Last week, we commemorated the death of Ninoy Aquino and the burial rites of his brother -former senator Butz Aquino in the metropolis.  It is sad that many of the  oldies just enjoyed the non-working holiday last Friday without imbibing the  true meaning behind the memories of August 21 -and the young ones -too uninformed and unaffected- to catch the full import of Ninoy’s heroism.
It was in August 21, 1983 that the exiled senator Ninoy Aquino came back and was assassinated in the NAIA tarmac by military men and made him an instant national hero.The Filipinos were then  galvanized into one smoldering army that in 1986 led to the downfall of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and ended a tyranny of of 15 years.
From the civilian side , it was Butz Aquino who sounded the first call for citizens to mass up at a Cubao department store in order to march to EDSA to protect Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Vice chief of Staff of the AFP Fidel Ramos in the two military camps- who defied the evil president in Malacanang. From the church side it was the voice of Cardinal Sin. This was the birth of People Power.
The rest is history.
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