Ninoy’s Love Letter

Yesterday, a friend of mine showed me a copy of Inquirer Libre, dated August 21 2003. As a memory of Ninoy Aquino’s death, Libre published his last love letter to his wife and former President Cory Aquino. My source tells me that the people who had copies of the newspaper were getting teary-eyed as they were reading the letter while riding the LRT. It was written in such sincere, lovingly chosen words that I myself felt teary-eyed once I finished reading through it. It was beyond my imagination how Cory must have had felt the first time that she read the letter. It looked so much like a parting letter because it was so final. It was as though God had whispered to Ninoy to start his last will and testament because he’ll never get another chance to say goodbye to his wife.

Included here is an excerpt from the love letter that was printed in Libre:

My dearest Cory, in a few hours I shall be embarking on an uncertain fate which may well be the end of a long struggle.

I slept well last night for the first time since I left Boston--maybe because I'm just plain tired or I'm really at peace with myself. I want to tell you many things but time is running out and I do not have my machine. After a few more paragraphs, my penmanship will be illegible

All the things I want to tell you may be capsulized in one line--I love you! You’ve stood by me in my most trying moments and there were times I was very hard on you but if anyone will ever understand me, it is you and I know you will always find it in your heart to forgive—and unfair and ironic as it is—it is because of this thought and belief that I often took you for granted.

Ninoy had written the letter on August 21, 1983, the day before he gets shot at the Manila International Airport. He was coming home, after three years of being exiled in the United States. Cory must have been dreading the fate that awaits him in the Philippines for it was all over the newspapers that he would be arrested, but at the same time hopeful and ecstatic to finally reunite with her husband. She must have wanted to hear the many other things that he was supposed to tell her, as he had written in the letter.

To this day, we see other traces of Ninoy Aquino. In five hundred peso bills. In the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The Ninoy Aquino Stadium. He is a national hero. Too bad heroes are recognized to be heroes after some kind of fatality. But then, I suppose it’s their only compensation when they’re outside the world and they realize that heaven is a figment of God’s imagination.

references: Cory’s Book Inspiration and Images launched (http://www.newsflash.org/2002/07/tl/tl001765.htm , Inquirer Libre