How Prison Changed My Father
Speech by Viel Aquino-Dee, 24 Nov 2009, DLSU

Let me first thank De La Salle University for hosting this three-day iamninoy event in honor of both my father and my mother.  I understand that this is the second year in a row that DLSU is staging this event on the week of my Dad’s birthday.  Since Mom literally took pains to be with you last year in spite of her sickness, I could not find it in my heart to insist on being the “invisible Aquino” and decline Rapa’s request for me to speak before you today.

I am told, too, that representatives of iamninoy communities from other schools, as well as iamninoy partners, are here today.  Please accept my gratitude as well for keeping the memory and legacy of my father alive in your hearts and minds and, most especially, in your deeds.

I don’t exactly know what is written about my father in your textbooks, but I would venture to guess that the few paragraphs devoted to him dwell on his assassination and on his fight for democracy. This has made him the larger-than-life hero that people depict him to be.

But the true measure of any man, I would like to believe, can only be seen in the context of a full and inevitably imperfect life.  The Dad we knew in the 60s and early 70s, with his imperfections, would never have been voted as the “World’s Best Dad”.  At the height of his political career, which coincided with the period spanning my birth and my growing-up years, my dad was hardly ever there.  A typical week day at home would begin with my brilliant charmer of a father entertaining guests early in the morning.  The rest of the day, we’d be in school, while he’d be busy delivering a speech here, attending a meeting there, standing as godfather to the son of an important constituent, or else poring over piles of documents in preparation for the next bill he would co-sponsor or for the next exposé he would deliver.   We’d be lucky to see him the following morning, when the cycle would begin all over again.

Back then Dad could hardly be considered a religious man.  The whole family would go to Santo Domingo Church for Sunday Mass.  While Dad would come with us, he’d usually stay at the back of the church and who knows if he actually attended Mass or not.  On some Sundays, we’d watch a movie and then eat out at Panciteria China or See Kee in Binondo.  And on a few other occasions, Dad would also try to make up for his shortcomings at home by taking us all on a trip to Baguio or Hong Kong.

Things changed on September 23, 1972.  In the middle of a late evening Senate committee meeting at the Manila Hilton hotel, my father—then the biggest opposition star and touted to be the favorite in the 1973 presidential elections—was arrested without any formal charges.  President Marcos had declared martial law and had ordered all his political opponents, critics and activists, Congress closed, and mass media institutions taken over. 

I was 11 years old then and didn’t know what was going on, other than the disruption of our family routine and the prospect that I might see my father even less often.  Surprisingly, what happened was quite the opposite.  Every Wednesday afternoon, Ballsy, Pinky, Noy and I would even skip two class periods, so we could visit Dad at Fort Bonifacio.  Bear in mind that, back then, “the Fort” was really a military fort and Dad was imprisoned in what was called a “maximum security unit” where we were routinely frisked and spied on.  We endured these indignities in exchange for the privilege of seeing our father three times a week.  We looked forward to weekends, especially Sundays, when we could spend much of the day with him—hearing Mass, eating lunch, playing cards or simply chatting and discussing the week’s events.  We somehow felt more like a family while Dad was in prison, and this was the strange reality that baby Kris woke up to.

That period also marked our initiation to the “cloak-and-dagger” world of martial law, where we learned to speak in codes and to smuggle out Dad’s letters and articles written on onion skin paper and rolled up in candy wrapper.  Dad eventually paid a heavy price for his clever attempts to communicate with the underground opposition and the foreign press.  Early in 1973 our visiting rights were suddenly cancelled and it took extraordinary efforts on the part of Mom and Mrs. Nena Diokno to find out that the two most defiant political prisoners, Dad and Sen. Jose Diokno, had been flown out to Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.  That, in my opinion, was the biggest turning point in Dad’s life.

When we finally got permission to see him, we got the shock of our lives after a very long drive in the dark.  We were led to room where a doorway was blocked by a cage-like structure made of chicken wire fences.  Dad emerged on the other side of the fence so we were prevented from actually touching him.  I could hardly recognize his unshaven face, and he was so thin that he had to hold on to his pants to keep them from falling.  For the first time, I saw my father crying.  In his solitude, however, he rediscovered God and the value of family.  Not knowing if he would ever see us again, he made a pact with Mom that we would pray the rosary as a family—he in his cell and we at home or wherever we were—at eight every evening.

After his Laur ordeal Dad, by his own admission, emerged a far stronger and more complete human being. He became more steadfast in living up to the values and principles he believed in and developed the equanimity to face suffering, even death. Of course, I was too young to understand these things back then. To me, it was enough that he became a much better father.

During my graduation from Grade 7 in 1975, he showed up by surprise to personally pin my medal after negotiating with the authorities that he be allowed to attend the ceremony.  The father of one of my classmates excitedly took pictures of his rare public appearance; unfortunately the film roll on his camera was confiscated by dad’s military escorts.  Dad had so much time on his hands that he would sometimes go overboard in helping me with my homework.  In one instance, he practically wrote my third year high school paper on Rizal, complete with footnotes and very heavy analysis and I had to tell him that there was no way that his output would pass for my work.  

We drew even closer as a family when my father was forced into exile in Boston after his heart surgery. When he was not giving lectures at Harvard or MIT or entertaining guests, Dad would do what dads normally do: wash the car, bathe the dogs, rake the leaves, shop for groceries and take out the garbage.  He also indulged our silly wishes every now and then.  Ballsy and I were huge Celtics fans, and fortuitously Boston won the NBA championship two out of the three years we lived there. After Larry Bird and company won one of the trophies on the road, we pleaded with Dad to drive us to the airport to join the welcoming crowd—and he did!

Just when it seemed like we were beginning to lead a normal family life, Dad decided to go back to Manila in August 1983.  It seemed strangely chilly that early summer morning in Boston when the phone rang on August 21.  Little did we know that Dad had met his destiny, and we had met ours.  With Dad’s sacrifice, one consolation I imagined was that at least our family could now get out of politics.  That was really wild imagination since I couldn’t have been more wrong.  But I have hope that maybe my children’s children still have a shot at living ordinary lives.

Again, thank you to all of you for keeping Dad’s memory in your hearts.