And so, with barely any life in his body, he called off the fast on the 40th 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 forty-three days, the authorities would not tell me what had happened to him. They stripped him naked and held a threat of a 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 a 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 shutdown the Congress that was much like this one before which I'm honored to speak. Fourteen years ago this month, was the first time we lost him.
His loss, three times in our lives was always a deep and painful one. For the nation, Ninoy became the pleasing sacrifice that answered their prayers for freedom.įor 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. A country that had lost faith in its future, founded in a faithless and brazen act of murder. In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored him by that brave and selfless act of giving honor to a nation in shame recovered its own. 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. Speaker, Senator Thurmond, Distinguished members of Congress.
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