Kaban ni jD_BystandeR: SINUKLIAY SA HUNAHUNA

On Monday morning (05/05/14), Martinez, a born-again Christian and a pastor, was hit by a Mitsubishi Montero as he was cycling, a sport he had taken to after his release from 18 years at New Bilibid Prison (NBP), along RoxasBoulevard. He succumbed to fractures in his ribs at San Juan de Dios Hospital at dawn the following day, his son Diomedes reported. He was 77. "Vendors in the area of

the incident saw what happened. They say my father was thrown off his bike and roll onto the road (nagpagulong-gulong)," said Diomedes, 46, a staff sergeant at the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Gerald Abueva:

Ninoy was driven to his death by his lifelong condition of megalomania. Ninoy wanted to become a national superhero so bad that he staged his own suicide. As a consolation, at least Ninoy has his face minted on a  yellow peso bill. But this again, that yellow peso bill is out of reach for most daily wage earners because Ninoy and his family and his ilk continue to hoard much more of this nation's wealth. In this light, Ninoy's death was well deserved. Good riddance. And Noynoy being so vindictive and clueless, he got the wrong man.

D-BystandeR: (to Gerald Abueva)

There were times I read your comments and appreciate your intellectual reasoning mixed with sarcasm. But this one smacks of whatever hidden agenda you got up in  your sleeves. Your claim that, "Ninoy wanted to become a superhero so bad that he staged his own suicide," is the most unpardonable statement I ever heard. If you treat your readers like a fool, forget it, or go to hell!

Gerald Abueva: (to D_BystandeR)

Why is it unpardonable? Is it because it diametrically contradicts what you've learned in school or have always been misled to believe in? That Ninoy is a  superhero of sorts, flying straight  out of the pages of DC comics? Is it unpardonable because it challenges the article of faith that you have embraced so dearly in  your heart unquestioningly for so long?

D_BystandeR: (to Gerald Abueva)

Your line of thinking is evident of someone who was  brainwashed of numerous articles, stories concocted by Marcos loyalists and cronies, intended to supplant the truth about how Ninoy Aquino devoted his life to  fight for the injustices and human rights violation that Marcos was doing when he declared martial law in 1972. I've heard him (Ninoy) interviewed-live by a local radioman John Manalili in Cebu a week prior to his coming back to our country in August 1983, where he was murdered right on the tarmac by minions of Dictator Marcos and acting under

the guise of AVSECOM authorities who were sent there in the pretext of providing security to Ninoy but actually were given a mission "to murder him at all cost." And recalling that interview, he vowed he "was coming back, come high or low water." Ninoy was second to none in being fearless to confront his No. 1-political-arch-enemy that he dared to come home with not even a water pistol tucked to his waist but only his clean and fearless conscience to come home to do something to help his fellowmen who were suffering much from the abuses of Marcos. And if only you were able to read the letter of Ninoy to what he called the "unconscionable mockery" in his trial at Fort Bonifacio where he was given the death penalty, maybe you will not be sporting the same kind of mentality of a hardcore and brainwashed man that you are!

Footnote: The above-comment reflecting exchange of ideas came out in connection with a PDI news headline, "Soldier who provided leads in Ninoy Aquino slay dies in crash." M/Sgt. Pablo Martinez once offered leads that could point to  the brains behind the unsolved murders of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino and his supposed assassin Rolando  Galman. Martinez said Ochoco, deputy chief of the Aviation Security Command (AVSECOM) had ordered him to bring Galman, a tricycle driver and a military asset, to the airport on the fateful day Aquino was killed. Valerio was the leader of the  AVSECOM team tasked to secure Aquino. Both Ochoco and Valerio disappeared three years later, after Marcos ouster,  when a retrial of the double murder was ordered. Martinez  was among 16 soldiers convicted in 1990 and sentenced to double life imprisonment in the killings of Aquino and Galman. "Valerio is among those who might be able to shed light, but to me, it's Ochoco whom the government should ask because he was the one who ordered me to bring Galman to the airport," Martinez said after he was granted parole because of old age and good conduct in 2007.