25-05-2013, 08:11 PM
Hello, this is my first post here. I didn't see a thread on this subject when I used the Search feature; if I missed it, please merge this one.
I've been fascinated with the assassination of Filipino Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino for years, mostly because of what we can learn about the use of patsies, in this case Rolando Galman, and how much it reminds me of RFK's assassination.
The Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines had been closely allied with the US. Its military, security and intelligence agencies were trained by Americans. On August 21 1983, Senator Aquino, the popular exiled opposition leader, returned home to the Philippines, though he had been sentenced to death for his political activities. His plane landed at Manila Airport. As he was leaving the plane, surrounded by Filipino security, a "lone assassin," Rolando Galman, rushed up and fired shots; Aquino was hit in the back of the head and killed. Galman was immediately killed by a security man.
The next day, Marcos, who was recovering from a kidney transplant, spoke on television. "Through Imelda and others, he said, he had practically begged' Ninoy not to return. Then, without a shred of evidence, he blamed the heinous' crime on the Communists, alleging that Galman had been their agent. In fact, Galman was a two-bit thug and member of the Monkees, terrorists organized by the Army to counter Communist hit squads. Two days before Ninoy's murder, an air force officer treated him to a pair of whores his unexpected last fling. The prostitutes later vanished after being abducted by a couple of armed men and, obviously murdered, their remains were finally discovered in November 1988."
Marcos attempted to appoint his own "Warren Commission" to cover up the murder, but it failed to cooperate.
The scheme was crystal clear. Ninoy had been assassinated by his military escorts, who simultaneously killed the hapless Galman to make him appear to be the murderer. The audacity of the operation, conducted on a sunny day before thousands at the Manila airport, seemed incredible.
The plane taxied to a berth, where a blue van stood, flanked by troops. Three soldiers came aboard, holding back the reporters and passengers as they steered Ninoy into the boarding tube and down a service stairway. In a tape recording that later surfaced, a jumble of voices can be heard from the stairway, one in Tagalog shouting, Here he comes, I'll do it,' another in Cebuano, the Visayan language, barking, Let me do it.' Suddenly there were five pops, strangely followed by a salvo. Killed by a single shot in the back of his head, Ninoy lay at the foot of the stairs, not far from a bullet-riddled body in mechanic's clothes, later identified as Rolando Galman. (In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines, Stanley Karnow)
I've been fascinated with the assassination of Filipino Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino for years, mostly because of what we can learn about the use of patsies, in this case Rolando Galman, and how much it reminds me of RFK's assassination.
The Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines had been closely allied with the US. Its military, security and intelligence agencies were trained by Americans. On August 21 1983, Senator Aquino, the popular exiled opposition leader, returned home to the Philippines, though he had been sentenced to death for his political activities. His plane landed at Manila Airport. As he was leaving the plane, surrounded by Filipino security, a "lone assassin," Rolando Galman, rushed up and fired shots; Aquino was hit in the back of the head and killed. Galman was immediately killed by a security man.
The next day, Marcos, who was recovering from a kidney transplant, spoke on television. "Through Imelda and others, he said, he had practically begged' Ninoy not to return. Then, without a shred of evidence, he blamed the heinous' crime on the Communists, alleging that Galman had been their agent. In fact, Galman was a two-bit thug and member of the Monkees, terrorists organized by the Army to counter Communist hit squads. Two days before Ninoy's murder, an air force officer treated him to a pair of whores his unexpected last fling. The prostitutes later vanished after being abducted by a couple of armed men and, obviously murdered, their remains were finally discovered in November 1988."
Marcos attempted to appoint his own "Warren Commission" to cover up the murder, but it failed to cooperate.
The scheme was crystal clear. Ninoy had been assassinated by his military escorts, who simultaneously killed the hapless Galman to make him appear to be the murderer. The audacity of the operation, conducted on a sunny day before thousands at the Manila airport, seemed incredible.
The plane taxied to a berth, where a blue van stood, flanked by troops. Three soldiers came aboard, holding back the reporters and passengers as they steered Ninoy into the boarding tube and down a service stairway. In a tape recording that later surfaced, a jumble of voices can be heard from the stairway, one in Tagalog shouting, Here he comes, I'll do it,' another in Cebuano, the Visayan language, barking, Let me do it.' Suddenly there were five pops, strangely followed by a salvo. Killed by a single shot in the back of his head, Ninoy lay at the foot of the stairs, not far from a bullet-riddled body in mechanic's clothes, later identified as Rolando Galman. (In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines, Stanley Karnow)
