Benigno Aquino

[Jan Klimkowski]

Tracy - welcome to DPF.

Your thread is welcome too, as are your insights.

The script is indeed familiar.

Bogus security. Intelligence-created patsy. The slaughter lasting mere moments.

Prior to his departure from Taipei, Aquino gave an interview from his hotel room in which he indicated that he would be wearing a bulletproof vest. He advised the journalists that would be accompanying him on the flight, "You have to be ready with your hand camera because this action can become very fast. In a matter of 3 or 4 minutes it could be all over, and I may not be able to talk to you again after this."[1] In Manila, a contingent of over 1,000 armed soldiers and police were assigned by the government to provide security for Aquino's arrival. Upon the airplane's arrival at the gate, soldiers boarded the airplane to arrest Aquino. The soldiers escorted him off the airplane onto the jet bridge; however, instead of following the jet bridge to the terminal, they exited the jet bridge down the service staircase onto the apron, where a military vehicle waited to transport him to prison.

Sometime between his egress from the aircraft and his boarding of the ground vehicle, several gunshots were heard, and when the firing stopped, Aquino and a man later identified as Rolando Galman lay dead on the apron, both from gunshot wounds. Aquino's body was quickly loaded into the vehicle, which sped away.