News Roundup 21 August 2022
Aug 21, 2022 • 5 min Read
Ninoy slay anniversary: Saving history from distortion | INQUIRER.NET – There’s a reason why today’s event at Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City will kick off at 1 p.m. That’s the time, exactly 39 years ago, when former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated at what was then the Manila International Airport, his death marking what is now considered the beginning of the end of the Marcos regime. Aug. 21, 1983, was also a Sunday. Project Gunita, one of the groups organizing the commemoration, will start the Bantayog program with the screening of the raw footage of the opposition leader’s final moments as he was escorted by a military team out of his plane, one that recorded the chilling, off-camera instructions of someone repeatedly saying “Pusila! Pusila!,” the Visayan word for “kill” and the signal for the Aquino murder to proceed. The screening will be followed by the opening of an exhibit of old publications about the assassination and the tumultous political period that followed, materials painstakingly collated by the museum through the post-Edsa years and now being digitized by Project Gunita for a more secure preservation. Preservation. That’s easily the day’s key word — for underscoring the occasion is a growing sense among those attending that the memory of Ninoy’s martyrdom is not only fading but, worse, being distorted by the current wave of historical revisionism that targets the minds of the younger generation. Among those marking this year’s Ninoy Aquino Day — the first under the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — are former activists who experienced martial law during Ferdinand Sr.’s dictatorship. “A lot of us were really hurt when Marcos Jr. won the presidency,” said Malu Maniquis, now a documentary filmmaker. “That’s when we realized a fatal mistake: many of us became complacent after the ouster [of the Marcoses in 1986].” “We have already gotten older and many of us have already passed on, but the unscrupulousness and brazenness of those in government continue,” said fellow activist Edith Reyes. “Thank God for the youth who continue to believe in the work that we ‘super seniors’ still do.” Reyes and Maniquis are thus counting on Project Gunita, which is putting together a “history fair” at Bantayog in partnership with “senior’’ groups like Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law, People Power Volunteers for Reform and the August Twenty-One Movement.
Government agencies mum on Ninoy Aquino Day, an official holiday | PHILSTAR.COM – Official government social media accounts were silent Sunday morning amid muted commemoration of Ninoy Aquino Day, marking the opposition figure’s assasination at the Manila International Airport in 1983. Social media accounts of the Maritime Police Stations of Batangas and Quezon provinces even had posts declaring the former senator, whose murder helped galvanize opposition to the Marcos dictatorship, “not hero.” In posts against the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army, the police units also accused the murdered Aquino of being a guerrilla. There was no commemorative statement from the Palace as of Sunday noon. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines, which had marked August 21 with social media posts in 2020 and in 2021, was, on Sunday morning, promoting a webinar on the Spanish-era Filipino Propaganda Movement. The NHCP eventually reposted a tribute to Aquino by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts early Sunday afternoon. The Philippine Information Agency, the government’s official public information arm, was meanwhile tweeting about the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism — a United Nations day of remembrance established in 2017 that the agency only began tweeting about on Sunday. The Senate, which posted a tweet last year remembering its former member as a “symbol of the Filipino’s fight for freedom and democracy” also had nothing to say about him on Sunday. Aquino, who was killed as he was getting off a China Airlines flight that brought him back from exile in the US, had been honored as a democracy icon by previous administrations. Republic Act No. 9256, passed into law in 2004, designates August 21 as Ninoy Aquino Day, and tasked the EDSA Commission with “[planning and implementing] appropriate ceremonies” in commemoration. Part of the EDSA People Power Commission’s mandate was transferred to the NHCP in 2017. The election of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had raised concerns over whether events like the Aquino assasination or the 1986 People Power Revolution would still be celebrated. The 19th Congress has seen the filing of bills to rename the Ninoy Aquino International airport, either back to its original name or after the sitting president’s father and namesake. Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan), said it was “joining the nation in remembering the events of August 21 — the Plaza Miranda Bombing of 1971 and the assassination of opposition leader Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983,” which it said “showed the brutality of the Marcos regime.” It said that the elder Marcos’ regime was “ultimately responsible” for both incidents as it noted attempts to sanitize the history of Martial Law. “As an organization formed at the height of the struggle against the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship, Bayan is committed to keeping alive the lessons of history, holding to account the Marcoses, and opposing any attempt to reimpose the same tyrannical rule of the ousted dictator,” Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes said. In a separate statement, the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law recalled how the nation was shocked and grieving on August 21, 1983. CARMMA — which has Martial Law victims and survivors among its members — added that August 21 “stood as a reminder and a beacon of light, shining over a nation fed up with the autocratic and despotic Marcos rule” and that the assasination led to louder calls for justice and for an end to the Marcos dictatorship.
Phivolcs raises Alert Level 1 over Mayon Volcano | PHILSTAR.COM – State volcanologists are raising the alert level status of Mayon Volcano to Alert Level 1 on Sunday after ground deformation was observed on top of some low-frequency volcanic earthquakes earlier this year, signaling low-level unrest. “These observation parameters indicate that volcanic gas-induced pressurization at the shallow depths of the edifice may be occurring, causing the summit dome of Mayon to be pushed out,” Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a statement on Sunday. The higher alert level was reverted a little over a year since Mayon volcano was said to be under normal condition in July 2021. The Alert Level 1 status means Mayon volcano is now in a period of unrest.
