Volume 7, Issue No. 10
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . .
Our latest as of Thursday, August 21, 2025
~ On August 21, first in 1971, and second in 1983, violence erupted in Manila involving the bombing of a political rally in Plaza Miranda, and the assassination of former Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino at the airport. Twelve years apart, but the two events are forever etched in our minds because they spurred consequential changes in the homeland. Were they coincidental or ill-fated?
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COINCIDENTAL OR ILL-FATED?
Bombing and Ninoy Aquino's Assassination
The Two Events Happened 12 Years Apart on Aug. 21
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“The important thing to know about an assassination or an attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.” ―
TORONTO - A landmark event today, August 21, is written in contemporary history as the day former Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino was assassinated at the Manila International Airport tarmac 42 years ago.
His death by an assassin's bullet changed the course of Philippine politics. It sparked a "people power" revolution that ended the strongman rule of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, and catapulted his widow, Corazon "Cory" Aquino to the presidency.
I remember the day it happened like it was yesterday. I was at the airport to cover his arrival from Taipei as an assistant foreign correspondent for the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.
Eleven years prior to Aquino's death on Aug. 21, 1983, all media - print, radio, television - were closed down as Marcos placed the country under martial law on September 21, 1972.
The newspaper I was working with, The Manila Chronicle, was shut down, and its building and its brand new printing equipment in Pasig were seized by the military.
A short time later, it reopened as the central office of the Journal Group of Companies under a new owner, Ambassador Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, the brother of first lady Imelda R. Marcos.
(Incidentally, the current speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Ferdinand Martin Gomez Romualdez, is a son of Kokoy. Marcos' son and namesake, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, is the president of the Philippines. The two offspring are cousins.)
I joined the daily Asahi Shimbun, one of the oldest newspapers in Japan, after I lost my job at the Chronicle and stayed there for a while. That was my first experience writing for a foreign newspaper which had put up a Manila bureau headquartered in San Lorenzo Village, Makati.
The military had prevented local and foreign media entry into the airport on that day. So, what happened was we mingled with the opposition politicians like Senator Salvador "Doy" Laurel and Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw who were there to meet Ninoy.
Past the commotion and growing resentment among the foreign press hours later, word got around that Ninoy had been shot as he disembarked from the China Airlines plane. There was a mad scramble among reporters especially as everyone was in a rush to get the story out.
We hurried back to our office in San Lorenzo Village and there filed the report to the Asahi Shimbun head office in Tokyo. As there was no internet yet, we relied on satellite phone and teletype via the Associated Press.
I was among the first foreign correspondents to view Ninoy's bloody corpse, not embalmed and wearing the same clothes he had on when murdered the day before, as it lied in state at the Aquino's family home on Times St. in Quezon City and talked briefly with his grieving mother, Dona Aurora Aquino. Ninoy's wife and his entire family arrived a day later from the US.
It was not the first time I had seen such a gory sight. Twelve years earlier on the same date, August 21, 1971 to be exact, I was at the scene (as police reporter of the Chronicle) of the Liberal Party bombing in Plaza Miranda, Quiapo, Manila where nine people were killed and 95 others injured.
In stories after stories published here and elsewhere, I refer to that date as my baptism of fire and blood, literally. The violence in both instances - I mean Aug. 21, 1983 and Aug. 21, 1971 - had been engraved in my mind to this day.
Having witnessed and experienced those ordeal at a young age had strengthened my resolve to stand up to threats and intimidation in pursuing a career in investigative journalism. At this juncture, I feel nothing could faze me.
A year after Aquino's assassination, I was offered a lucrative job to put up a Manila bureau of the Deutsche Presse Agentur, the German news agency, and be its chief correspondent. I chose a room in a building across the US Embassy in Ermita where the French news agency Agence France Presse operated. Its bureau chief, Teddy Benigno, later became Cory Aquino's press secretary.
In October 1984, I flew out of Manila to train at the main DPA editorial offices in Hamburg. As part of the learning process, I visited selected places in what's then West Germany. (Related story: Nostalgic About the Berlin Wall 30 Years After the Fall).
Ninoy Aquino's 1983 assassination was a turning point. And so was the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing on this same day, August 21. Could that day of the month coincidental or ill-fated? (Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved).
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