The Philippines: Stepping Out of the Shadows

New witnesses cast doubt on the official version of Aquino's murder

The second commission appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos to investigate the Aug. 21 assassination of former Senator Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino was running up one blind alley after another. The five-member board had heard 43 witnesses, most of them soldiers assigned to protect Marcos' chief political rival on his ill-fated return to the Philippines from exile in the U.S. Their stories were monotonously similar: at the moment of the slaying, each had been "searching the perimeter" of the security cordon for troublemakers. On hearing the fatal gunshot, each had turned back toward the plane from which Aquino had disembarked only seconds before, just in time to see a blue-uniformed gunman behind Aquino shoot him in the back of the head at pointblank range.

The litany had become so predictable that spectators at the public hearings in Manila's steel-and-glass Social Security System building groaned at each recitation. Then last week the room began to buzz expectantly as former Appeals Court Judge and Commission Chairman Corazon Agrava announced a brief recess because of "an important development." The commission members took the elevator to the twelfth floor, then quietly descended to the parking lot and were whisked to Bangkal, a seedy area of Makati across town.

At their destination, the offices of two Manila lawyers, they listened with rapt attention to the secret testimony of Ramon Balang, 28, a Philippine Airlines ground mechanic who had been present at Manila International Airport on the day of the shooting. Balang's revelations were galvanizing: he was the first airport witness to give testimony under oath that is contrary to the military version of the event. His story raised grim new questions about the Marcos regime's contention that Aquino had been killed by Rolando Galman, a hired gun with alleged Communist ties. Said Juan David, a representative of the All-Asia Bar Association and an independent observer of the commission's proceedings: "The government story is beginning to collapse."

The events that brought Balang to the dramatic impromptu hearing had been both circuitous and frightening. On Dec. 27, he was given a hand-carried letter asking him to report for questioning at the Criminal Investigation Service (CIS). Balang refused. Then, remarkably, the armed bearer of the letter, who claimed to be a CIS officer, offered to take him to see Marcos himself. Again, Balang said no. That night another messenger arrived, saying that a Colonel Diego of the Presidential Security Command wanted to see him.

The frightened Balang sought refuge for the night at the home of his attorneys. Balang's alarm was understandable. His name had been left off the airline assignment sheet the day of the killing, and thus had not appeared on official witness lists for the investigation. Moreover, he felt conscience-bound to challenge the government's version of the murder. His lawyers, after taping his version of the shooting, set up the private commission hearing the following day.