MikeLigalig.com

“More important” than Montblanc pens is what “induced [Senator Diokno’s family] to shed tears,” wondered President Aquino in an Inquirer interview on the 30th anniversary of his father’s murder.

Diokno and Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. vanished from their Fort Bonifacio cells and their personal effects were returned without explanation. “Will he not need his toothbrush?” Corazon Aquino asked stone-faced jailors. Over 42 days, the two families searched.

Blindfolded and handcuffed to escorts, Diokno and Aquino were secretly helicoptered to Nueva Ecija. “Their escorts had .45 pistols pointed at the midsection of both my dad and Senator Diokno,” P-Noy recalls. “They didn’t know where they were being brought.”

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See those mindsets in the context of the letter that Diokno wrote from his prison cell in 1972: “True, there is little that men of goodwill can do now to end the madness that holds our nation in its grip. But we can, even now, scrutinize our past; try to pinpoint where we went wrong; determine what led to this madness and what nurtured it; and how, when it ends, we can make sure that it need never happen again. For this madness must end—if not in my lifetime, at least in yours.”

The Manila airport murder of Ninoy triggered the revolt against the Marcos dictatorship. People Power installed Aquino’s widow as president. Equally hesitant about seeking election, her son is now the 15th Philippine president. These events blur memories of Diokno’s towering role in governance. Thus, it is right that P-Noy remind our children of this IOU for Diokno.

Martial law in September 1972, aborted Diokno’s second term as senator. After two years of detention, he was released without charges being filed. He passed away a year after the Marcos regime collapsed.

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That was unvarnished Diokno. And our children need that spirit more today. Despite being tarred by the dictatorship’s abuses and today’s pork scam, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. jostles to make a bid for the presidency come 2016. What would a Jose Diokno say?

In Monday’s rallies against those who pigged out on the pork barrel, we hear Diokno’s blunt comments re-echo, from prison and that 1972 Supreme Court hearing: “This madness must end—if not in my lifetime, at least in yours…” (And) “we beg leave to submit a memorandum of reply since our answer right now is unprintable.”

http://opinion.inquirer.net/

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