Goodbye, Superboy: a Fond Farewell to the Last Romantic Essay

MANILA, August 21, 2003 (STAR) BY THE instruction By Max V. Soliven Much has been create verb completelyy most Ninoy Aquino, whose name inevitably no introduction to worldly concerny of our readers. Commuters pass by his statue daily on Ayala Avenue in Makatis G disuseden Mile, and an opposite monument to him in realityila. however monuments and statues, and glowing encomiums do not a hero make. But my thesis is that to daylight, Ninoy is a forgotten hero. There was so much bare in the first halcyon geezerhood afterward the overthrow of the autocrat Ferdinand E. Marcos, and excessively many a(prenominal) silly celebrations, with excessive hoopla, of for each one succeeding day of remembrance of the EDSA mint fountain revolution (and then an EDSA II, and, sanamagan, even an EDSA III so-called) that the man whose heroism and sacrifice inspired not merely the first throng power barricades, but a national upsurge I choose to call The Spirit of 1986 has been forgotten. T hese old age, in fact, the Filipino spirit has been dampened, our self-confidence depleted under the weight of each revealed inequity, and tales of resurgent corruption, graft, vaulting ambition improver the disgraceful debacle of a contrived escape of the Jemaah Islamiyah mad-bomber, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, from police prison.This is a while for us to remember a man who believed the Filipino was cost dying for, and from him gather the renewed resolve that the Filipino is worth upkeep for, as well. But let us not sound maudlin. Ninoy would clear laughed at such sticky directimentality. When he was sent by the old Manila Times to cover the Korean War (the 50th anniversary of whose conclusion was just commemorated some workweeks ago) he was 17, the youngest correspondent of them all. The Times editors Dave Boguslav and Joe Bautista had spotted that gung ho quality in Aquino that was to rocket him to fame and, in the end, make him remorselessly to his final rendezvous with t reachery at the Manila internationalistic Airport. Ninoy was a hard-nosed newspaperman, and what set him apart from so many others was but his nose for the news. He had an eidetic reposition for facts, figures and detail. You get the facts, Dave Boguslav told him when he sent him off to war, and Ill take care of the grammar. Ninoy delivered and a star newsman was born. Ninoy paid his dues as newsman.He took risks where others preferred to be prudent. For him flavor was a great adventure and a short and glorious life break dance than a long and dull one. God granted him his wish. Everyone has already written a torrent of words about how Ninoy had been a Young Man in a Hurry. He became the youngest town mayor just a shade underage the youngest de perpetratey governor, then governor, the youngest Senator (he almost topped the polls, feeler in slightly behind late his comprobinsyano, Tarlacs elder Sen. Jose J. Roy). If a free election had been held in 1973 (but hawkish law in tervened and dashed that prospect), Ninoy whose sole(prenominal) rival in his own Liberal Party was the late Senate chair Gerry Roxas would almost certainly have been elected president. Aquino had that golden tongue to which all(prenominal) politician aspires, but with which only a few are gifted. It goes beyond rhetoric or eloquence on the entablado a strange power to move hearts, provoke laughter, attract loyalty and affection, whip a assemblage up to a frenzy and the fervor of a crusade, inspire rely in listeners miserably perched in the brink of despair.Ninoy was so eloquent in English, Tagalog, Kapampangan, and even Ilocano (his native Tarlac, after all, is a province of three dialects) that he was accused of glibness. He was dubbed Superboy, partly in admiration, party in derision. It took martial law and cruel imprisonment to make us realize that the son had become a Man. By a quirk of fate, I was charge to be his cellmate in the maximum security compound of Fort Boni facio when we were arrested as subversives in September 1972. Out of the 400 prisoners crammed into the Camp Crame gym, after we had been picked up between midnight and dawn, 11 of us were singled out by name and told by a colonel to step forward.Ninoy had nudged me cheerfully in the ribs and exclaimed in a defend whisper, Eto na, eto na expelling squad na tayo. (This is it, this is it. Were going to the Firing Squad). Yet, they didnt shoot us. They trucked us instead to Fort Bonifacio, where they sent a military chaplain to hear our confessions thus reinforcing our conviction that we were to be executed. Once to a greater extent, we were disappointed. in all throughout, it was Ninoy, who surely realized he was the number one target, Marcos favorite bete noir, the authoritarians pet nemesis, tried to cheer us all up. The days of captivity stretched into weeks, the weeks into months. Nobody who has never been in prison can visit what you suffer from is simply being caged you su ffer from the uncertainty of it all, and from boredom. You never chouse when your military jailors, who have the power of life and death over you, testament drag you out and shoot you, at any hour of day or night. After a while, the world outside becomes a memory you begin to forget that there are streets with people and vehicles in them, and noise, and squabble and bustle, and bright colors and pretty girls. One gray day follows the other and you learn to live from one day to the next. Yet, I wasnt bored, because I had Ninoy to entertain me. We talked, we read.We swapped ideas, jokes, argued ideologies. We dreamed dreams. We went jogging during the exercise hour and steeled ourselves to run a mile in septette minutes. It was then that I realized that Ninoy Aquino, for all his wit, his air of bright cynicism, and his veneer of tough political pragmatism, was an incurable romantic. He had visions of the Filipino rising up to overthrow any tyranny. He had pinned his hopes on the Filipinos love of freedom and his will to resist every coercion or seduction. He had faith in the Filipino. At nightfall, the soldiers many of them Ilocanos would come to our barracks-prison and Ninoy would regale them with stories of the Korean War. Or the Vietnam War, which we had both covered. We would talk of the Huk campaign, which we alike had covered. Ninoys spellbinding recollections were so mesmerizing that after a week or so I had warned him Watch out brod. You will currently be accused of conducting teach-ins.Those guards are beginning to like us too much. Sure enough, after three weeks, we found a notice on our bulletin board. The guards had all been replaced. The notice verbalize Our guests (yep, thats what they called us at the Bonifacio Hilton) are requested not to talk to the guards who have been ordered not to talk to them. You see, you see, I chided Ninoy. Those poor fellows have been sent to the battlefront in Mindanao, just because they laughed at your jokes When this writer and the rest of us were released, Ninoy and the late Pepe Diokno were leave behind, but in separate barracks. Ninoy spent seven long time and seven months in solitary confinement. On the front page youll find a photograph of the two of us arm in arm with each other. This was taken when he was allowed abode at last under massive guard for a brief Christmas leave after seven years in jail. We hugged each other at the entrance of his Times road home in Quezon City Max, Max, he laughed.How right you were. I approximation I would be out in six months or a year because the people would demand for my freedom, but you were the one who told me to dig in for the long haul I remember you said from five years to 10 years. But you know, prison has been bully for me. I have had time to think, to read, to formulate my ideology, to find God. What is ambition? Its nothing. I have put all ambition away all we must fight for is for our people to be happy, and to be free. We talked about proposing a formula for a bring back to free elections to Marcos. He had written Marcos a letter, he said, suggesting national reconciliation. Everybody knows the rest. Aquino, after his two-week furlough, went back to his lonely prison. He suffered a heart attack.Worried about international reaction, particularly the reproof of the American government (although President Ronald Reagan and Nancy were good friends of Macoy and Imelda) they let Ninoy go off to Texas, and exile, for an emergency heart operation. We warned him not to return. I told him, They will kill you. But on Aug. 21, 1983, a Sunday, he came home to die in his own country. In a last converse with Radio Veritas, Aquino had declared Kamatayan lamang ang makapipigil sa akin (Only death could stop me from coming home). some politicians bet on a sure thing. Ninoy gambled on the goodness and thought of decency of the Filipino. A pragmatist would have kept himself safely in the United States preserving hi s life until a better day.But Ninoy was a romantic who believed that promises must be kept, pledges must be redeemed, and death if awaited him must be face up in order to show the people that there are things more important than life. When he died, I penned an adieu entitled Goodbye, Superboy A favorable Farewell to the Last Romantic. Thus the title of this piece. Yet, I hope Ninoy was not the last romantic for such romantics are what we desperately need in these painful days of harsh and bitter realities. Someone once said that it is far better to soar with the eagles, braving the hunters gun, than to scratch on the ground with the chickens. The hunters gun finally found Ninoy Aquino at the airport which now bears his name. His spirit was freed to soar among the stars. I am exalted to have known him. To have been touched by him. To remember him now.