesos that went into building the business I have today.
After this experience, I told myself, “If I can compete with people so much older than me, if I can support my whole family at 15, I can do anything!”
Looking back, I wonder, what would have happened if my father had not left my family with nothing? Would I have become the man I am? Who knows?
The important thing to know is that life will always deal us a few bad cards. But we have to play those cards the best we can. And WE can play to win!
This was one lesson I picked up when I was a teenager. It has been my guiding principle ever since. And I have had 66 years to practice self-determination. When I wanted something, the best person to depend on was myself.
And so I continued to work.
In 1943, I expanded and began trading goods between Cebu and Manila. From Cebu, I would transport tires on a small boat called a batel. After traveling for five days to Lucena, I would load them into a truck for the six- hour trip to Manila. I would end up sitting on top of my goods so they would not be stolen!
In Manila, I would then purchase other goods from the earnings I made from the tires, to sell in Cebu. Then, when WWII ended, I saw the opportunity for trading goods in post-war Philippines.
I was 20 years old. With my brother Henry, I put up Amasia Trading which imported onions, flour, used clothing, old newspapers and magazines, and fruits from the United States.
In 1948, my mother and I got my siblings back from China. I also converted a two-story building in Cebu to serve as our home, office, and warehouse all at the same time. The whole family began helping out with the business.
In 1957, at age 31, I spotted an opportunity in corn-starch manufacturing. But I was going to compete with Ludo and Luym, the richest group in Cebu and the biggest cornstarch manufacturers. I borrowed money to finance the project.
The first bank I approached made me wait for two hours, only to refuse my loan. The second one, China Bank, approved a P500,000-peso clean loan for me.
Years later, the banker who extended that loan, Dr. Albino Sycip said that he saw something special in me. Today, I still wonder what that was, but I still thank Dr. Sycip to this day.
Upon launching our first product, Panda corn starch, a price war ensued. After the smoke cleared, Universal Corn Products was still left standing. It is the foundation upon which JG Summit Holdings now stands.
Interestingly, the price war also forced the closure of a third cornstarch company, and one of their chemists was Lucio Tan, who always kids me that I caused him to lose his job. I always reply that if it were not for me, he will not be one of the richest men in the Philippines today.
When my business grew, and it was time for me to bring in more people–my family, the professionals, the consultants, more employees–I knew that I had to be there to teach them what I knew.
When dad died at age 34, he did not leave a succession plan. From that, I learned that one must teach people to take over a business at any time.
The values of hard work that I learned from my father, I taught to my children. They started doing jobs here and there even when they were still in high school. Six years ago, I announced my retirement and handed the reins to my youngest brother James and only son Lance.
But my children tease me because I still go to the office every day and make myself useful. I just hired my first Executive Assistant and moved into a bigger and nicer office.
Building a business to the size of JG Summit was not easy. Many challenges were thrown my way. I could have walked away from them, keeping the business small, but safe. Instead, I chose to fight.
But this did not mean I won each time.
By 1976, at age 50, we had built significant businesses in food products anchored by a branded coffee called Blend 45, and agro-industrial products under the Robina Farms brand.
That year, I faced one of my biggest challenges, and lost. And my loss was highly publicized, too. But I still believe that this was one of my defining moments.
In that decade, not many business opportunities were available due to the political and economic environment. Many Filipinos were already sending their money out of the country.
As a Filipino, I felt that our money must be invested here. I decided to purchase shares in San Miguel, then one of the Philippines’ biggest corporations.
By 1976, I had acquired enough shares to sit on its board.
The media called me an upstart. “Who is Gokongwei and why is he doing all those terrible things to San Miguel?” ran one headline of the day. In another article, I was described as a pygmy going up against the powers-that- be.
The San Miguel board of directors itself even paid for an ad in all the country’s top newspapers telling the public why I should not be on the board.
On the day of reckoning, shareholders quickly filled up the auditorium to witness the battle. My brother James and I had prepared for many hours for this debate. We were nervous and excited at the same time.
In the end, I did not get the board seat because of the Supreme Court Ruling. But I was able to prove to others–and to myself–that I was willing to put up a fight. I succeeded because I overcame my fear, and tried. I believe this battle helped define who I am today.
In a twist to this story, I was invited to sit on the board of Anscor and San Miguel Hong Kong 5 years later. Lose some, win some.
Since then, I’ve become known as a serious player in the business world, but the challenges haven’t stopped coming.
Let me tell you about the three most recent challenges. In all three, conventional wisdom bet against us. See, we set up businesses against market Goliaths in very high-capital industries: airline, telecoms, and beverage.
Challenge No. 1: In 1996, we decided to start an airline.
At the time, the dominant airline in the country was PAL, and if you wanted to travel cheaply, you did not fly. You went by sea or by land.
However, my son Lance and I had a vision for Cebu Pacific: We wanted every Filipino to fly.
Inspired by the low-cost carrier models in the United States, we believed that an airline based on the no-frills concept would work here. No hot meals. No newspaper. Mono-class seating. Operating with a single aircraft type. Faster turn around time.
It all worked, thus enabling Cebu Pacific to pass on savings to the consumer.
How did we do this? By sticking to our philosophy of “low cost, great value.”
And we stick to that philosophy to this day. Cebu Pacific offers incentives. Customers can avail themselves of a tiered pricing scheme, with promotional seats for as low a P1. The earlier you book, the cheaper your ticket.
Cebu Pacific also made it convenient for passengers by making online booking available. This year, 1.25 million flights will be booked through our website. This reduced our distribution costs dramatically. Low cost. Great value.
When we started 11 years ago, Cebu Pacific flew only 360,000 passengers, with 24 daily flights to 3 destinations. This year, we expect to fly more than five million passengers, with over 120 daily flights to 20 local destinations and 12 Asian cities.
Today, we are the largest in terms of domestic flights, routes and destinations. We also have the youngest fleet in the region after acquiring new Airbus 319s and 320s. In January, new ATR planes will arrive.
These are smaller planes that can land on smaller air strips like those in Palawan and Caticlan. Now you don’t have to take a two-hour ride by mini-bus to get to the beach.
Largely because of Cebu Pacific, the average Filipino can now afford to fly. In 2005, 1 out of 12 Filipinos flew within a year. In 2012, by continuing to offer low fares, we hope to reduce that ratio to 1 out of 6. We want to see more and more Filipinos see their country and the world!
Challenge No. 2: In 2003, we established Digitel Mobile Philippines, Inc. and developed a brand for the mobile phone business called Sun Cellular.
Prior to the launch of the brand, we were actually involved in a transaction to purchase PLDT shares of the majority shareholder.
The question in everyone’s mind was how we could measure up to the two telecom giants. They were entrenched and we were late by eight years! PLDT held the landline monopoly for quite a while, and was first in the mobile phone industry.
Globe was a younger company, but it launched digital mobile technology here.
But being a late player had its advantages. We could now build our platform from a broader perspective. We worked with more advanced technologies and intelligent systems not available ten years ago. We chose our suppliers based on the most cost-efficient hardware and software.
Being a Johnny-come- lately allowed us to create and launch more innovative products, more quickly.
All these provided us with the opportunity to give the consumers a choice that would rock their world.
The concept was simple. We would offer Filipinos to call and text as much as they want for a fixed monthly fee. For P250 a month, they could get in touch with anyone within the Sun network at any time. This means great savings of as much as 2/3 of their regular phone bill! Suddenly, we gained traction.
Within one year of its introduction, Sun hit one million customers.
Once again, the paradigm shifts – this time in the telecom industry. Sun’s 24/7 Call and Text unlimited changed the landscape of mobile-phone usage.
Today, we have over 4 million subscribers and 2000 cell sites around the archipelago. In a country where 97% of the market is pre-paid, we believe we have hit on the right strategy.
Sun Cellular is a Johnny-come- lately, but it’s doing all right. It is a third player, but a significant one, in an industry where Cassandras believed a third player would perish.
And as we have done in the realm of air travel, so have we done in the telecom world: We
have changed the marketplace. In the end, it is all about making life better for the consumer by giving them choices.
Challenge No. 3: In 2004, we launched C2, the green tea drink that would change the face of the local beverage industry — then, a playground of cola companies.
Iced tea was just a sugary brown drink served bottomless in restaurants. For many years, hardly was there any significant product innovation in the beverage business.
Admittedly, we had little experience in this area. Universal Robina Corporation is the leader in snack foods but our only background in beverage was instant coffee. Moreover, we would be entering the playground of huge multinationals.
We decided to play anyway.
It all began when I was in China in 2003 and noticed the immense popularity of bottled iced tea. I thought that this product would have huge potential here. We knew that the Philippines was not a traditional tea-drinking country since more familiar to consumers were colas in returnable glass bottles.
But precisely, this made the market ready for a different kind of beverage. One that refreshes yet gives the health benefits of green tea.
We positioned it as a “spa” in a bottle. A drink that cools and cleans…thus, C2 was born.
C2 immediately caught on with consumers. When we launched C2 in 2004, we sold 100,000 bottles in the first month. Three years later, Filipinos drink around 30 million bottles of C2 per month. Indeed, C2 is in a good place.
With Cebu Pacific, Sun Cellular, and C2, the JG Summit team took control of its destiny. And we did so in industries where old giants had set the rules of the game. It’s not that we did not fear the giants. We knew we could have been crushed at the word go.
So we just made sure we came prepared with great products and great strategies. We ended up changing the rules of the game instead.
There goes the principle of self-determination, again. I tell you, it works for individuals as it does for companies. And as I firmly believe, it works for nations.
I have always wondered, like many of us, why we Filipinos have not lived up to our potential.
We have proven we can. Manny Pacquiao and Efren Bata Reyes in sports. Lea Salonga and the UP Madrigal Singers in performing arts. Monique Lhuillier and Rafe Totenco in fashion.
And these are just the names made famous by the media. There are many more who may not be celebrities but who have gained respect on the world stage.
But to be a truly great nation, we must also excel as entrepreneurs before the world. We must create Filipino brands for the global market place.
If we want to be philosophical, we can say that, with a world-class brand, we create pride for our nation. If we want to be practical, we can say that, with brands that succeed in the world, we create more jobs for our people, right here.
Then, we are able to take part in what’s really important—giving our people a big opportunity to raise their standards of living, giving them a real chance to improve their lives.
We can do it. Our neighbors have done it. So can we.
In the last 54 years, Korea worked hard to rebuild itself after a world war and a civil war destroyed it. From an agricultural economy in 1945, it shifted to light industry, consumer products, and heavy industry in the ’80s.
At the turn of the 21st century, the Korean government focused on making Korea the world’s leading IT nation. It did this by grabbing market share in key sectors like semiconductors, robotics, and biotechnology.
Today, one remarkable Korean brand has made it to the list of Top 100 Global Brands: Samsung.
Less then a decade ago, Samsung meant nothing to consumers. By focusing on quality, design, and innovation, Samsung improved its products and its image. Today, it has surpassed the Japanese brand Sony.
Now another Korean brand, LG Collins, is following in the footsteps of Samsung. It has also broken into the Top 100 Global Brands list.
What about China? Who would have thought that only 30 years after opening itself up to a market economy, China would become the world’s fourth largest economy?
Goods made in China are still thought of as cheap. Yet many brands around the world outsource their manufacturing to this country. China’s own brands—like Lenovo, Haier, Chery QQ, and Huawei—are fast gaining ground as well. I have no doubt they will be the next big electronics, technology and car brands in the world.
Lee Kwan Yu’s book “From Third World to First” captures Singapore’s aspiration to join the First World. According to the book, Singapore was a trading post that the British developed as a nodal point in its maritime empire.
The racial riots there made its officials determined to build a “multiracial society that would give equality to all citizens, regardless of race, language or religion.”
When Singapore was asked to leave the Malaysian Federation of States in 1965, Lee Kwan Yew developed strategies that he executed with single-mindedness despite their being unpopular. He and his cabinet started to build a nation by establishing the basics: building infrastructure, establishing an army, weeding out corruption, providing mass housing, building a financial center.
Forty short years after, Singapore has been transformed into the richest South East Asian country today, with a per capita income of US$32,000.
These days, Singapore is transforming itself once more. This time it wants to be the creative hub in Asia, maybe even the world. More and more, it is attracting the best minds from all over the world in filmmaking, biotechnology, media, and finance.
Meantime, Singaporeans have also created world-class brands: Banyan Tree in the hospitality industry, Singapore Airlines in the Airline industry and Singapore Telecoms in the telco industry.
I often wonder: Why can’t the Philippines, or a Filipino, do this?
Fifty years after independence, we have yet to create a truly global brand. We cannot say the Philippines is too small because it has 86 million people.
Switzerland, with 9 million people, created Nestle. Sweden, also with 9 million people, created Ericsson. Finland, even smaller with five million people, created Nokia.
All three are major global brands, among others.
Yes, our country is well-known for its labor, as we continue to export people around the world. And after India, we are grabbing a bigger chunk of the pie in the call-center and Business Process Outsourcing industries.
But by and large, the Philippines has no big industrial base, and Filipinos do not create world-class products.
We should not be afraid to try—even if we are laughed at.
Japan, laughed at for its cars, produced Toyota. Korea, for its electronics, produced Samsung. Meanwhile, the Philippines’ biggest companies 50 years ago—majority of which are multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble, and Unilever Philippines, for example—are still the biggest companies today.
There are very few big, local challengers. But already, hats off to Filipino entrepreneurs making strides to globalize their brands.
Goldilocks has had much success in the Unites States and Canada, where half of its customers are non-Filipinos. Coffee-chain Figaro may be a small player in the coffee world today, but it is making the leap to the big time.
Two Filipinas, Bea Valdez and Tina Ocampo, are now selling their Philippine-made jewelry and bags all over the world. Their labels are now at Barney’s and Bergdorf’s in the U.S. and in many other high-end shops in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
When we started our own foray outside the Philippines 30 years ago, it wasn’t a walk in the park. We set up a small factory in Hong Kong to manufacture Jack and Jill potato chips there.
Today, we are all over Asia. We have the number-one-potato- chips brand in Malaysia and Singapore. We are the leading biscuit manufacturer in Thailand, and a significant player in the candy market in Indonesia.
Our Aces cereal brand is a market leader in many parts of China. C2 is now doing very well in Vietnam, selling over 3 million bottles a month there, after only 6 months in the market. Soon, we will launch C2 in other South East Asian markets.
I am 81 today. But I do not forget the little boy that I was in the palengke in Cebu. I still believe in family. I still want to make good. I still don’t mind going up against those older and better than me. I still believe hard work will not fail me. And I still believe in people willing to think the same way.
Through the years, the market place has expanded: between cities, between countries, between continents. I want to urge you all here to think bigger.
Why serve 86 million when you can sell to four billion Asians? And that’s just to start you off. Because there is still the world beyond Asia.
When you go back to your offices, think of ways to sell and market your products and services to the world. Create world-class brands. You can if you really tried. I did.
As a boy, I sold peanuts from my backyard. Today, I sell snacks to the world.
I want to see other Filipinos do the same.
Thank you and good evening once again.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
John Gokongwei’s speech at the Ateneo on entrepreneurship
Good morning.
I am John Gokongwei, Jr. I am not an Atenean but I feel at home with you. Today, at least. Sixty-two years ago, I could not have dreamt of appearing before the Jesuits and their students to tell the story of MY life. I was no more than a student then, at San Carlos University in Cebu, when my father died suddenly. It left me, the eldest, the responsibility of taking care of my mother and five siblings. That was tough for someone who was 13. Creditors had just seized our home and business and I had no experience with earning a living.
But here I am – not all on account of my good looks or charming personality but because I somehow survived. And when I look back, I know now that I did so because I recognized CHANGE when I saw it.
The first change was war. I had turned 15. My mother had already sent my brothers and sister to China where the cost of living was lower. From Cebu, she and I had to make money to send to them.
I turned to peddling. My day began at 5 in the morning. I would load my bicycle with soap, thread, and candles, and then bike to neighboring towns to sell my goods. On market days, I would rent a stall, lay out the goods from the bike, and make about 20 pesos a day, enough for me to survive and to buy even more goods for next time. Those days, you might call my BICYCLE AGE.
After two years of biking and peddling at 17, I entered my BATEL AGE. The batel was a small very utilitarian boat that defied the open sea and would take me farther from Cebu and all the way to Lucena, from where I would take a truck to Manila, with companions twice or thrice my age. The sea trips could take two to three weeks depending on the weather, and the land trips another five to six hours. (I was lighter then, you can imagine.) On the batel, I read books like “Gone with the Wind” under the great blue sky to pass away the time – even if we traders were always in fear of sea pirates and the bad weather.
Once, our batel hit a rock and sank. Thank heavens for my rubber tires! Those were the goods I had with me to sell in Manila. Well, we all held on to those tires, which meant I saved all those traders and those traders saved all my tires.
At that time, the War was still going on. Ironically, I look back at the War with the fondest of memories. It was the great equalizer. Almost everyone I knew had lost big and small fortunes at the time. This meant we all started at ground zero.
When the war ended, I was 19. Because of the war, the economy was more dependent than ever on imports. So when I set up Amasia, my first company, it was to import textile remnants, fruit, old newspaper and magazines, and used clothing from the U.S.
There was a side benefit to this. I would wear some of my own stock, so I would have different clothes to wear when I went courting Elizabeth, the woman who would be my wife. But at the end of it, I made some money. The Bicycle Age was over. The TRADING AGE began. By then, my brothers and sister returned from China. Together, we worked in the trading business I had begun – as bodegeros, clerks, warehousemen, cashiers, and collectors. And all this while they were all still going to school; me, I stopped schooling. Like most Chinese-Filipino families, we worked where we lived, and at times, we had to endure the stench of rotten oranges and potatoes filling our two-story apartment.
By the early ’50s, we were importing cigarettes and whiskey as well. Business was good. But two factors made me change strategies again. First, I saw that trading would in time become a low-margin business BECAUSE we were at the mercy of our suppliers and buyers. Second, I saw that the government was working on import-substitution policies to encourage local business. President Quirino wanted to shore up the country’s foreign exchange reserves that had been depleted as a result of the high importation of the post-war years.
So I decided to enter the AGE of MANUFACTURING. In 1957, I started a corn milling plant producing glucose and cornstarch. Why cornstarch? Because I thought – and it turned out, correctly – that the unglamorous cornstarch would be in great demand from better known businesses like textiles, paper, ice cream, pharmaceuticals, and beer.
But there was one problem: I needed capital. This was not easy. I was 30, had no big company success to back me up, and I didn’t know any bankers. Thankfully, Dr. Albino Sycip, then chairman of China Bank, and DK Chiong, then president, gave me a clean loan of P500,000 to start my business. He would be asked later why he did that and he said something about knowing a good man when he saw one. (Maybe he knew something I didn’t.) Anyway, from there Universal Corn Products, the predecessor of Universal Robina Corporation, was born.
Of course, the bigger cornstarch players did not give us an easy time. They engaged us in a price war. That is a nice way of saying they tried to kill us by selling low.
But we prevailed, and started to get clients like San Miguel Corporation. It was my first real taste of competition. And I liked it. I think THAT first experience prepared me for the bigger tougher competitors in my future.
By 1961, corn starch was becoming a commodity, and I saw that there was no future in a business where we had to keep lowering margins to survive. It was time to get into bigger, and riskier, games played by big multinationals like Procter and Gamble and Nestle. I saw that all they did to capture the market was to brand their products, for instance their coffee and their toothpaste. That is, give their coffee and toothpaste a name, a face, and an image that customers would instantly recognize – and identify with quality. Me, I dreamt that one day I would be the Philippine Nestle or General Foods. So the Manufacturing Age for me was giving way to the AGE of BRANDS.
So, we put up CFC, and our first successful product was Blend 45, an instant coffee we put out to directly compete with Nestle’s Nescafe. We positioned it as “the poor man’s coffee,” hired top movie star Susan Roces to endorse it, and employed Procter-and-Gamble veterans to sell it. Basically, we took a page out of the multinational book and applied it to our business. We gave our coffee, snack food, candy, and chocolates a name, a face, an image. Today, Jack and Jill, Max candy, and Cloud 9 have become household names. It was also at this time that I returned to school for an MBA – with all due respect to the Jesuits, at De La Salle University – and a decade later for a 14-week advanced management program at Harvard. Going back to the university for studies which war had interrupted gave me an appreciation, believe me, for the beauty and the breadth of business life. This is something I believe I would never have gained if I had chosen to stop my education. The success of URC opened up many opportunities for our group. We had the choice to focus on food where we were very successful – or to pursue other businesses. We decided that there were too many good opportunities to pass up, and that remaining in our comfort zone would stunt our growth. So we got into the Age of Expansion.
For the next two decades, we pursued businesses that answered positive on FOUR CRUCIAL QUESTIONS.
First: Is there a market?
Second: Could we compete against both local and foreign players?
Third: Could we find the right people for the job and did we have enough capital to pursue the business?
Last and most important: Did we have the stomach for it? That is, could we take the sleepless nights, the cutthroat competition?
We went into textiles, retail, real estate, telecommunications, aviation, banking, and petrochemicals because we said YES to all those questions. Still, in all those industries, we were faced with tough and worthy competitors – the mighty SM Department Stores and Malls, the unbeatable PLDT, the entrenched Philippine Airlines and the powerful San Miguel Corporation. Most pundits expected us to fail. They were wrong. Robinsons Stores and Mall, Digitel, Cebu Pacific Air and Universal Robina Corporation are now market leaders in their respective fields.
That’s because they offered the public a choice.
Remember the story of David and Goliath? Every industry has its Goliath. But every David knows that all giants have their weaknesses. Every weakness is an opportunity.
In a few months, we will launch our mobile services to compete with two giants, Globe and Smart. Our stomachs are churning for sure – but we know that we faced similar challenges before, and we are hopeful we can prove the pundits wrong again.
In the past decade, which is one-sixth of my entire business life, the company has tripled in size. This was the decade when our companies raised money from the global equity and debt markets, brought our companies public, and hired the best professionals to run them. In six decades, we grew from a one-man team to a group with 30,000 employees.
Now I am in what you can probably call the AGE of GLOBALIZATION. I am always asked where I stand on this issue. I say that it does NOT matter where I stand because as sure as the Ateneo Basketball Team will win next year’s UAAP championship, global barriers will come crashing down, and we have no choice but to prepare ourselves for that.
Still our company will not take globalization sitting down – OUR future and the country’s depend on how we act now. JG operates branded food concerns in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Hongkong, China, and soon, Vietnam. We also sell our snack foods in India, Korea, and Taiwan – one of the few ASEAN companies to do so.
In a few years, when foreign products find their way into OUR shopping carts as they already have, we want Piattos and Chippy to find their way into THEIR shopping carts as well. Our dream is to be the first group to plant the Philippine flag throughout Asia.
As I look back, I ask myself, “What if I had stopped at cornstarch?” I would probably be the owner of the biggest cornstarch group in the country today or just as possibly, be broke.
But I chose to live my life unafraid even during times when I WAS afraid. I discovered that opportunities don’t find you. You find your opportunities.
I found those opportunities when MY FATHER PASSED AWAY, WHEN WAR CAME, THROUGH CHANGES IN PRESIDENTS AND THEIR POLICIES, DURING MARTIAL LAW,DESPITE THE COUPS D’ ETAT, PAST ECONOMIC BOOMS AND BUSTS, AND IN THE MIDST OF MARKET SHIFTS AND MOVEMENTS.
Now I’m 75 and retired. And funny, but I often wonder what ever happened to my first bike! The bike that was my companion during those first years when my family had lost everything. I wonder where it is now. That bike reminds me that success is not necessarily about connections, or cutting corners, or chamba – the three C’s of bad business.
Call it trite – but, believe me, success CAN BE ACHIEVED through hard work, frugality, integrity, responsiveness to change – and most of all boldness to dream. These have never been just easy slogans for me. I have lived by them. I hope that many of you in this room will some day choose to be entrepreneurs. Choose to be an entrepreneur because then YOU create value. Choose to be an entrepreneur because the products, services, and jobs you create then becomes the lifeblood of our nation. But most of all, choose to be an entrepreneur because then you desire a life of adventure, endless challenge, and the opportunity to be your BEST SELF.
Thank you.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
Opening of the fifth Regular Session of the Congress of the Philippines
July 22, 1991
In March 1973, six months after the declaration of martial law, Ninoy Aquino was taken blindfolded from Fort Bonifacio and brought to a place he did not know. He was stripped naked and thrown into a cell. His only human contact was a jailer. The immediate prospect, in such a place, was a midnight execution in front of a grave dug by himself.
The purpose was clear as it was diabolical. It was not to kill him yet, but to break him first – and with him break the compelling proof that men can stand up to a dictatorship.
He came close to giving up, he told me; he slipped in and out of despair. But a power that must have been God held him together. He remembered the words of the epistle, God chose the weak to confound the strong.
On the third anniversary of his incarceration in Laur, the recollection of his pain gave birth to a poem of hope. This is the poem he wrote:
I am the burning candle of my
Life in the dark
With no one to benefit
From the light.
The candle slowly melts away;
Soon its wick will be burned out
And the light is gone.
If someone will only gather
The melted was, re-shape it,
Give it a new wick –
For another fleeting moment
My candle once again
Light the dark,
Be of service
One more time,
And then…goodbye.
This is the anguish of good men: that the good they do will come to nothing. That pains suffered in obscurity or sacrifices made away from the sight of men, amount to shame, and mock the man or woman who bears them.
Mr. Senate President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Congress, distinguished guests, my countrymen:
That is not true. None of the good that we do is ever lost; not even the light in an empty room is wasted.
From Ninoy’s burnt-out candle, and thousands like it in cells throughout the garrison state, we gathered the melted wax and made more candles. To burn – not as long in such loneliness – but much more brightly all together, as to banish the darkness, and light us to a new day.
You might ask: When will the president stop invoking Ninoy’s name? My answer is, When a president stands here other than by Ninoy’s grace. And not while gratitude is nourished by memory. Not while we acknowledge that it was his sacrifice that gave us back our freedom. And restored the freely elected office whose incumbent must stand every year in this place.
Five years have passed. My term is ending. And so is yours. As we came, so should we go. With grateful acknowledgement to the man who made it possible for us to be here. A man who discovered hope in the starkest despair, and has something yet to teach a country facing adversity again.
It would be foolish to ignore what is staring us in the face:
Our march of progress brought us far, but such misfortunes have come upon us to make us feel that we are not much farther from where we started.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo is the biggest in this century. Abroad, its effect is so far-reaching as to lower the temperature of the earth. At home, it is so devastating it knocked off 80,000 productive hectares from our agriculture, and destroyed the commerce of at least three provinces. Hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes and livelihoods, and thrown on the kindness of relatives and countrymen, and on the solicitude of the state. It was an event so powerful it wiped out the largest military base in the Pacific, and changed the nature of our relationship with an old ally. In the wake of the volcanic eruption, more has been revealed about that relationship than was covered by its ash.
Before Pinatubo, there was the typhoon that cut a wide swathe of destruction across the southern regions. And before that was the Killer Quake that cut off the northern parts of the country, destroying billions of pesos in infrastructure, causing the loss of billions more in foregone economic activities. It leveled the City of Pines and buried children in the rubble of yet another city.
But those natural calamities were preceded by another entirely the work of human hands: the massive December 1989 military revolt that cut short a second economic recovery, after the dislocation caused by the earlier August 1987 coup attempt. That one strangled the powerful rebound of the Philippine economy after the EDSA Revolution.
I mention these calamities not to excuse the perceived shortcomings of my administration nor to brag about my indestructibility. I mention them so that we know where we are, and why we are here, and the exact requirements of the task to build up this country yet again.
I mention them because I will compare them with what we had and lost, and then I will ask, Was it all in vain? And I will answer, it was not; no more than a hero’s life is wasted.
By 1985, the economy has contracted considerably, its rate of growth had been negative for two consecutive years. The country was at a standstill, as if waiting only for the last rites to be performed. By 1986, we had turned the economy around – in less that a year. We improved on that performance the year after.
The rate of unemployment was reduced, the volume of new investments significantly increased. New industrial projects were introduced, hitherto idle industrial capacity was fully utilized. The foundation of new regional industrial zones was laid. Public infrastructure and services strained under the load of expanding economic activity.
I mention this, not to offset the shortcomings of the present with the achievements of the past. I mention it to show what can be done in such a short time, and how much improvement was made from conditions far worse that what we have today – the dictator’s apologists notwithstanding, that the country is worse off now than when he and his wife were stealing the country blind.
This progress was cut off by the August ’87 coup attempt. But the economy quickly rallied, and in two years recovered a great deal of the ground we had lost. We were on the verge of a second take-off when the December 1989 coup broke out. It drained the last drop of confidence in our future from all but the hardiest spirits, and shattered our image abroad.
Still we persevered, achieving gains that, admittedly, continue to fall short of the galloping needs of a fast growing population, but real gains nonetheless:
Improved health care, increased housing, and – one of the proudest achievements we share with the legislature – free secondary education. 660,000 youth immediately availed themselves of it; another 200,000 private school students received scholarship grants under another recent law. 80,000 new classrooms have been built: the first preparation of the nation for the future of economic competition, which will take place in the highly educated minds of the youth.
We have made the first serious effort to arrest environmental degradation – already so far advanced in the previous regime that it set up an agency that did nothing about it, anyway. We have pushed agrarian reform beyond the point of no return, almost completing its coverage of rice and corn. Its extension to other agricultural activities is proceeding at a pace consistent with out resolve to achieve for the farmer the prosperity promised by agrarian reform, and not just its bare legal implementation.
Indeed, we started to make up our losses, and kept on going through the Gulf crisis which doubled the price of energy and introduced the element of a tremendous uncertainty, not only about our economy, but that of the world as well.
You might ask, Having lost so much easily, what was the worth of all that effort?
With such reversals of fortune, is progress for our country a hope in vain?
Paul says that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character hope. The good we do is never lost. Some of it remains, if not in material goods, then in a deeper experience, a more practiced hand, and a spirit made stronger by that which failed to break it – stronger to meet greater challenges ahead.
But in one thing we grew from strength to strength – in the enlargement of our democratic space and the strengthening of our democracy.
Every calamity tested the capacity of democracy to absorb distress, find relief, and meet the absolute necessities of the people without the least curtailment of freedom or compromise of rights.
Against our economic gains that are ever hostages to fortune, stands on steadfast, unalloyed achievement: our democracy. Destined, I believe, to outlive our problems and deck with the graces of liberty the material progress of our future. That achievement is better seen from the disinterested distance of foreign admirers, than from the myopic view of those at home who wish to destroy it. It is an achievement entirely in our power to preserve and enhance.
Visitors from the new Germany asked me what things strengthen democracy. Economic progress, naturally, I said. But the attainment of that depends on external factors more than on the will of a developing country. But there is a way to strengthen democracy that is within any country’s reach. That is through the empowerment of the people. This is obvious to a government like ours that came to power by its means, as well as to a people like the Germans who attained complete freedom in the same way.
But empowering the people means more than just giving them elections of every three years. It means enlarging their contact with government beyond elections to its daily workings – so that the vast resources of one support the initiatives of the other, and the policies of government are refined by the insights of the people. Ngunit ang pagkaloob ng kapangyarihan sa mamamayan ay nangangahulugan hindi lamang ng pagdaraos ng halalan tuwing ikatlong taon. Kailangan pagyamanin ang kanilang pagkakadiit sa pamahalaan – sa araw-araw na gawain ng pamahalaan – upang ang malawak na kayamanan ng isa ay makatulong sa mga pagkukusa ng kabila at ang mga patakaran ng pamahalaan ay paglinangin ng mga mamamayan. By this means the lives of the people shall be constantly improved and the people themselves empowered by the habit of directing their own government. The constant revision of flawed policies and the wider application of good ones are possible only by bringing together the people and the government. People empowerment, through people’s organizations, NGOs, foundations and cooperatives, is the surest means we know to make government mirror the aspirations of the people.
In the past, the idea was to give the people just enough power to elect their mistakes and suffer the consequences until the next elections. Elections were a safety valve. We want elections to be just one of other more effective means to bring the people into government and government to the people, to make it truly a participatory democracy.
This is the only way to end the character of total war that elections have assumed, where the aim is the division of spoils and the victims are not just the losers but those who voted for them, too. Such elections are like Russian roulette where your chances are five to one your life will not improve, and one to five you will blow out your brains.
Participatory democracy will end the practice of punishing provinces and municipalities for the wrong vote in the last poll. It will separate elections, where the people vote for their favorites, from the provision of public service which every Filipino has a right to expect from the government, regardless how he voted.
This administration has made large steps in that direction. To the disappointment of those who marched with me against the Marcos regime, my administration has plowed resources into regions and provinces where I was cheated in the Snap Elections.
The politics of revenge has had its day.
The organized participation of the people in daily government may provide the stabilizing element that government has always lacked. Policies have radically changed with each administration, yet the basic needs of its unchanging constituencies have not been met: less bureaucracy for business, more public services and infrastructure support for agriculture and industry, an economic safety net for the common man. The active participation of the people in government will lend proper direction and continuity to policy.
This is what I wish for most. That after me, the continuity of our work is not broken. So that things well done shall be completed, and the same mistakes avoided by succeeding administrations. In this way, nothing done shall go to waste, and the light of a misplaced candle shall still be valued for the light it sheds on the things to avoid.
I am not asking that all my programs be blindly followed by my successor. God knows, we have made mistakes. But surely, our objective is right – the improvement of our people’s lives. And the new way is much better than those before. To give the people greater power over their lives is the essence of democracy that we must strive to bring out completely.
These ideas, articulated in the Kabisig movement, may not have been well received by this body. It was wrongly projected. I should make it clear that the Kabisig, and the whole movement of people’s organizations that I have tried to encourage, will be campaigning hard for one candidate only – the Filipino people and no one else.
Give the people-power movement another chance, for it will go on regardless. I ask you to consider that we have tried the politics of spoils and patronage for half a century, with no better result than the stagnation of the country in a region where everyone else is racing ahead.
The formula for success is said to be dictatorial government. But we tried that already, with worse results than the most irresponsible democracy can produce. Besides, the spirit of our race will not accept a dictatorship; and memories, fresh as the scars it left, will not let us consider that option again. Democracy is the only way for us. We must therefore find the ways by which the pitfalls that go with its blessings are reduced, while its inherent strengths are brought to the fore. Of those strengths, the most promising is people power, a reserve for nation-building we tapped only once in our history with such marvelous result.
A detailed report of the performance of government is before you; the legislative agenda – principally the Local Government Code, the Civil Service Code, revenue enhancement measures, and electoral reforms – has been communicated to the Senate President and to the Speaker of the House.
This is the last time I shall address you on such an occasion as this. Let us clear the air between us.
I could have made things easier for myself if I had opted for the “popular.”
I could have repudiated the foreign debt, won the passing praise of a greatly relieved people, and the lasting contempt of a devastated country.
I could have opted for outright hostility towards the international banking system and invited its retaliation. But the only result would have been to weaken the present democracy against the conspiracies of the former government with contracted the miserable debt in the first place. I would have taken the chance, if I were the only one at risk, but I had a country to take care of.
I could have called for an elected constitutional convention. Surveys showed that an elected convention was the popular choice to draft a new constitution. But I believed it was more important to draft a constitution and submit it for ratification in the shortest time possible, and hold elections immediately. The people and the army needed a full elected government and a constitution around which to rally in defense of freedom.
I could not afford the luxury of the popular by waiting out the endless deliberations of an elected convention, like the 1971 Constitutional Convention. And besides, what was so great about that experience? After a year of talk and scandal, the final draft was prepared in Malacañang, approved by the frightened Convention, and ratified in a fraudulent plebiscite.
I could have made things easier for myself if I had allowed the Executive to influence the decisions of constitutional commissions. I might have spared myself deep embarrassments by interfering with the judgments of the courts. But I uphold the independence of these bodies. I am convinced it is in all our best interest to respect an independence that may thwart the government’s will from time to time – but is yet our best assurance of justice when we will need justice most.
I firmly believe in the freedom of the press. And I accept the criticisms poured on me, painful as they are, as part and parcel of the hazards of public service, and conducive to its honest performance. True, I have sued for libel, but I did not use the power of the Presidency to advance my cause. And this is shown by the fact that four years later my case continues to drag on. I have not forgotten that what my husband wanted most in prison was for the public to hear the side of freedom, and no newspaper would print it.
I submitted myself to the judicial process as an ordinary citizen, and exposed myself to indignities a president should not endure. But I want to encourage people to seek redress in the law, despite the inconvenience, rather than in vindictiveness, which has no end. I want them to make the cause of justice for one, the cause of justice for all.
I have consoled myself that great men like Gandhi were not spared criticism either, but – regardless of it – he pursued the path he believed was true, mindful only of harmful effects on the people, but not of the consequences to him. He believed that God demands no less of us than that we follow our conscience. God will take care of the rest.
I could have done the popular thing in the last administration, and arranged a nicer retirement for myself. But my instructions to PNB, DBP, GSIS, SSS and Landbank were explicit: no behest loans, and no special favors whether to relative, friend or political supporter. This accounts for their sterling performance, for the unprecedented public faith in their competence and integrity, and for the incalculable contribution, particularly of PNB and the Landbank, to the development of cooperatives and the financing of small and medium enterprises, wherein lies the strongest hope of progress in these times.
We can roll back prices at the drop of a hat and spare ourselves al the aggravation, but we learned that hasty rollbacks exacted a heavier, long-term cost on the economy, and, ultimately, on the people, than they had saved.
I could have done any of the things calculated to win a passing popularity at home. I could have thrown away by so-called popular solutions the goodwill we have built up in financial circles by the strict performance of our obligations. This is the goodwill that accounts for the continued support extended to the Philippine Assistance Program. Anyway, most of the pledges to the PAP are redeemable in the next administration.
I could have said, “Let my successor be presented with the bill for my popularity today.” But it is the people who would pay the price, and I am not made that way.
I did not always adopt the ideal solutions proposed by those who have the luxury of contemplation. Government often had to do what pressing realities compelled it. And if the government sometimes lacked better choices, it never lacked the sincere desire to do good.
I could have promoted only military officers popular with the press, and ignored the experience of a democratic government that has been the principal military objective of the rebel forces and an insurgency that just doesn’t know when to quit. But I chose instead commanders of proven courage, leadership, and fidelity to the Constitution.
I could do the smart thing still, and do the things my opponents unfairly charge me of preparing – rigging the elections in 1992, the way I did not rig the ratification of the Constitution, the national elections, and the local elections. They way they rigged elections from 1969 to 1986. But my instructions to the military and police are explicit. Let them hear it again:
The right of the soldier and the policeman is merely to cast his vote; his greater and solemn obligation is to assure the right of others to cast their votes and get them honestly counted. No soldier has the right to combine with his comrades to campaign for a person or party and deliver to them a block of the military vote. No member of the military shall lend his name, prestige, and the influence of his position to anyone’s campaign. The same holds true for the police.
The military has earned the people’s trust as the spearhead of their liberation and the constant defender of their democracy. To these honors it is my aim to add the distinction of shepherding our democracy through its first political succession, by clean and peaceful elections.
I will not preside as Commander-in-Chief over the kind of military that cheated the opposition in 1978, and me in 1986. That would insult the memory of the man to whom I dedicate this last address to the joint houses of Congress, and stain the proud achievement of this nation in 1986.
I specifically charge AFP Chief of Staff General Lisandro Abadia and PNP Director General Cesar Nazareno with the responsibility to assure clean and honest elections. While they may not fear my displeasure because I will not be president then, they will face the judgement of the disappointed country.
Yes, I could have done all those things that win wide acclaim, exiting as grandly as any president could wish. But while my power as president ends in 1992, my responsibility as a Filipino for the well-being of my country goes beyond it to my grave. A great part of that responsibility is to do the best I can today, according to my best lights, while I have the power to do it.
As President, I have never prayed for anything for myself; only for our people. I have been called an international beggar by the military rebels. Begging does not become me, yet – perhaps – it is what I had to do. I could have kept my pride and held aloof, but that would not have helped our people. And it is for them that I was placed in this office.
Someone who will stand in this place next year, may do better for I believe in the inexhaustible giftedness of the Filipino people. I only hope that he will be someone who will sincerely mean you well.
I hope that history will judge me as favorably as our people still regard me, because, as God is my witness, I honestly did the best I could. No more can be asked of any man.
On June 30, 1992, the traditional ceremony of political succession will unfold at the Luneta. The last time it was done that way was in 1965. I shall be there with you to proudly witness the event. This is the glory of democracy, that its most solemn moment should be the peaceful transfer of power.
Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat at paalam.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
President Corazon C. Aquino’s Historic Speech before the joint session of the United States Congress, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Speaker, Senator Thurmond, Distinguished members of Congress.
Three years ago I left America in grief, to bury my husband Ninoy Aquino. I thought I had left it also, to lay to rest his restless dream of Philippine freedom. Today, I have returned as the President of a free people.
In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored him by that brave and selfless act of giving honor to a nation in shame recovered its own. A country that had lost faith in its future, founded in a faithless and brazen act of murder. So, in giving we receive, in losing we find, and out of defeat we snatched our victory. For the nation, Ninoy became the pleasing sacrifice that answered their prayers for freedom.
For myself and our children, Ninoy was a loving husband and father. His loss, three times in our lives was always a deep and painful one. Fourteen years ago this month, was the first time we lost him. A president-turned-dictator and traitor to his oath, suspended the constitution and shutdown the Congress that was much like this one before which I’m honored to speak. He detained my husband along with thousands of others – Senators, publishers, and anyone who had spoken up for the democracy as its end drew near. But for Ninoy, a long and cruel ordeal was reserved. The dictator already knew that Ninoy was not a body merely to be imprisoned but a spirit he must break. For even as the dictatorship demolished one-by-one; the institutions of democracy, the press, the congress, the independence of a judiciary, the protection of the Bill of Rights, Ninoy kept their spirit alive in himself.
The government sought to break him by indignities and terror. They locked him up in a tiny, nearly airless cell in a military camp in the north. They stripped him naked and held a threat of a sudden midnight execution over his head. Ninoy held up manfully under all of it. I barely did as well. For forty-three days, the authorities would not tell me what had happened to him. This was the first time my children and I felt we had lost him.
When that didn’t work, they put him on trial for subversion, murder and a host of other crimes before a military commission. Ninoy challenged its authority and went on a fast. If he survived it, then he felt God intended him for another fate. We had lost him again. For nothing would hold him back from his determination to see his fast through to the end. He stopped only when it dawned on him that the government would keep his body alive after the fast had destroyed his brain. And so, with barely any life in his body, he called off the fast on the 40th day. God meant him for other things, he felt. He did not know that an early death would still be his fate, that only the timing was wrong. At any time during his long ordeal, Ninoy could have made a separate peace with a dictatorship as so many of his countrymen had done. But the spirit of democracy that inheres in our race and animates this chamber could not be allowed to die. He held out in the loneliness of his cell and the frustration of exile, the democratic alternative to the insatiable greed and mindless cruelty of the right and the purging holocaust of the left.
And then, we lost him irrevocably and more painfully than in the past. The news came to us in Boston. It had to be after the three happiest years of our lives together. But his death was my country’s resurrection and the courage and faith by which alone they could be free again. The dictator had called him a nobody. Yet, two million people threw aside their passivity and fear and escorted him to his grave.
And so began the revolution that has brought me to democracy’s most famous home, The Congress of the United States.
The task had fallen on my shoulders, to continue offering the democratic alternative to our people. Archibald Macleish had said that democracy must be defended by arms when it is attacked by arms, and with truth when it is attacked by lies. He failed to say how it shall be won. I held fast to Ninoy’s conviction that it must be by the ways of democracy. I held out for participation in the 1984 election the dictatorship called, even if I knew it would be rigged. I was warned by the lawyers of the opposition, that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the foregone results of elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent. But I was not fighting for lawyers but for the people in whose intelligence, I had implicit faith. By the exercise of democracy even in a dictatorship, they would be prepared for democracy when it came. And then also, it was the only way I knew by which we could measure our power even in the terms dictated by the dictatorship. The people vindicated me in an election shamefully marked by government thuggery and fraud. The opposition swept the elections, garnering a clear majority of the votes even if they ended up (thanks to a corrupt Commission on Elections) with barely a third of the seats in Parliament. Now, I knew our power.
Last year, in an excess of arrogance, the dictatorship called for its doom in a snap election. The people obliged. With over a million signatures they drafted me to challenge the dictatorship. And I, obliged.
The rest is the history that dramatically unfolded on your television screens and across the front pages of your newspapers. You saw a nation armed with courage and integrity, stand fast by democracy against threats and corruption. You saw women poll watchers break out in tears as armed goons crashed the polling places to steal the ballots. But just the same, they tied themselves to the ballot boxes. You saw a people so committed to the ways of democracy that they were prepared to give their lives for its pale imitation. At the end of the day before another wave of fraud could distort the results, I announced the people’s victory.
Many of you here today played a part in changing the policy of your country towards ours. We, the Filipinos thank each of you for what you did. FOr balancing America’s strategic interest against human concerns illuminates the American vision of the world. The co-chairman of the United States observer team, in his report to the President said, “I was witness to an extraordinary manifestation of democracy on the part of the Filipino people. The ultimate result was the election of Mrs. Corazon Aqauino as President and Mr. Salvador Laurel as Vice-President of the Philippines.”
When a subservient parliament announced my opponent’s victory, the people then turned out in the streets and proclaimed me the President of all the people. And true to their word, when a handful of military leaders declared themselves against the dictatorship, the people rallied to their protection. Surely, the people take care of their own. It is on that faith and the obligation it entails that I assumed the Presidency.
As I came to power peacefully, so shall I keep it. That is my contract with my people and my commitment to God. He had willed that the blood drawn with a lash shall not in my country be paid by blood drawn byh the sword but by the tearful joy of reconciliation. We have swept away absolute power by a limited revolution that respected the life and freedom of every Filipino.
Now, we are restoring full constitutional government. Again as we restore democracy by the ways of democracy, so are we completing the constitutional structures of our new democracy under a constitution that already gives full respect to the Bill of Rights. A jealously independent constitutional commission is completing its draft which will be submitted later this year to a popular referendum. When it is approved, there will be elections for both national and local positions. So, within about a year from a peaceful but national upheaval that overturned a dictatorship, we shall have returned to full constitutional government.
Given the polarization and breakdown we inherited, this is no small achievement. My predecessor set aside democracy to save it from a communist insurgency that numbered less than five hundred. Unhampered by respect for human rights he went at it with hammer and tongs. By the time he fled, that insurgency had grown to more than sixteen thousand. I think there is a lesson here to be learned about trying to stifle a thing with a means by which it grows. I don’t think anybody in or outside our country, concerned for a democratic and open Philippines doubts what must be done. Through political initiatives and local re-integration programs, we must seek to bring the insurgents down from the hills and by economic progress and justice, show them that which the best-intentioned among them fight. As president among my people, I will not betray the cause of peace by which I came to power. Yet, equally and again, no friend of Filipino democracy will challenge this. I will not stand by and allow an insurgent leadership to spurn our offer of peace and kill our young soldiers and threaten our new freedom.
Yet, I must explore the path of peace to the utmost. For at its end, whatever disappointment I meet there is the moral basis for laying down the Olive branch of peace and taking up the sword of war.
Still, should it come to that, I will not waiver from the course laid down by your great liberator.
“With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphans to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Like Abraham Lincoln, I understand that force may be necessary before mercy. Like Lincoln, I don’t relish it. Yet, I will do whatever it takes to defend the integrity and freedom of my country.
Finally may I turn to that other slavery, our twenty-six billion dollar foreign debt. I have said that we shall honor it. Yet, the means by which we shall be able to do so are kept from us. Many of the conditions imposed on the previous government that stole this debt, continue to be imposed on us who never benefited from it.
And no assistance or liberality commensurate with the calamity that was vested on us have been extended. Yet ours must have been the cheapest revolution ever. With little help from others, we Filipinos fulfilled the first and most difficult condition of the debt negotiation, the full restoration of democracy and responsible government. Elsewhere and in other times, a more stringent world economic conditions, marshal plans and their like were felt to be necessary companions of returning democracy.
When I met with President Reagan, we began an important dialogue about cooperation and the strengthening of friendship between our two countries. That meeting was both a confirmation and a new beginning. I am sure it will lead to positive results in all areas of common concern. Today, we face the aspiration of a people who have known so much poverty and massive unemployment for the past 14 years. And yet offer their lives for the abstraction of democracy.
Wherever I went in the campaign, slum area or impoverished village. They came to me with one cry, DEMOCRACY. Not food although they clearly needed it but DEMOCRACY. Not work, although they surely wanted it but DEMOCRACY. Not money, for they gave what little they had to my campaign. They didn’t expect me to work a miracle that would instantly put food into their mouths, clothes on their back, education in their children and give them work that will put dignity in their lives. But I feel the pressing obligation to respond quickly as the leader of the people so deserving of all these things.
We face a communist insurgency that feeds on economic deterioration even as we carry a great share of the free world defenses in the Pacific. These are only two of the many burdens my people carry even as they try to build a worthy and enduring house for their new democracy. That may serve as well as a redoubt for freedom in Asia. Yet, no sooner as one stone laid than two are taken away. Half our export earnings, two billion dollars out of four billion dollars which is all we can earn in the restrictive market of the world, must go to pay just the interest on a debt whose benefit the Filipino people never received.
Still we fought for honor and if only for honor, we shall pay. And yet, should we have to ring the payments from the sweat of our men’s faces and sink all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two-hundred fifty years of unrequitted toil. Yet, to all Americans, as the leader to a proud and free people, I address this question, “Has there been a greater test of national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through? You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here, you have a people who want it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.”
Three years ago I said, Thank you America for the haven from opression and the home you gave Ninoy, myself and our children and for the three happiest years of our lives together. Today I say, join us America as we build a new home for democracy; another haven for the opressed so it may stand as a shining testament of our two nations’ commitment to freedom.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
Here is the Speech Ninoy Aquino would have read had he made it into the airport alive.
I have returned on my free will to join the ranks of those struggling to restore our rights and freedoms through non-violence.
I seek no confrontation. I only pray and will strive for a genuine national reconciliation founded on justice.
I am prepared for the worst, and have decided against the advice of my mother, my spiritual adviser, many of my tested friends and a few of my most valued political mentors.
A death sentence awaits me. Two more subversion charges, both calling for death penalties, have been filed since I left three years ago and are now pending with the courts. Image hosted by Photobucket.com I could have opted to seek political asylum in America, but I feel it is my duty, as it is the duty of every Filipino, to suffer with his people especially in time of crisis.
I never sought nor have I been given any assurances or promise of leniency by the regime. I return voluntarily armed only with a clear conscience and fortified in the faith that in the end justice will emerge triumphant.
According to Gandhi, the willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God and man.
Three years ago, when I left for an emergency heart bypass operation, I hoped and prayed that the rights and freedoms of our people would soon be restored, that living conditions would improve and that blood-letting would stop.
Rather than move forward, we have moved backward. The killings have increased, the economy has taken a toll for the worse, and the human rights situation has deteriorated.
During the martial law period, the Supreme Court heard petitions for habeas corpus. It is most ironic after martial law has allegedly been lifted, that the Supreme Court last April ruled it can no longer entertain petitions for habeas corpus for persons detained under a Presidential Commitment Order, which covers all so-called national security cases and which under present circumstances can cover almost anything.
The country is far advanced in her times of trouble. Economic, social, and political problems bedevil the Filipino. These problems may be surmounted if we are united. But we can be united only if all the rights and freedoms enjoyed before September 21, 1972 are fully restored.
The Filipino asked for nothing more, but will surely accept nothing less than all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the 1935 Constitution — the most sacred legacies from the founding fathers.
Yes, the Filipino is patient, but there is a limit to his patience. Must we wait until that patience snaps?
The nationwide rebellion is escalating and threatens to explode into a bloody revolution. There is a growing cadre of young Filipinos who have finally come to realize that freedom is never granted, it is taken. Must we relive the agonies and the blood-letting of the past that brought forth our republic, or can we sit down as brothers and sisters, and discuss our differences with reason and goodwill?
I have often wondered how many disputes could have been settled easily had the disputants only dared to define their terms.
So as to leave no room for misunderstanding, I shall define my terms:
Six years ago, I was sentenced to die before a firing squad by a military tribunal whose jurisdiction I steadfastly refused to recognize. It is now time for the regime to decide. Order my immediate execution or set me free. I was sentenced to die for allegedly being the leading communist leader. I am not a communist, never was, and never will be.
National reconciliation and unity can be achieved, but only with justice, including justice for our Muslim and Ifugao brothers. There can be no deal with a dictator. No compromise with dictatorship.
In a revolution there can really be no victors, only victims. We do not have to destroy in order to build.
Subversion stems from economic, social, and political causes and will not be solved by purely military solution: it can be curbed not with ever increasing repression but with a more equitable distribution of wealth, more democracy and more freedom.
For the economy to get going once again, the working man must be given his just and rightful share of his labor, and to the owners and managers must be restored the hope where there is so much uncertainty if not despair.
On one of the long corridors of Harvard University are carved in granite the words of Archibald McLeish: “How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms; by truth where it is attacked by lies; by democratic faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, and in the final act, by determination and faith.”
I return from exile and to an uncertain future with only determination and faith to offer—faith in our people and faith in God.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009
Transcript of the Ninoy Aquino Speech at Wilshire Ebell Theater, Los Angeles in Feb. 15, 1981
Mr. Danny Lamila, my dear friend Serge Osmena, Mr. Alvares, my brothers and sisters, good afternoon. I am filled with happiness to be with you here this afternoon, because this is the first experience in my life. For the last 25 years I have been a politician, we used to pay people to hear us. This is the first time people pay to hear me. As I was sitting down there, listening to Danny Lamila, I only have one advice to him. Don’t ever go back to Manila or you will be a captured eagle.
I was asked why I am in crutches. Is it because of my heart operation? The answer is no. I was already running two miles four months after my operation. I was already very good, and my wife can attest to that… But unfortunately last Dec. 6, I was invited to Columbus Ohio, and they made me speak in so many areas that day. I barely had 3 hours sleep the night before, when I came from Cornell in Ithaca New York. I had to fly back to Boston to meet my doctor who came in from Dallas. I took him out for dinner and we slept at about 2 o’clock in the morning, I woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning, I drove to the airport, I went to Columbus Ohio. I arrived in Columbus Ohio and the moment I arrived there, they made me speak in three or different occasions. Finally on the fourth speaking engagement that day, we were headed towards the Ohio State University where I was to speak before the student body. It was almost 8:30, it was very dark, when the van I was riding in parked. When I alighted from the van, I do not know exactly what happened, but I think I stepped on a curb. And then when I put my weight I slipped. And little did I realize that that single half a second accident tore my Achilles heel tendon, and I had to go for an operation after five days. And I’d been on a cast for eight weeks, and I’ve been out of the cast now for two weeks, and hopefully in another two weeks I will be out and about.
I have been asked by many people, what is the actual situation in the Philippines. I think I owe it to a Japanese executive. One of the leading industrialists of Japan whose company invested $450 million in the Philippines, they set up a big plant in Mindanao it was a sintering plant, and this plant is now completed and this Japanese official came to the Philippines and he spoke at the opening ceremonies. I think this Japanese explained the situation in the Philippines very well. As you very well know the Japanese have a difficulty pronouncing their Rs. Manila becomes Manira. And so this Japanese gentleman stood up and said, My dear Piripino pipor, you are very raki, and I consider he said the Filipino people the most raki in Asia. And the people were of course surprised and they wanted to know why they are very lucky. He said you know why you are raki? You have a president who robs you, and you have a first lady who robs you more!
I say our situation today, maybe likened to the story of a fellow candidate of mine during Laban. As you very well know, we fielded 18 in 1978 to oppose the Marcos team and I was in jail, and I was never allowed to campaign. But there were 20 other gentlemen – ladies and gentlemen campaigning for us. One of them was the irrepressible former Secretary of Education Anding Roces. And Anding Roces had a very favorite candidate or had a very favorite personality in all of his speeches, and he called him Iskombro. According to Anding, and this is a story of Iskombro, Mr. Marcos one day wanted to go to the National Mental Institution to the psychopathic or to visit the psychopathic. And naturally the doctor of the psychopathic wanted to impress Mr. Marcos, and three weeks before Mr. Marcos arrived, all the patients of the psychopathic according to Iskombro, were trained by the director. And so, according to the story, the director trained them, pagdating ika dito ng ating Pang-gulo, pagtaas ng aking isang daliri, ‘ikang ganon, palakpakan. And so one week they trained them, the director would lift one finger, palakpakan. On the second week, pag ‘ikang ganon, dalawa na, palakpakan at sigawan. So the patients responded, two fingers palakpakan, sigawan. On the third week just before Mr. Marcos arrived, pag isang finger ‘ikang ganon palakpakan, dalawang fingers palakpakan sigawan, pag tatlong finger, palakpakan, sigawan at talunan pa. And so the patients responded.
And the great day arrived and Mr. Marcos came. The military escorts came, five thousand inmates of the hospital were there, and they were all dressed immaculately in white, and the director walking behind Mr. Marcos lift one finger. Nako palakpakan! And Mr. Marcos saluted. As they were going to the middle of the auditorium the director raised two fingers – nako palakpakan, sigawan pa! Sabi ni Marcos okay ‘to ah. And as they enter the main stage, as Mr. Marcos was about to sit down, sabi ng director tatlo. Nako palakpakan, sigawan, talunan pa! And Mr. Marcos standing, sabi niya kay director ayos ka na director doble na ang inyong budget. But as Mr. Marcos sat down he noticed there was an old man sitting in a corner, walang kibo, he was just sitting in the corner. And so naturally the president wanted to know, sabi niya director e bakit ‘ika yung matandang yon hindi pumapalakpak hindi sumisigaw, hindi tumatalon? Ang sabi ng director, Pangulo‘ikang ganon, mabuti napo yan, he is already okay lalabas na bukas, hindi bali na. Kanya po sa ating mga kababayan na nandidito sa Los Angeles, na pagnakikita ang larawan ng Ginoong Marcos, at silay nasaludo pa at napalakpak, huwag nyo sanang kalimutan ang mga kasama nyo sa National Psychopathic Hospital. Sapagkat kaming hindi napalakpak kami ay magaling na at kami ay palabas na.
And so dear friends, I was allowed by Mr. Marcos to go out for two weeks last year on Christmas after seven years in prison. And I met an old barrio captain of mine from Tarlac. And this old barrio captain of mine never failed to give me a sage advice. He visited me, we broke bread and then I sat down with him and I said, Apo ‘ka kong ganon, ito ba’y may kataposan na, may katapusan pa ba ito? Bakit? sabi nya. Eh ako’y inip na inip na, I am very very impatient. I said. I have already spent seven years. Is there any hope for our redemption? * Hindi ko ‘ika alam anak eh kun matatapos to. Napakatagal na ‘ika malapit na akong mamatay eh hindi pa ‘ika natatapos. Pero alam mo ‘ikang ganon palagay ko matatapos din. ‘Ika ko bakit what is your reason? Aba’y sabi niya, doon sa Iran ay mayroong isang tunay na Shah natapos, eh itong atin na sha-han lamang. And I feel my friends, as the Tagalog would say, kay haba-haba ng procession sa simbahan din ang tuloy, this will also end.
I have often asked myself, when I was in prison for seven years and seven months, you will note that one of the greatest problem of a prisoner is loneliness, for seven years I was not allowed to see the moon and the stars. There were days where they left me all alone by myself, I had no reading material, I had nothing, I was tweedling my thumb, I would walk and walk and walk across my room. That is a room of about four meters by five meters. Hoping that I will get tired, and then when I get tired I will fall asleep, knowing that tomorrow will be the same. And I often asked myself, eh bakit ka pa nagpapakahirap dito? In ’73, a high official of the government asked me, endorse mo na lamang ang new society Ninoy, ayos na, ilalabas na kita. When I refused, they advised me, sumulat ka na lang kay Marcos, ask for his forgiveness. Eh ano naman ‘kakong kasalanan ko, siya ang nagkasala sa bayan, bakit ako ang humihingi ng tawad?
My friends I cannot understand, the temerity and the gall of these people. ‘Ikang ganon, be practical, e talagang ganon eh, makibagay ka na ‘ika, napakalakas ‘ka ng bagyo eh. Ikaw lang ‘ika ang mahihirapan diyan, mag isa ka diyan. Hindi bali ‘ikang ganon, kung ayaw mo nang sumulat, eh tumawag ka na lang sa telepono ibulong mo na lamang, ayos na. I would like to tell you, I was tempted in my seven thousand almost 7,285 days in prison to do just that. I am only human. Ako po ay isang tao lamang. When my wife and children would visit me and they would leave me at dusk after one hour, I also would like to enjoy the embrace of my children and the peace of my home. But if I give faith in that conviction, if I refused to accept the jurisdiction of the military court, and because I refused to defend myself, they will give me the death sentence, I vowed to myself, that because you elected me to the senate and I gloried in its pomp, therefore it is time that my I am – or I must suffer the consequences of my act. And because I knew, I knew early on, and I discovered that there is a God who is just. Na mayrong isang Panginoon na ibibigay sa atin ang ating kagandahang ginawa, at paparusahin tayo sa ating kamaliang nagawa rin. It is because of that faith in my Divine Creator, that sustained me all these years.
All I had to do was call for a telephone that was outside my room. All I had to do was pick it up and tell Mr. Marcos, brod tapos na, ayos na, I am throwing the towel. Killers in the Philippines were freed. The people who were used to testify against me told the court, I killed 50 people! And yet that man was freed. He described to the people, he described to the military tribunal, how he killed human beings, and yet that man was freed and I was in jail. Many witnesses was, were paraded before me. I never saw them in my life, and yet they were pointing fingers at me, accusing me of crimes I never committed. They admitted to crimes. They said they were communists. They said they were number three in the communist hierarchy and yet the government set them free, and I was in jail. But I knew, that somehow I will regain my freedom. Maybe not in this world but elsewhere. And I knew that sometime, somewhere Mr. Marcos and I will meet, and in that meeting I will have my satisfaction.
Dear friends last January 17, Mr. Marcos told the world martial law has been lifted in the Philippines. It was a very good news. I mean if you are only reading the headlines, you would say, this is the greatest thing that happened after eight years martial law is lifted, freedom should be returned by now. And the Filipino people should be out in the street, like VJ Day, like VE Day, they should be dancing in the street, they’d be shouting alleluia and the bell should be ringing Te Deum. But the announcement of Mr. Marcos was met with stony silence why, because it was only a cruel deception. Because three days before martial law was lifted allegedly in the Philippines, Mr. Marcos signed into a law Presidential Decree 1737. I did not know about this law until Senator Tanada came to me in Boston and gave me this law. And when I saw the number I was stunned and I had cold chills in my back, because Presidential Decree number 1737, and this is exactly the exact address of my office in Harvard – 1737 Cambridge Street. Ako po ay ne-nerbiyos, hayop ka ‘kako sa daming numerong kombinasyon ito pa ang tinamaan ng sweepstakes. Hindi ko nga nalaman kun sinadya ito sa Maynila ngunit ito po’y hindi nagpatulog sa akin ng isang linggo. Sapagkat, this Presidential Decree says, an act providing for the preservation of public order and the protection of individual rights and liberties during periods of emergency and exercise of extraordinary executive powers, signed by Marcos a few days before martial law.
Now let me read to you section number 2, and I hope Danny Lamila hears this very well. Section 2 says, and I quote, “whenever in the judgment of the president or prime minister,” yan po ay si Marcos yan president at prime minister, “there exist a grave danger or a threat or imminence thereof, he Mr. Marcos, may issue such orders as he may deemed necessary to meet the emergency, including but not limited to preventive detention.” Ano po’ng ibig sabihin nito’ng preventive detention. The meaning of preventive detention is, if Mr. Marcos thinks that next month you will commit a crime, he can now order you arrested so that you will not be able to commit your crime. Anong klaseng batas yan? Iniisip mo pa lang ay nabilanggo ka na eh. Aba’y hayop ‘kakong batas na ito, eh kong totoo ito, eh lahat ng lalaking diborsyada na nag-iisip pa lang magliligaw patay na sa asawa. Imagine my friends if in the mind of Mr. Marcos, he suspects that next week you may commit a crime, the police can arrest you in the Philippines today.
Let me proceed, if in the mind of Mr. Marcos, you pose a grave threat to national security, he may restrain or restrict your movement and other activities of persons and entities with a view to preventing them from acting a manner prejudicial to the national interest or security or maintenance of public order. He may direct the closure of any publication or other media of mass communication he may believe to be subversive, banning or regulating the holding of entertainment or exhibitions detrimental to the national interest. Control admissions to education institutions whose operations are found prejudicial to the national security. If there are many students who want to demonstrate and that in his mind is prejudicial to the national security, he may close the school or prevent the students from enrolling in those schools. And my friends, any violation of this law entails an imprisonment for not less than 30 days and not exceeding one year. So you have Mr. Marcos lifting martial law on one hand, and putting another law in the other which is even worse than the former martial law. This therefore summarizes me to our point, ano baga ang ating away? What is the cause for all of this struggle? Very succinctly I believe that no man – how brilliant this man, can dictate the welfare or the direction of 48 million Filipinos. What happened to us, I think we should review what happened to us. In 1972 Mr. Marcos declared martial law, why did he declare martial law? If you read his pronouncement he said there was anarchy in the street, there was a left and right rebellion, there was this and there was that – but there is only one reason which he never said. He wanted to prolong his stay in Malacanang sapagkat napakasarap. *
You very well know that we have a law in the Philippines that says, no president may stay in the presidency for more than eight consecutive years. That is a law. That is a law even ahead of the United States law. No president may stay for more than eight years. In 1972 Mr. Marcos was already seven years in office, he had one year to go. He was toying with the idea of fielding Imelda but Imelda showed very poor in the polls. So what did Mr. Marcos do? Change the Constitution, sabi niya. So he called a Constitutional convention in 1970. We were a few of a handful in the Senate who denounced this, and I told the Senate, we should not allow an open Constitutional convention because it is very dangerous. Even America it has never called an open Constitutional convention since 1776. They have amended their Constitution piece-meal but they have never opened it.
But we lost, and a Constitutional convention was called. People were elected, and very quietly Mr. Marcos started maneuvering to change our form of government from an American type presidential system to a British type parliamentary so that he can be elected as a deputy from Ilocos become prime minister and then stay on forever. That was the plan. However on Jan. 2, 1972, most of you are already here in America, some are maybe too young to remember, but on January 1972 almost 9 years ago today, an old man a retired ambassador from Leyte, his name is Eduardo Quintero who is now in San Francisco, stood up on the floor of the Constitutional convention and shocked the entire Filipino people with the expose that Malacanang has been giving envelopes to members of the Constitutional convention, buying their votes, so that they will vote for a parliamentary form of government to allow Mr. Marcos to extend his term beyond the eight years. The nation was shocked. Immediately the NBI swooped down into the house of Quintero, and then they opened up an aparador walang susi, and they said P500 Thousand pesos in cash were found in the aparador of Quintero. The implication was, the opposition gave him P500 Thousand to make this expose. But if there were P500 Thousand bakit walang susi yon di naman P50 lang yon.
To cut a long story short, a delegate from Cebu his name is Napoleon Rama, stood up on the Constitutional convention floor and said, huwag na tayong magtalo, let us not discuss who received or who did not receive. I am now filing a resolution that will provide, if we approve this Constitutional convention – this Constitutional amendment – this new Constitution, no incumbent president or his spouse may seek office. Out sa kulambo si Mr. Marcos. Eh sa takot ng mga delegado, because they will be accused if they voted no, that they received the envelope, everybody voted yes. Nalagot si Mr. Marcos. This Rama resolution was overwhelmingly passed. Mr. Marcos and Imelda Marcos are out of the running. So what will Mr. Marcos do? Hindi na puwede sa 1935 Constitution, hindi na pupuwede dito sa bagong Constitution – the only reason left, or the only excuse and the only option left for Mr. Marcos is to declare martial law. And so what happened? The students demonstrated in the streets. Sabi ng agent ni Marcos, sige pa sige pa dagdagan pa ninyo. More demonstrations in the street, sige pa. Finally bombing started in Manila. And did you know my friends, the Manila police captured one of the bombers. And one of these bombers in Manila was identified as a sergeant of the firearms and explosive section of the Philippine Constabulary. The following day this man, was snatched from the Manila police and we never heard from him again.
And then on September 23, midnight, Mr. Marcos went on television and said, I Ferdinand Marcos, acting as commander in chief of the armed forces of the Philippines, by virtue of the provision of the Constitution which states in case of invasion, insurrection, rebellion or imminent danger thereof, I may declare martial law or suspend the writ of habeas corpus, therefore, I now declare martial law and administer this country alone. On that day democracy died. And so Mr. Marcos arrested together with us in the Senate, most of the leaders of the Constitutional convention. All of those opposing him went to jail with us. And then when they went to jail with us, all the other members of the Constitutional convention were herded and they were given a Constitution by Mr. Marcos, and they were told to sign. And everybody signed except those in jail with us. And once this new Constitution was signed by them, he released the delegates. And then on Jan. 17, 1973, Mr. Marcos went on television and said, ladies and gentlemen and my countrymen, there is now a new Constitution. But how can we have a new Constitution? There was no plebiscite. He know that the law says, before you can have a new Constitution you must present it to the Filipino people and the Filipino people must in a secret ballot write yes or no. What happened? Tinawag ni Mr. Marcos ang mga citizens assembly, tinawag niya ang mga barrio councils, and then in the middle of this meeting tinanong, kayo ba ay gutom na? Yes. Taas ang kamay. Taas, at ang labas, approved ang Constitution!
My friends this is not fiction. Because in the now famous Javellana case, Javellana vs. Executive Secretary, a gentleman by the name of Mr. Javellana, went to the Supreme Court and questioned the illegality of this Constitution. And what did the Supreme Court say? Out of ten justices, six out of ten said, this Constitution was not validly ratified. According to the 1935 Constitution and according even to the new Constitution, it was not validly ratified. But then the Supreme Court added, there is nothing to stop it. So we had a Constitution. And so my friends, we started with an American type Constitution, we moved to a British type Constitution. We had a parliamentary form of government without a parliament. Until 1978 we did not have a parliament and yet we were suppose to be a parliamentary form of government. And Mr. Marcos said, I declared martial law to save democracy. But by saving democracy, he killed it. And so my friends, it was not until 1978 that the Batasan was convened.
Now what do we hear? Mr. Marcos once again is up again to his new tricks. He said I lifted martial law but I think we should now elect a president by direct vote. But there is no such thing. Under the new Constitution now, the president is purely ceremonial, taga bukas lang ng pinto, taga tanggap lamang ng credential ng ambassador. Purely ceremonial elected by parliament, he’s not elected by the people. The power of the government under a parliamentary system, rest on the prime minister, and the prime minister must be elected by the parliament, and this prime minister may be removed from office if there is a vote of no confidence. That is the British type. So what did Mr. Marcos do in 1976? He amended the Constitution and said, I Ferdinand Marcos as prime minister president, may dissolve parliament, but parliament cannot dissolve me. And then he said, parliament may legislate but if I think they are not doing their job, I will also legislate. So now we have two parliaments, Mr. Marcos and parliament. And it is costing us P300 million to have the tuta parliament and what’s the use if Mr. Marcos is doing all the legislation, why keep these 200 guys. So what did they do? They change the name of the street in Divisoria, they change the name of a school, but when it comes to public decrees like public order code 1737 only Mr. Marcos signs it. And so we have a situation where we have a man who can dissolve parliament, but parliament cannot dissolve him. And under the amendment no. 6 of the 1973 Constitution, Mr. Marcos is a president for life.
And now all of a sudden two weeks ago, sabi niya, I have lifted martial law. But I now want to go to the Filipino people, and I want there mandate of eight years. I will defend martial law, anybody who’s oppose it can oppose me. I want to go to the people and get their mandate. But how can you get the mandate, there is no such thing in the Constitution? Sagot ni Mr. Marcos, let us amend it. So now we are going to amend again the Constitution. And so we ask Mr. Marcos, but what form of government will we have? Ahh sabi niya. I want a president with powers. What happened to the parliamentary type British? Forget it, let us now go to France. Let us have a French model. And so my friends, it is like the Odyssey of Jules Verne 80 Days Around the World. We started with America, we went to England, now we are going to France. Under the new proposal of Mr. Marcos we will now have a president and a prime minister, but the prime minister will be appointed by the president. And this president now will be all powerful. It will not be the American type, it will be the French type. And I suppose two years from now, when he gets tired of that, he will go to the Russian type whatever that is. And so he announced, I will take anybody including Aquino. And so I was not inclined to oblige him but then he added, pero sabi niya hindi puwede si Aquino underage. And so naturally I went to the books I said, how come I am underage I thought I was already 48, because the rule before to become the president of the Philippines in 1935, all you have to do is to be 40 years old. And so I looked at the book. Tama nga naman si Marcos, they have increased the age to 50. Kapos na naman ako ng dalawa. Of course Mr. Marcos said, pero kun talagang gusto ni Aquino, if he really wants to come home and to fight me, I will oblige him, I will also have the Constitution amended for him.
So I told Mr. Marcos and his people, forget me Mr. President, I am through with your politics. Hindi na ko ‘kako sasama sa sa inyong kalokohan. Nagtayo kayo ng isang lapian, ang pangalan KBL – Kilusan ng Bagong Lipunan. Mali po ‘ka ko yan, Kilusan ng mga Bingi at mga Lokoloko. Hindi na ‘kako ako sasama diyan. Ako’y tapos na. I told them, I am through with politics I said. I would just want to live in peace now. But I wrote Mr. Marcos and I had told him. While it is true Mr. Marcos, I said, that after my 8 years in prison I have lost appetite for office, I am no longer seeking the presidency of this land. I am not seeking anymore any office in this country. But believe me I said when I tell you, that while I have vowed not to enter the political arena again, I shall dedicate the last drop of my blood to the restoration of freedom and the dismantlement of your martial law.
It is… it is with this thought, that I sought an audience with Mrs. Marcos last December 16. After I was released, or given a medical furlough, I was in prison as you know for seven years and seven months, then on March 18 or March 19 of 1980, while they allowed me to run and they made a little koral for me, they brought me out between 11 to 12 o’clock. Everyday they brought me out to exercise. On that particular day of March, as I was walking around my little koral, all of a sudden I developed a chest pain. And then the pain was so terrible that I sat down and I asked my guard to massage my chest and asked them to bring me back. I called for the army doctors, they checked me and they said, muscle spasm lang po yan, that’s nothing, just take a rest. And so I rested. But after 40 days I was so weak, I could not even take a bath I was shaking. And I told my doctor I said, look doctor, I don’t know I said your diagnosis or its accuracy but I am very very weak, please bring me to the Philippine Heart Center and get me an examination. That doctor, fortunately on that morning, after 40 days on April 28, his name is Colonel Bayani Garcia, came to my office and said, yes Senator, sabi niya, I will now recommend, that they bring you to the Heart Center, because apparently you’re not getting well. Mr. Marcos has just arrived from Honolulu, I will make my recommendation. This is the officer who has been taking care of me for seven years. He is a full colonel. He is the commanding officer of the Bonifacio Station Hospital. He was the one who diagnosed that I only had a muscle spasm. At 9:30 in the morning he saw me, of April 28. He left my room, and I wrote a letter, and I told them, if you do not bring me to the Heart Center I will be constrained to appeal to the Supreme Court. And so he said, no sir, ako na pong bahala, I will talk to the commanding general. At 1 o’clock that day, a knock on my door came, and I was given a letter from the commanding general. I thought it was the approval of my request. When I opened the letter, it was a hand-written note and it said: My dear Senator Aquino, it is with deep regret that I inform you. Your doctor Bayani S. Garcia, died of a massive heart attack an hour ago. If you were in my place, here is your doctor telling you there’s a muscle spasm, at bigla siyang namatay, how would you feel?
And so my friends, I sat down stunned, but then I wrote back to the General and I said, much as I would like to go to the heart center, it is my request that I be kept here in my cell until my doctor is buried. Only after he is buried will I go to the heart center, I said because in deference to him, I would like to wait for his burial. I did not realize that this doctor had a sister in Germany and a brother in Saudi Arabia so it took seven days before they buried him. Finally on May 5, 1980 almost midnight, they took me from my cell and they brought me to the heart center that was a Monday. The doctors in the heart center met me, took preliminary test and they told me Senator they said, tomorrow we will begin the battery of tests. And so I slept but I could not sleep. That was the first time I was brought out of my cell in seven years and seven months, and there were beautiful nurses, and the first time I was seeing women in seven years and seven months. And naturally I was watching my heart as it was palpitating. And so I woke up at six o’clock that following morning that was a Tuesday and they brought me down for my x-ray and they brought me back. And there were these beautiful nurses around and they say, oh Senator, ‘ikang ganon, nangayayat po pala kayo. ‘Kako, thank you. You know I used to be very big.
But as I sat down after that x-ray, I was just about to sip my coffee, all of a sudden I got hit again by a terrible chest pain that was almost choking me, and my arm was getting paralyzed. So I told the nurse, I said Miss please bring me to bed. So they brought me to bed and they put all of those gadgets. And so all of a sudden the needles were squiggling. And they called the doctor. The doctor looked at the tracings and then after one hour they came back to me and said, Mr. Senator we are canceling all… all tests. I said why? Because we already know what is wrong with you. I said, what is wrong with me? You have blocked arteries, and you must undergo an emergency triple bypass otherwise you may die in six days to six months. I told them, where can I have my operation? Dito lang po sa heart center. And that’s the heart center of Imelda Marcos. And I asked, who can do the operation for me. The director said, ako lang po. There are two other assistants if you want. But I’m the only one performing in the center. He was director, he was the director of the heart center handpicked also by Imelda. I said Doctor, ipagpaliban muna ‘kako. Thank you na lang. I said if they cannot operate on me in America, please bring me to my cell.
Well the reason why I did not want to be operated in the Philippines, I have one weakness, I talk in my sleep. Eh kun bigyan akong anesthesia at nagdadaldal ako roon, sabi ko, gusto kong patayin si Marcos patayin si Marcos, mamamatay na ako doon. You know I don’t know what I will say, the moment they put me on anesthesia, after all I’ve been thinking of many things for seven years, I might be saying many things and the doctor will be recording that, and they said, bangongot na muna ito makakasama palang mabuhay. The truth is I did not want them to touch me in Manila. And so there was a crisis. The general came to me and they said, well Senator he said, if you do not want Dr. Aventura here, why don’t you give us the name of the doctor in America and we will bring them to the Philippines gastos po ng gobyerno. I said it is too much of a hassle. Hindi po, don’t worry, we will bring them, name any doctor you want. We will get you operated here. I said no. If I cannot be operated in America, then bring me back to my cell. The Sec Deputy Minister of Defense came to my room, he tried to talk me out of my decision, I said no. And so finally he said, are you willing to write a letter to Marcos requesting to be brought to America. I said yes. Eh seguro ‘ikang ganon, mas maganda kun mag-iwan ka ng dalawang anak mo, para maniwala na babalik ka. And so I wrote my letter to Mr. Marcos and made two covenants: that if I leave I shall return, and two, that while in America I should not speak out against his regime. And I also said I will only bring three of my children with me. That is also true. But of course the other two were already abroad.
And then my friends that was a Wednesday when I wrote that letter, all of a sudden on Thursday morning May 8, my wife visited me early in the morning and she told me, the hospital is crawling with metrocom cars, guards allover the place, baka ‘ika may bibisita sa yo. And all of a sudden my guards started jumping, put in their barong tagalog, hiding all of their guns. I said tama, may darating na VIP. And then lo and behold, the beautiful one ascended into my suite. She came, and she was really beautiful. She has not aged. And she sat down and said, nako Ninoy sabi niya, I’m sorry to see you like that. Hindi ko lang nasabi sa kanya, e kayo ang may kagagawan nito eh. At any rate, I had my bathrobe, and I was like this, and she talked to me and we talked to her and she was very nice about it, and then all of a sudden, after one hour she said, would you like to go to America? Aba’y ‘kako, sure sure, oo oo! Eh sa tuwa ko tinanggal ko pa yong aking kuwentas, ‘kako anting-anting ko ito, iiwanan ko na ‘kako pareho dito, palayasin mo na ako papuntahin nyo na ako sa America. Sabi niya, there is a plane leaving at six o’clock, you can be on that plane. Eh ‘kako thank you. And so my friends, she ordered General Ver to instruct the Foreign Office to issue us passports. They called up the American Embassy to get us visa. My wife had to rush out to look for some money, and finally at 2:30 in the afternoon they brought me out of my room, from the hospital, brought me to my house in a van. I never saw Manila therefore. They gave me 30 minutes in my house to pack, to take a shower, put me back on the van, bring me to the airport, put me in a 747 and out – of the Philippines.
That’s the story. There was no deal. There was no other considerations. And when I arrived in America, I want to tell you, I was a very sick man. I had to rest in San Francisco. When I arrived in Dallas Texas, immediately the doctors brought me directly to the hospital and then checked me. On that Monday, May 12, they give me an arteriogram. At 1 o’clock that day, my Filipino doctor cardiologist, Dr. Rolando Solis came and said, Senator he said, I’m sorry but you have to undergo a triple bypass. I said doctor, what day is today? Sabi niya, May 12. Tomorrow is May 13 – hit me tomorrow. No sabi niya, no hurry. You can do it on the 14th. I said no. Hit me tomorrow, May 13. Sabi niya, ikaw ang bahala. And so he asked me, may I know why you want the 13th? My friends, in 1975 I went on a hunger strike for 40 days and 40 nights. On May 5, 1975 my blood pressure dropped 60 over 40 and they could hardly feel my heartbeat and I had no pulse. And they rushed me to the Veterans Memorial Hospital. On May 13, 1975, on the 40th day of my fast, and that was my pact with my Lord, that I would go 40 days and 40 nights because I wanted to die. But if You do not allow me to die I said, then I take it, You still want me to continue, and Your will be done. And so on that day of the Lady of Fatima, May 13, 1975 I ended my fast. Five years to the day, on May 5, 1980, and all because I wanted to wait for the burial of my doctor, they brought me out to the heart center. And then, on May 13 I was scheduled to have my triple heart bypass. Five years to the day, I do not know the meaning of those coincidences. And so I told my doctor, hit me tomorrow because I will survive.
And so I finished my operation, and I was recuperating, and I cabled Mr. Marcos after my operation and I told him, operation has been successful, however I developed a pericarditis. My doctor advised me four more weeks of convalescence. However if you feel I should now return to my cell, I shall immediately take the first plane to go back to my cell. Mr. Marcos had General Ver call me and said, pinasasabi po ni Presidente magpalakas na muna kayo diyan. Take your time and when you are strong and ready you can return. A week later, the international press came out with a story: Mr. Marcos extends indefinitely the stay of Aquino in America. On the basis of that report, I wired Harvard University and I said, I am now ready to accept the fellowship that you offered me. And Harvard University extended the invitation again to become a fellow at the Center for International Affairs and that’s the story.
But I have no intention of seeking political asylum in America as you know. I’ve always said that I shall return to the Philippines as soon as my Harvard fellowship is over. And I took it only because Mr. Marcos extended my stay indefinitely. But when I was convalescing, and I was receiving hundreds, thousands of letters from allover the world America and the Philippines, Filipinos sending me $5, and $10 to help me in my hospitalization, sending me little money, token of money for my fellowship in Harvard. There was one underlying note in all of these letters. We waited for you for eight years. Will you now abandon us? I am a human being my friends. I have suffered eight years of imprisonment. I have suffered loneliness like no other man has suffered loneliness, in my life. I’ve been away from my children and my family and I am financially ruined, after eight years. It is only instinctive for a man to look for his peace. And I debated with my mind, and I debated with my self, and I debated with my wife and my children – whether I should go back to the arena of combat. I felt that I’ve already earned my peace, I have done my best I waited for seven years and seven months, and the Filipino people did not react. And they would even give me the impression that they love their chain and their slavery. What can one man do, if the Filipino people love their slavery, if the Filipino people have lost their voice and would not say no to a tyrant. What can one man do? I have no army. I have no following. I have no money. I only have my indomitable spirit. But the letters kept pouring in and they said, we waited for you for eight years, will you now abandon us?
And so with nostalgia I recalled the situation in my prison. There in that prison I shared a cell with a great Filipino, his name is Senator Jose W. Diokno. One of the most respected man in our country, a man who could not be bribed, a man whose towering integrity is a byword with the youth. He stayed with me for two years in jail, and then after two years he was released, no charges, no explanation. There were a hundred thousand Filipinos who went through those jails. Hardly ten percent were charged. They were arrested without charges, they were released without explanation, that has what happened to our country. And what about the mothers and the children who lost their breadwinners when those people went to jail? In my compound there were only four of us: myself, Jose Maria Sison, his wife and Lieutenant Corpus. I did not know that there was another one, a fifth one, who was barely 150 meters away from my cell. I never knew that there was a young man by the name of Car… Sixto Carlos Jr. It was only when I was released that I finally read his poignant story. You know what they did to this man? They tortured him no end for two weeks. They kept him in a safehouse. They fed him poison and his body became numb and finally he lost his senses. And therefore they cannot not bring him back to his family because they took him apart and they cannot not put him back together.
This young man was student leader in the UP. He did not see the sun and the moon for 124 days. He was chained to his cot. Jose Maria Sison was chained to his cot, his feet was chained, his hand was chained. You cannot see a more inhuman situation. And I want to tell you my friends, until you have tasted this loneliness, you will not know what solitary confinement means. They brought me to a mountain hideout in the Sierra Madre and placed me in a box. I had only my brief and my t-shirt. I refused to eat because I thought they were poisoning me. There was nothing in the room – barely nothing. I had nothing to do but twiddle my thumb. And for the first time in my life, I heard the ticking of every second, and I was counting every second into minutes, and as the minutes marched into hours, and the hours into days, and days into weeks – I knew what loneliness meant. And therefore as I thought back, that there are still many, valiant Filipinos fighting for freedom, fighting for your right to speak – these are the people who are putting their lives on the line. These are people who abandoned their loved ones and the comforts of their home, the wealth of their offices, to be able to bring freedom back, and to be true to our founding fathers. And so I told my wife, much as we have found our peace and our freedom, I will have to return to combat.
And so six weeks after my operation, I was still very weak, I went to Damascus Syria to meet with our Muslim brothers because I wanted to get to the root cause of this problem, a hundred thousand Filipino Muslims have already been killed, 300 thousand are now refugees in Sabah, more than 20 thousand Filipino soldiers have been killed in the last eight years. And only 72 hours ago 118 Filipino soldiers were massacred in Patapata. And therefore I wanted to go there talk to our brothers in the Middle East and plead with them to stop this carnage because we’re all Filipinos. In spite of my weakness, I went to the MNLF hoping to find a solution. And when I came back to Dallas Texas, I immediately took the telephone and I called Mr. Marcos and I told his Deputy Defense Minister, I went to Damascus Syria I talked to the Muslims I did it on my own because I am aggrieved by the bloodshed that has occurred. Tell the President I have formula. Maybe I said this is my way to help our people. Tell the President I said, what he has done to me I have already forgiven, and I have already forgotten. I have no bitterness against Mr. Marcos. I have no rancor against Mr. Marcos. All I want to do is to help our people stop this bloodshed. So please tell the President I said I have a formula. In two days I said I will be sending him a formula, and I wrote this formula, a secret formula I sent to Mr. Marcos and I said, Mr. Marcos Filipinos are dying and this is a possible breakthrough. What did Mr. Marcos do? He told the press that he sent me to Damascus Syria as his agent and as his spy.
And so I stayed on to recuperate in Dallas Texas. Delegations upon delegations came to me, people whose name I cannot now tell you because there lives are in danger, they told me, Mr. Senator they said, we have waited eight years for you, lead us we are now ready. I said, with what? With water pistols? And said no sir, we are ready. They brought me to their training camps. They took me elsewhere outside the United States and showed me. Maybe we are a handful, maybe we are few, but we are now ready to lay down our lives and these are young Filipino boys and girls, these are boys and girls who come from the better families, who come from the better schools, but have now said we’d better put up or shut up. And so again I entered into a long agony. Because I could not for the life of me condone violence. I told them, if you go into the road of violence it will only lead to more violence I said. If you’ll kill one, Marcos will kill two, will kill three and Marcos will kill four and what will happen to our country. We cannot I said go to a road of violence because violence will only beget more violence I said.
And what will happen when 10 thousand boys and girls are already dead in the streets of Manila and blood will be… will be flowing in our very streets? I cannot I said resist the wailing of mothers who will now blame me that the children have died in the altar of freedom. But these young men were determined. They gave me only a few weeks to try to arrive at a solution with Mr. Marcos. And so my friends on August 4 much against my better judgment, I spoke in New York and I told Mr. Marcos, believe me Mr. President that if you do not lift your martial law bombs will be bursting in Manila. Mr. Marcos called me insane. You know what he said? He should not have had his heart operation, he should have his head operated. He did not listen to me. But I felt it was my duty and as I said I promised that I will not speak out against the Marcos regime, but national interest now dictates that I must warn Mr. Marcos for the last time. I will walk the last mile to prevent this carnage. But if Mr. Marcos will not listen, so be it. And as you very well know bombs exploded in the city, August, September, and October, and Mr. Marcos made me the mad bomber. I did not threaten him. I had nothing to do with the bombing. I only told Mr. Marcos and I warned him that the patience of the Filipino people have ran out, and that if he does not yield now, then he shall reap the whirlwind.
It is in that context that on Dec. 16 Mrs. Marcos called me in the Waldorf Suite Towers. We spoke for four and a half hours. I told Mrs. Marcos I have no more political ambition Mrs. Marcos. I told her that I am through with politics. I told her that I am now a broken man, I said, and maybe this is the last time I’ll see you. And she said why. The last time I saw you I had a broken heart. You call me now I have a broken leg. Next time you’ll see me I’ll have a broken neck. But I went to see Mrs. Marcos precisely, to try to tell her of the imminence and the gravity of the situation. Mrs. Marcos said, are you willing to agree to a moratorium? Well I said Mrs. Marcos who am I to agree to a moratorium. I am not the mad bomber. And then she said, well whatever it is whether you’re the mastermind or not every time you speak in New York, bombs burst in Manila. So why don’t you now appeal. I said yes Mrs. Marcos I will appeal. I will appeal to the opposition in the Philippines but for what and for how long? Give us six months she said. I said maybe 90 days is more reasonable. I do not know I said whether they will follow me. But I will make my appeal to whoever is bombing in the Philippines to give you the chance. But what will you do? I promised you she said if you give us a moratorium President Marcos will lift martial law. I said you mean that? She said yes. And as you very well know a month after I met her martial law was lifted, but what kind of lifting? And I told Mrs. Marcos, Mrs. Marcos I said, if your husband is sincere nothing is impossible, but if your husband is not sincere nothing is possible. And believe me I said, if you are not sincere then the question is, how many will die?
My friends it is now February 15 and there is one month to go. I am not threatening Mr. Marcos. I am only reiterating my word of advice. If they do not increase the freedoms in our country then I’m afraid… I’m afraid that bombs will burst again. On February 1 last Saturday, I received a most poignant letter from a mother and a wife, and I’d like to read it to you. “My dear Senator Aquino, thank you very much for remembering my husband in your negotiations with the government. I have written you a longer letter which will probably reach you in a few days. I am writing you now because I have just received word from my husband, that he intends to go on a hunger strike starting Wednesday February 4, starting with breakfast. The purpose of this is to protest his not being permitted to talk to his lawyers and his immediate relatives me and my only son. I think he chose February 4 as the date of his hunger strike because he was caught on December 4, and by February 4 he would have been two months incommunicado. I understand that the number of other detainees accused of their involvement with April 6 movement will also go on a sympathy strike… hunger strike beginning February 4. Please pray for them. Thank you in advance for any help you can give me. Sincerely, Tina Montiel.”
Mr. Montiel was arrested on December 4. He has been kept incommunicado in the Provincial Command Headquarters in Laguna. No lawyers had been allowed to see him. His wife and four year old son went there, pleaded with the colonel but they refused to allow – to allow him to see them. She went to the Defe – Deputy Defense Minister Barbero, and Minister Barbero gave a letter instructing the commander to allow the wife to see this man. Again they did not allow him. The suspicion is they’ve tortured him beyond recognition that’s why they cannot produce him because there might be evidence. Today the New York Times carried a long story on the saga of Rolando Montiel. That in spite of the lifting of martial law there are still people held incommunicado in our land, who are actually refused the very basic humanitarian consideration of seeing their lawyers and their family. What is so bad about seeing your wife and your children? I know exactly what Montiel is passing because I also suffered more than a month, two months sometimes without seeing my wife and my children, and the mental torture is terrific. This man is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and therefore is entitled to the very rudiments of basic law. But no, under our martial law regime he is still being held incommunicado. How many Montiels are there? How many unsung unnamed Filipinos are still languishing in the jails of our land? In that blighted land of ours where our founding fathers gave up there lives that we may see the morning sun. How many my friends?
And so while we are here in Los Angeles in… savoring the meaning… the true meaning of freedom, laughing, enjoying, dancing our Valentines Day, there are still many Filipinos finding a way merely to have a chance, one glimpse of their wife and their children. I sent a cable to Mr. Marcos. The military went to one of the hunger strikers. They said Montiel will already see his family. They stopped their strike. Six days later they found out they were fooled, and so they resumed their strike. Some of them are already in the 10th day of their strike. I know what it is to go on hunger strike. On the 10th day my friend, your stomach… your stomach will actually be only a handful. I know what it means, the hunger pains that you go on the first, second, third, fourth and fifth day. I know the cramps in the stomach. I know when your hands start trembling and you feel cold because the fat in your body is wasting away. Many of our countrymen are in that predicament. I only hope and pray that Mr. Marcos will now heed to the last cable I sent this morning together with Senators Tanada and Manglapus, asking him in the name of God and humanity to stop the hunger strike by merely allowing Montiel to see his wife and children. I am not saying Montiel is innocent or guilty. All we’re asking is he’d be allowed to see his wife, his child and his lawyer, that’s not asking too much. And yet my friends, today as we have this freedom rally, there are Filipinos deprived of those basic freedoms.
I would like to reiterate therefore my stand. After almost seven years and seven months in prison I have lost my appetite in office. I do not have anymore the answers to the many solutions to our country. That’s why I went to Harvard precisely to try to craft the many answers the malaise of our coun… of our society. I know for a fact we cannot go back to the old society where a few enjoyed the fat of the land and the many suffered. But today in spite of martial law the rich are getting richer and the poor are growing in numbers. That cannot be. The meaning of our struggle is to be able to return the freedom. First you must return the freedom so that all segments of our community whether from the left or from the right will have the right to speak, and then in that open debate, in that clash of debate in the market place, we will produce the clash between the thesis and the antithesis, and we will have the synthesis for the Filipino people. I do not hold the key to our liberation. I do not know all the solutions to our many problems. All I know is that if the situation continues in the Philippines then blood will flow and when blood flows there will be no victor and there will be no vanquished because all of us will be the victim of our folly. I am therefore appealing to Mr. Marcos, Mr. Marcos hear the cry of your people. You have been in office for 16 years. We do not want your blood. We do not want revenge. We do not want to hurt your family. We only ask that freedom be returned. We ask for nothing more but we will accept for nothing less. We tell Mr. Marcos you may have your exercise. I have said time and again I’m no longer interested in politics but if this will speed up the normalization of my country, if I must go back there again and sacrifice myself in a political arena in spite of the fact that I have no money anymore to spend if that will restore freedom then I shall go back. And I tell you now.
I tell you now unless there are very grave intervening events I shall return to Manila by June, at the end of my fellowship. What are the prospects? I have a death sentence waiting for me. I have been told by my lawyer, Senator Tanada who arrived last week from Manila and went to Boston. He was called by Mr. Marcos to Malacanang the day before he left for America. And Mr. Marcos said, Danny I want it very very clear, I want you to explain this to Ninoy very carefully so that there will be no misunderstanding. If he returns to the Philippines he will have to go back to jail. Senator Maceda went home to the Philippines and arrived two days ago. He had the same message. Padre I have talked to the President, he told me that if you return to the Philippines you will have to go back to jail. I am going back to the Philippines and if I have to go back to jail so be it.
I believe that real suffering bravely borne melts even a heart of stone. I want to prove to Mr. Marcos that not only comfort and material things are the demands of the flesh, that there is an indomitable spirit that will be willing to take any sacrifices for our people. I shall therefore go back to the Philippines. And I shall bring back to my cell the memory of this afternoon, where many of our kindred friends came to pay even hard money. But I only wish that when I’m back in my cell that you’ll give me a prayer and pray for those in similar situations. I believe that we cannot do it by force of arms because we have no arms. But civil dibe – disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. When a citizen who barters with such state shows it shares its corruption and (s)lawlessness – I refuse to share the corruption and lawlessness. I believe that when a government becomes corrupt there is no other place for a good citizen but to be in jail. And therefore I shall wear willingly again the hair shirt of imprisonment.
But my friends this struggle can only mean victory for all of us. It will mean victory because we are different from those that we oppose. Those that we oppose are happy with the material wealth but for how long? I have written Mr. Marcos letters upon letters and I told him, read your history my friend. I have no hatred for you. I only have pity because if you do not see and you do not remove the calluses from your eyes, if you do not remove your blinders you will meet the same fate of all the dictators of history. What happened to Mao Tse Tung? His wife is now in jail. What happened to Peron? Isabelita is now in jail. What happened to Franco? He’s now forgotten. What happened to the Shah? For all of the things that he did, the monuments to his greatness have already been torn down. There’s never been a single dictator in history that has lived forever. And so I tell Mr. Marcos, Mr. Marcos study the lessons of history before it is too late. It would be a tragic, tragic tragic thing for a man to miss the sign… the right turn of the fork and end up as a great tragedy.
I have read Mahatma Gandhi in prison. And I have read what he said. And this frail man, this man of almost 60 years old, barely 96 pounds – fought the entire British empire. And cause that empire to collapse why, because he had an indomitable spirit. He had a moral spirit. He had the courage to stand against the British and tell them, you can end the man, you can imprison his body, but you cannot imprison his soul. And as long as man will refuse to be defeated you are never defeated. And so Mr. Marcos can imprison my s… my body. But my spirit shall soar and it shall come to you here in Los Angeles to remind you that in your comfort and in your home in your… in your happiness here there are still many people crying for liberation in your homeland.
I shall return to the Philippines knowing that maybe the seeds that we have planted here today will bear fruit tomorrow. I realize the situation here. You have displayed tremendous courage. How many Filipinos are there in Los Angeles, there are more than 200 thousand Filipinos here. But what is the common refrain? Ay wag kang mag punta roon baka makunan tayo ng litrato lagot na tayo sa bagong baya – balikbayan. How many of our countrymen, how many of our countrymen my friends, your own neighbors will tell you – ay bakit ka naman pupunta roon maghahanap ka pa ng sakit ng ulo, kawawa naman yong kamag-anak mo sa Pilipinas. Don’t they realize that by saying those words they have condemned themselves, because they are condoning tyranny. And when you are condoning tyranny my friends, you share in its corruption and its (s)lawlessness.
There are only two letters and one word that I will leave behind. The letter N and O and the word NO. Because the ancient Greeks taught there people that the moment you can say no, then you are beginning to inquire. The moment you say no, you are beginning to protest. The moment you say no to tyranny, you are beginning the struggle the lone… the long lonely road to freedom. And so I ask this afternoon, please say no and learn to say no. No to tyranny, no to corruption, no to all these degradation of human dignity because then I feel you are the true heirs of your fathers who before you have shed their blood for our freedoms.
My friends do not forget that your readiness to suffer will light a torch of freedom which can never be put out. Do not forget that we who are now in the middle of our years mine… must inspire the youth when they are almost in the brink of despair. Do not forget that the purpose of life is precisely to examine our being, not merely be a floating flotsam in the time – in the floods of time. Do not forget as Longfellow said, that we should never be like driven cattle, but be a hero in the strife.
And so as I ended my speeches before in the Philippines, mayron pong isang kasabihan daw na mayrong isang lalaki na naglakbay sa malayo, at siyay inabot ng uhaw, at halos siyay mamatay na ng uhaw nung siya’y makakita ng isang silid, at sa silid na yon ay nakakita ng isang magandang dalaga, at siya po ay humingi ng isang basong tubig. Binigyan ng dalaga ng isang basong tubig at ininum ng lalaking uhaw na uhaw na halos mamatay, at sabi ng lalaki magandang dalaga ‘ikang ganon, hindi ko na po kakalimutan ang inyong itinulong sa akin. Noong ako’y uhaw na uhaw ay kayo’y nag bigay ng tubig. With that, (iniuod) niya ang kanyang baso at kanyang ipinukol at binasag. Ay nagulat yung babae at ang sabi ng babae, eh kung kayo’y nagpapasalamat kung kayo’y uhaw na uhaw at kayo’y tinulungan ko eh bakit naman ninyo sinira ang aking baso at bakit nyo binasag? Ang sagot daw po ng lalaki’y, binasag ko itong basong ito, na parang wala ng ibang lalaki pang makakalapit ditong makiki-inom sa inyo at gagamit sa atin – sa ating maliit na baso. Ako po ay nagpunta rito sa inyo sa Los Angeles bagamat ang aking paay napakasakit. Ako’y uhaw na uhaw sa pag-ibig at inyoy binigay nyo ang inyong pag-ibig, at kayo’y nag bayad pa ng makadinig. At ngayong tayoy may nagkakita, at ako’y nagpapasalamat sa inyo galak sa aking puso sa buong pasasalamat ay sanay basagin na natin yung basong tulong at pag-ibig na inyong binigay na parang wala ng Marcos na makakahiram pa sa balang panahon.
My dear friends I therefore would like to end this afternoon by saluting the courage that you have now displayed. And I’d like to tell you today. This courage have energized the batteries of my life and I shall bring it to whatever fate will lead me, and I shall always remember the people of Los Angeles and truly to me it has become the city of angels. I thank you very much.
Leave a Comment October 22, 2009