Narvasa: We should close book on Ninoy Aquino’s murder



By Juliet Labog-Javellana
Inquirer
Last updated 01:51am (Mla time) 08/21/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Andres Narvasa Monday said Filipinos should close the book on the assassination of former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and that the soldiers imprisoned for the murder should now be freed, saying “they have suffered enough.”
The closure should be made even if the mastermind of the murder remained unknown, said Narvasa, lead counsel of the five-member Agrava fact-finding commission that concluded soldiers killed Aquino.
Aquino’s assassination 24 years ago on Tuesday at the Manila International Airport on his return from three years of self-exile in the United States sparked massive protests and led to the peaceful People Power revolution that ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed Aquino’s widow, Corazon, as president.
“Better left closed. No sense anymore in trying to find out (who ordered his killing). If anything could be found out, it would have been revealed by this time. If we haven’t found out by this time, we will never find out,” Narvasa told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
“Ver is dead, Marcos is dead. I don’t think we will ever find out,” he said. Gen. Fabian Ver was Marcos’ Armed Forces chief of staff.
Filipinos, Narvasa said, are better off honoring Ninoy and the lessons of his martyrdom.
“Ninoy is being honored as a hero, a martyr for truth and freedom. Let it be that way. I think Ninoy would opt for reconciliation rather than vengeance,” Narvasa said.
Referring to the convicted soldiers serving life sentences for the assassination, Narvasa said: “I haven’t really thought about it but they have been in jail for more than 10 years. I think they have suffered enough and maybe it’s time to set them free.”
Besides, he agreed that the soldiers were the “small fry” in the grand conspiracy which sparked the historic EDSA revolution that brought down the Marcos dictatorship.
Narvasa, 78, said he could no longer remember details of the Agrava report, save for the excitement of the yearlong probe and Marcos’ chilling words when he and the four members of the panel submitted the report to him in October 1984 in Malacañang.
‘It’s finished’
“As far as we are concerned, we have unearthed the truth and disclosed it. Probably many people do not agree with us, who feel that the real culprits have not been unmasked. But as far as we are concerned, it’s finished, functus oficio,” he said.
Narvasa had initially declined to be interviewed, saying he was “retired” and had written a book about the investigation. He said he did not wish to revisit that dark period in the country’s history. “If somebody talks to me about it, it comes back to me. Otherwise, I don’t think of it,” he said.
Retirement means playing golf twice a week, enjoying his 15 grandchildren and giving legal advice to detained President Joseph Estrada.
Created by Marcos to investigate the Aquino assassination, the Agrava board spent one year culling evidence and interviewing 193 witnesses, collating 20,000 pages of testimony.
It submitted two separate reports which said the military was responsible for the murders of Aquino and his alleged assassin, Rolando Galman.
Split
However, the commission was split on how high up the military hierarchy the murder went.
The commission’s chair, the late Court of Appeals Justice Corazon Agrava, issued her minority report clearing Ver. Narvasa was joined by the other members -- Amando Dizon, Luciano Salazar, Dante Santos and Ernesto Herrera in the majority report which said Ver, Gen. Luther Custodio and Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) chief Gen. Prospero Olivas were involved in the assassination.
The majority report was seen as adding holes to the sinking ship that was the Marcos regime.
Narvasa was credited with meticulously piecing the evidence together. His stubborn independence irked Marcos who tried to dilute his powers. But Narvasa persisted.
Narvasa recalled that the board majority was incredulous at the military version that Aquino was killed by Galman.
“We found it hard to believe he could be loitering there under the stairs and he conveniently shot Ninoy. We were suspicious about the whole thing,” he said, adding the board was vindicated during the Sandiganbayan trial when it was established that one of the soldiers who escorted Ninoy off the China Airlines plane was the one who shot him.
Still a mystery
Indeed, the Aquino assassination remains a mystery despite the findings of the commission, Narvasa admitted.
“There was no direct evidence on who was the mastermind,” he said, adding that even with respect to Ver directing the operation there was only “circumstantial evidence.”
“The burning question at that time was whether it was President Marcos or the First Lady (who ordered it), I have to be frank there was no evidence pointing either way,” he said. “There was no direct evidence. They remained speculations.”
“Doña Imelda, I don’t think was deeply involved ... in such a dreadful thing. Maybe (she knows something) because she’s the President’s wife, she could not have been excluded from conversations by President Marcos,” he said.
Narvasa said even the theory about business tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco’s role in the assassination came up, but that there was not a shred of evidence about it.
He said justice had been served with the conviction of the soldiers involved in the murder.
Ninoy’s lessons
And with Marcos and Ver dead, he said: “God moves in mysterious ways.”
Narvasa said Filipinos must take Ninoy’s lessons to heart.
“We must love the truth. Find out what the truth is no matter who is involved. We may have enemies, lose friends but we must always find out what is the truth and live by it. We will be happier and we’ll be honored by it,” he said.
Did he feel the board, though it failed to tag the mastermind, live up to that?
“Yes, I hope so. What is important is we tried, we have not compromised and we have not closed our eyes to whatever we may find out,” he said.
Could they have been wrong after all? “Being humans maybe but I don’t think we’re wrong. The evidence is there, we made conclusions on the basis of evidence which I think is logical and fair,” he said.
Narvasa remembered the moment he and the four board members submitted the report to Marcos at the Palace as if it just happened Monday. He recalls how Marcos rejected their report, and felt that “we did a grievous wrong.”
Marcos never smiled
“We were waiting in the ante-room and when the report was about to be handed to him, he indicated a spot on his desk (where we should put it down) and said those chilling words: ‘I hope you can live with your conscience after what you have done.’ He never smiled,” Narvasa said.
Did he live with his conscience? Narvasa laughed as he replied: “Oh yes. Comfortably.”
When Ninoy’s widow assumed power, she appointed Narvasa first as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1986 and then as Chief Justice in 1991, a post he held until his retirement in 1998.
In 1999, Narvasa was named by Estrada as chair of the Preparatory Commission for Constitutional Reform and in 2000, he served as lead counsel for Estrada during his impeachment trial in the Senate.


Siguro may alam si former pres. Ramos dito.