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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-11/aquino-democracy-sm.webp" alt="Ninoy Aquino" loading="lazy" />
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Hundreds, then thousands of years hence, with modern technology and new research methods, we learn and discover that many of these facets and vignettes of history are actually fiction. So, what do scholars and historians do with them? They are revised and that is not revisionism.


That's how real history established the grandeur, the stability or instability of nation states and the world. To be credible they subject themselves to scrutiny and when they pass it, they gain the recognition, however well or badly history treated them.


Well, that is not what happened in this seemingly insignificant state in this part of the globe. Imperial Manila, a thousand kilometers from many of the country's islands and cities, is the capital, but it is not the Philippines. When the Liberals and the Aquinos in Manila succeeded in overthrowing a duly elected president through the EDSA People Power I revolution, mainly with the backing of the elite and the oligarchy, the rest of the islands did not have a say or hand in it. It was a unilateral act by a presumptuous few, whose decisions were made popular through propaganda by the oligarchs, hence the perception that the EDSA revolution was the mandate of the people. People who?


I have to emphasize the oligarchs because they were the big players from the print and broadcast media. They were instrumental in sharing to the world what they perceived was important information according to their agenda, so mainly it was a warped version of circumstances. We heard tales about the "dictatorship" and how it killed press freedom. Of how student activists were captured and tortured, simply because they resisted the iron hand. They talked of the government's suppression of free speech and academic freedom, and how many of these agitated souls went to the hills to join the communist-inspired armed resistance - because that was the only option left for them to win back democracy and the liberal principles it represents?

What, duh! Something is awfully wrong, yet that's how Jose Ma. Sison and the Communist Party of the Philippines' (CPP) national propaganda and education bureau effectively stirred the narrative, local and international. It wasn't difficult for Sison though because he practically had de facto control of the propaganda apparatus, courtesy of the Liberal stalwarts and his CEGP-NUJP students who were now deeply embedded in the media through his underground Armas (Artista at Manunulat ng Bayan). And Filipinos refused to acknowledge that, until the birth of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac).


For context, let's rewind a bit to a few decades ago. Think of television, radio, print, telephone - the oligarchs owned all of them. And when the oligarchs are in bed with the Liberals and the communists, guess who dictates what comes out or not come out of its papers and broadcast centers? I have been a spokesman for the Army and the NTF-Elcac, but I can count how many of my statements would come out in the papers or in the news. Press freedom?


Remember those days when you had to wait for five or more years before you could get a telephone landline? PLDT successfully blocked the entry of WIFI a good two decades ago, and this was after we "regained democracy." We called them voice over internet protocols (VOIP), which were cheap and most of the time free. The oligarchs and capitalists prevented its entry so they could continue to control an antiquated communication platform, the IT market, the information and of course, the truth. That was the whole idea. Establish control and then shape the narrative. Yet we hear them shout against "burukratiko-kapitalismo" in the streets.


So, as the half-truths propagated by the Liberals kept us hallucinating after the 1986 EDSA revolution, the other half of this information was kept from us for obvious reasons. That is to say, many parts of our history were swept under the rug. The advent of information technology changed everything.


Last September 21, the left and its yellowtard allies once again celebrated the declaration of martial law for whatever it is still worth for them. I am sure they want the dark days of Marcos rule to be memorialized just as they have done in the past. Social media, the great equalizer, caught these masters of deception off guard.


Majority of the people no longer believe that the declaration of martial law should still be celebrated, in the same way that they no longer want to celebrate August 21.


The myth has been exposed and a lot of evidence points out that martial law should not have happened in the first place, if not for this scheming Jose Ma. Sison and Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. Yes, that same Senator Ninoy you call "the" icon of democracy and not simply an icon, so much so that even the CPP's Carol Araullo would name her son Atom (from the August Twenty One Movement).


People now know that Senator Aquino was very much a part of the revolution that killed our democracy. The young and uninitiated may once again ask, "why is that?" Once again let us share this information even as they just celebrated the martial law declaration. I assure you though that if we are successful in our effort to share the truth, more people will start naming their kids "Ato," short not for Renato but for August Twenty One.


Yes, August 21 is that infamous day in 1971 when our democracy was shattered when the CPP-NPA decided to lob grenades at a political exercise, ironically of the Liberals. Former CPP central committee member, the late Ruben Guevarra, clearly narrated to us how that happened. In spite of the confirmation by the Senate investigation committee on the involvement of Jose Ma. Sison in this dastardly attack on our freedom, mainstream media would refuse to sell the story. Indeed, why would they when their very own "icon of democracy," Senator Aquino, would figure in the plot. The late Senate president, Jovito Salonga, later wrote about it in his book.


A friend who personally knew the circumstances of Ninoy's knowledge of the plot told me four years ago that they were in the ancestral home of the Laurels on Shaw Boulevard, celebrating the debut of Susie Laurel's eldest daughter, when he saw Senator Ninoy and a few of his buddies keenly watching the miting de abanse on TV. Senator Ninoy asked: "Ano, malapit na ba? Sumabog na ba?"Apparently the senator was so eager to rush to the scene after the explosion, which was part of the plan. He was advised instead to delay his arrival a bit in order to avoid suspicion.


A year after that bombing, martial law was declared. But did the people know what was happening in Asia that forced Marcos to declare it? Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma were all under threat as the communist bloc was slowly expanding its reach and influence. There was domestic violence as well, because the CPP-NPA that Senator Aquino helped build was now in the urban areas, blowing up buildings, power lines and our water system in Luzon and the Visayas. In Mindanao, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which Senator Aquino also helped organize, with help from Malaysia and the British SAS, was burning cities and Christian villages. Eventually there was this arms landing in Palanan, Isabela, where thousands of M14 rifles from China were captured by the government.

Ninoy Aquino was actually a part of the revolution that killed our democracy