To mark the 91st birth anniversary of Sen. Ninoy Aquino today, November 27, the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF) launches ninoyspeeches.ph, the official site for the speeches of the martyred opposition leader.
For most of these speeches, this is the first time that they are made available for free in an official online site, making them accessible to the public.
The ninoyspeeches.ph has 19 of Ninoy’s speeches originally published in the book, A Garrison State in the Make and other Speeches, a compilation of Ninoy’s privilege speeches delivered on the Senate floor between 1968 and 1972. The book was first published in 1985, two years after Ninoy’s assassination, by the then Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Foundation, which preceded the NCAF (Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation).
One of the speeches that the public can now read in full is Operation Sagittarius. In this speech delivered on Sept. 13, 1972, Ninoy revealed how then President Ferdinand Marcos had planned to put Metro Manila and nearby provinces under Philippine Constabulary control as a prelude to the declaration of Martial Law. It was Ninoy’s last speech on the Senate floor before he and other members of the opposition were arrested and jailed under Marcos’ authoritarian rule.
Among the other speeches on the website are Jabidah! Special Forces of Evil?, The Bridge of San Juanico: Mr. Marcos’ Folly, A Pantheon for Imelda, When Law and Order Went Amok, Alternatives on our Economic Crises, The Tragedy of Tarlac, Mr. Marcos and Congress – A Black Cabal, Black Saturday, Plaza Miranda, and Liberty Shall Not Rest!
Ninoy’s messages in his speeches, delivered decades ago, ring true and timely to this day, a reminder that to defend and preserve justice, truth, freedom, and democracy has become a personal pursuit of the Filipino.
In his speech A Carrot and a Stick for Mr. Marcos, Ninoy said: “We are called upon to show now responsibility to duty, fidelity to our mandate despite our political diversity. I know that for the majority this may be hard, for what is demanded of us is to place country over party, sanity over the twisted logic of our baser political instincts.”
