Filipinos celebrate Ninoy Aquino's 28th death anniversary

MANILA Philippines (Aug. 21, 2011) - Filipinos celebrate today the 28th death anniversary of former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. who was assassinated at the then Manila International Airport (MIA) while returning from exile in the United States.

For many students of history, it was Ninoy's death that sparked the end of the well-entrenched Marcos dictatorship paving the way for the restoration of democracy in the Philippines.

The MIA is now the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Ninoy's wife became the President after Marcos and his only son is now the President of the Republic.

But Ninoy's children including the President prefers to quietly commemorate his death anniversary.

President Aquino and his siblings will remember Ninoy's death with a private Mass today.

In the only announced public appearance by P-Noy today, he will open an exhibit dubbed “Ninoy, My Hero” at the SM Megamall Atrium.

In a statement, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda called on the public to remember Ninoy’s sacrifice for the country.

“May the Filipino people never forget him and the many others who fought for the restoration of our democracy, and may future generations continue to hold dear the example Ninoy Aquino set for us through his life, his struggles and his sacrifice,” Lacierda said.

Aquino’s death in 1983 sparked massive protests against the Marcos dictatorship that culminated three years later in the popular uprising known worldwide as the People Power Revolution of 1986 that installed Ninoy's wife, Cory Aquino, as the new President.

Sen. Joker Arroyo said the memories of Ninoy’s assassination are “simultaneously inspiring and unsettling” because the masterminds of his murder were never brought to justice.

“We cannot help but be painfully reminded as well of how the wheels of justice for Ninoy had turned from irony to travesty to caricature where the lowly and hapless soldiers were convicted for Ninoy’s murder, while the masterminds were never charged,” he said.

There were calls in the past to reopen the case but the Aquino family rejected these. The soldiers convicted of murder served their time in prison, some of them dying in detention. (From philstar.com, Vox Bikol)