12/20/2023 0 Comments Struggle session in americaBut the spirit of democracy that inheres in our race and animates this chamber could not be allowed to die. He did not know that an early death would still be his fate, that only the timing was wrong.Īt any time during his long ordeal, Ninoy could have made a separate peace with the dictatorship, as so many of his countrymen had done. And so, with barely any life in his body, he called off the fast on the fortieth day. He stopped only when it dawned on him that the government would keep his body alive after the fast had destroyed his brain. For nothing would hold him back from his determination to see his fast through to the end. If he survived it, then, he felt, God intended him for another fate. Ninoy challenged its authority and went on a fast. When that didn’t work, they put him on trial for subversion, murder and a host of other crimes before a military commission. This was the first time my children and I felt we had lost him. For 43 days, the authorities would not tell me what had happened to him. They stripped him naked and held the threat of sudden midnight execution over his head. They locked him up in a tiny, nearly airless cell in a military camp in the north. The government sought to break him by indignities and terror. For even as the dictatorship demolished one by one the institutions of democracy – the press, the Congress, the independence of the judiciary, the protection of the Bill of Rights – Ninoy kept their spirit alive in himself. The dictator already knew that Ninoy was not a body merely to be imprisoned but a spirit he must break. But for Ninoy, a long and cruel ordeal was reserved. He detained my husband along with thousands of others – senators, publishers and anyone who had spoken up for the democracy as its end drew near. A president-turned-dictator, and traitor to his oath, suspended the Constitution and shut down the Congress that was much like this one before which I am honored to speak. His loss, three times in our lives, was always a deep and painful one.įourteen years ago this month was the first time we lost him. For myself and our children, Ninoy was a loving husband and father. So in giving, we receive, in losing we find, and out of defeat, we snatched our victory.įor the nation, Ninoy became the pleasing sacrifice that answered their prayers for freedom. A country that had lost faith in its future found it in a faithless and brazen act of murder. By that brave and selfless act of giving honor, a nation in shame recovered its own. In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored him. Today, I have returned as the president of a free people. I thought I had left it also to lay to rest his restless dream of Philippine freedom. Three years ago, I left America in grief to bury my husband, Ninoy Aquino. During the Joint Session of the United States Congress
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |