Aquino's assasins receive pardons

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ABUD: The assassination of former Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino Junior, shot dead at Manila's airport moments after he returned from exile - in 1983, was definitive in the Philippines' history. The country's iconic opposition leader at the time, his death sparked a nationwide People's Power movement to bring down the Marcos dictatorship of the day - and in a few short years this movement forced Marcos to flee the country, and carried his widow Cory Aquino to the presidency in 1986.

But questions over the assassination remain. The Marcos regime held a trial in 1985 in which all defendants were acquitted. Under Cory Aquino's administration though, sixteen men were convicted in 1990 and sentenced to a minimum of thirty years' jail.

Most of the men have consistently denied any role in the murder. And the superiors who gave the orders have never been publicly identified, let alone brought to trial.
Four of the men have since died - three of them in captivity - and two had their sentences reduced under an earlier administration.

The decision by current President Arroyo to release the remaining prisoners on March four has fuelled speculation, conspiracy theories, and cynicism.
Isagana de Castro is editor of ABS-CBN news website and has been following the case.

ISAGANA: A lot of Filipino people believe that those whom the real masterminds, they weren't jailed. So people look at it as a continuing injustice. Because those who ordered the killing were never arrested - they're probably dead already - so it just reaffirms what the justice system in the Philippines where the rich get away with it and the footsoldiers are made to suffer.

ABUD: More than twenty-five years after the murder, many emotions still run high. Justice Romeo Capulon is a long-time human rights lawyer and president of the non-profit Public Interest Law Firm. He acted as a lawyer for Benigno Aquino in the early years of his political career. He believes commuting the sentences is a cynical act, even though it is within the law.

CAPULON: It's an outrage, not only to the Aquino family but to many decent Filipinos. It's a political decision because the Marcos followers including the Marcos family are still influential, are still powerful in this country especially in northern Luzon. And that's an act that would in the mind of Macapagal Arroyo ingratiate her with the family and the followers of the former strongman.

ABUD: Presida Rueda da Costa is Chief Public Attorney at the Department of Justice Public Attorney Office. She points out that the prisoners are already close to completing their terms, if good behaviour and other parole considerations are taken into account. She says that concerns about the prisoners' health are real and rejects any suggestion that politics played a role.

DA COSTA: I think that is not a logical conclusion, because being sick, bedridden, suffering from multiple diseases is ground for clemency under humanitarian considerations.

ABUD: But Da Costa insists this isn't the end of the story. Speculation is rife about the whereabouts of a suspected higher-level operative in the Aquino assassination, Captain Valerio, who was the SWAT team leader at the airport on that day. He's disappeared - but many believe he can be found in the United States, and brought to the Philippines. Da Costa again.

DA COSTA: He will be extradited there will be a trial of this case, and another investigation can be conducted by our prosecutors, and this will be an avenue for the unravelling of who were the persons really part of the conspiracy and the stabilisation of our political arena in the Philippines.

ABUD: Da Costa says former President Cory Aquino has formally forgiven the convicted prisoners, but the family's reaction has not been all positive.

Alcuin Papa is a journalist who has been covering the story for the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, and he says the family has mixed both emotions and politics.

PAPA: Naturally they've expressed dismay over the pardon, but they've also played the political card by saying well it's because our mother - it's the children talking -our mother is part of the political opposition and the soldiers are part of the cover up. But on the other hand the son, Benigno Aquino the Third, who is a senator in the Philippines, has expressed willingness or agreement with moves to extradite Captain Valerio.

ABUD: Captain Valerio has yet to be located for certain, let alone extradited. In the Philippines, the answers to the country's highest-profile murder could be as far away as ever.