MANILA, Philippines - The masterminds in the assassination of former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. remain scot-free because justice in the country is “not equal” and is strongly biased for the powerful, Sen. Joker Arroyo said yesterday.
Arroyo, an ally of the martyred senator in the anti-Marcos struggle, said the failure of authorities to pin down the masterminds in the Aquino assassination is just as tragic as his death 28 years ago at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, which has since been renamed after him. He was returning from exile in the United States when killed.
“Who will dare assassinate Ninoy? Up to now, the masterminds are not charged, and that’s the unfairness of it all,” Arroyo said over radio station dzBB, calling Aquino by his famous nickname.
“If you are a big shot, you go scot-free,” the senator said.
A fact-finding team set up by the Marcos regime after the assassination named Rolando Galman as the triggerman. Galman, branded as a communist hit man by the Marcos regime, was killed by airport security men and soldiers.
Arroyo said the repercussions of Ninoy’s unsolved death continue to hound post-Marcos administrations including those of his widow, the late Corazon Aquino, and their son Benigno III. Ninoy’s death on Aug. 21, 1983 sparked almost daily street protests that led to the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution which catapulted his widow to the presidency. Their son and Ninoy’s namesake, for his part, overwhelmingly won in the 2010 presidential elections mainly on the platform of anti-corruption.
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