“Assassination has never changed the
history of the world.”
Benjamin Disraeli
By Alex P. Vidal
Last Sunday, December 7, a super-typhoon “Ruby” wrecking day, was the 43rd
year since the failed assassination attempt on former First Lady Imelda R.
Marcos.
The date coincided with the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing and
the bolo attack occurred less than three months after the declaration of
Martial Law.
“Everybody was still adjusting to the new life under authoritarian rule,
which somewhat resembled the Japanese Occupation at least in terms of a curfew
that restrained the population’s taste for boulevard alcoholism and nightclub
psychedelia,” Manuel F. Martinez, a 1971 Constitutional Convention delegate,
narrated in Assassinations and Conspiracies.
In spite of the civil tension, Mrs. Marcos braced for another day of
public functions.
In connection with the nationwide campaign for cleanliness and
beautification, an awarding ceremony was scheduled on that day at Nayong
Pilipino in Pasay City.
“The rites at Nayong Pilipino proceeded smoothly, with Mrs. Marcos
onstage receiving one by one the awardees and shaking hands with them,”
recalled Martinez.
“Her guards, naturally, were not on the stage but a short distance away,
for who would think any attempt on her life would be made in that most friendly
environment.”
In terms of parks and plazas, South Cotabato bagged the grand prize for
being the model province.
The municipality of Kiamba won the cleanest award.
STAGE
Among those who went up the stage in the group that would receive the
award was a man in all-black suit and pants who pretended to be part of the
delegation.
“When his turn came before the First Lady, he whipped out a bolo and made
two determined thrusts at her. A split second before the attack, as photographs
later showed, she was looking sideways and did not see the bolo already leveled
horizontally a few inches away from her abdominal region,” observed Martinez, a
former copy editor of Asiaweek in
Hong Kong.
According to Martinez, Mrs. Marcos “was quick enough to parry with her
arms and fingers the first blow.”
She incurred lacerations at the back of her right hand, on the right
forearm, across the index finger and the ring finger of the right hand,
according to hospital report.
“In short, without help from anyone, she defended herself. She fell down
from the second thrust,” Martinez stressed.
This was how Martinez completed his narration of facts on that fateful
day:
Quickly, 22-year old Linda Amor Robles of the Department of Education,
who was secretary of the cleanliness committee, covered Mrs. Marcos with her
own body and suffered a huge three-inch wound on her back.
The First Family a week later, when Imelda could walk around with a sling
around her arm, visited her in the hospital.
Tourism Secretary Jose Aspiras also shielded Mrs. Marcos by taking some
of the blows.
He sustained a head wound that took nine stitches. Others who tried to
cover her were Social Welfare Secretary Aldaba Lim and Josefa Aquino, the wife
of Highways Commissioner Baltazar Aquino.
DIVERT
The would-be assassin, diverted from the fallen First Lady, continued to
hack wildly until he was shot dead by guards who had jumped upstage.
The whole scenario happened before a shocked, unbelieving television
audience around the country who were watching the awarding ceremonies.
Mrs. Marcos was immediately flown by helicopter to the 9th
floor of the Makati Medical Center.
Shortly afterwards, President Marcos speedily came to her side, grim and
unsmiling, and soon he ordered the scene replayed again and again.
Because they had no equipment or tape at the hospital, a television
station replayed it for him on the air, and Filipinos saw the many replays
themselves for hours.
Marcos’ anger mounted as he watched them, sometimes banging his fist with
tremendous force on a tabletop.
He asked why the assailant was killed—he should have been captured alive
to tell the whole story, since it was possible someone ordered him to do the
job, which may have been a conspiracy.
In Stalin’s regime, the would-be assassin would have been used as witness
to incriminate innocent people and send them to death.
INTERROGATE
It was said Marcos interrogated the guards who shot down the bolo
wielder, for it was not impossible that one of them was part of the plan and
shot the assassin to silence him.
Later on Marcos told reporters he was satisfied that the guards could not
be blamed for immediately killing the man.
On television, the President assured the nation that the First Lady was
safe and recovering.
He said he wished he were there when the incident happened.
He added that when he declared Martial Law “we knew we would pay the
price, but I cannot forgive myself that she herself had to pay it.”
But instead of being daunted, he said, he would even more resolutely
proceed with his program “to eradicate and eliminate all threats against the
stability of our society and to push through the (martial law) reformist
program.”
