Ninoy Aquino: His Life for His Nation

August 21, 1983 – (Manila) – It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and tomorrow I will be having an exam on history and its all about the encomienda system.

I do not know if we will have classes tomorrow because of the killing this afternoon of the Senator Ninoy Aquino at the Manila International Airport.

Instead of watching TV we, Momsy and Popsy listened to the radio station Veritas because it was being talked that Ninoy the enemy of President Marcos was coming home anytime soon.

Some people at around 4PM were shouting that Ninoy was shot and so we listened to our station DWWW but there was nothing and we went to Veritas and the reporter was saying many people were crying outside the airport.

Tonight I sleep thinking if Marcos had Ninoy killed because they hated each other? I call this Bloody Sunday. Good night diary until tomorrow.

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As far back as my memory can serve me right and the notes, scribbles that I made on a journal or then more popularly called a diary on August 21 of 1983 as posted about, was a day that brought so much concern and great fear.

I may have been a teenager at that time but living and growing under a military dominated society back then plus there were unspoken rumors of abuses and killings of people who opposed the government was still, something to think about even at such a young age.

Like most writers today, all will be writing about this historic day, the day some us dub as the first biggest mistake of the Marcos government, to have made a martyr out of Ninoy Aquino.

Many of us who vaguely appreciated the political situation at that time (because we were still teeners going ga-ga over spikey hair and New Wave) still talked about what will come come next. We still had this level of worry that everything won’t be right in the next few days or in the next few years.

It took the almost two years for the continuing condemnation of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination turn into an affirmative action and resulted in terminating the strong grip of the Marcos’ on the Philippines.

At that time I was taking an advance science and technology oriented high school education program at Manila’s science high school but instead of just science, I was growing to learn and know more of the dynamics of Philippine politics, society and culture.

On this very date, as the nation woke up to the realities of the times then, I too was beginning to open my eyes and discover that I need to take part.

I have no regrets living in those turbulent times for it enriched me and drove me to discover my role in this life time, and in due course, I have become a journalist who is still eagerly and patiently reporting the stories, that some stories being reported now if published during Marcos' time, reporting such stories would either cost you your limbs or even your life.

For the children of this generation, I hope that they will find their own role in society and how they can contribute towards its development, it may seem everything is stunted by politics and the side shows of some political rats, bottom line is we should never permanently stay outside of the arena, for once we all need to stand up from fence sitting and maybe become a hero, even just once in our lives.

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