Hello Ninoy, Goodbye Ninoy
August 21, 1983 - Like all journalists working for foreign news organizations, my husband Vic and I had blocked off the date. We expected the return of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. to change the country’s political scene and keep us busy working for visiting foreign correspondents, including the kind we called “parachutes” who flew in for a couple of days and wrote like experts on the Philippines.
A few of these parachutes had arrived in advance of Aquino’s return and were cramming to put together what would pass for analytical stories. They were desperate for contacts and sources by Friday, August 19, as they joined members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) gathered at our regular Friday night hangout, the Mezzanine
floor of the Hyatt Hotel. Everyone was carefully avoiding the hot topic of the week: Ninoy’s return.
The presence of non-members (several journalists working for local newspapers) added to the strained atmosphere; FOCAP members felt their uninvited guests were there to extract information on Ninoy’s return. No one wanted to reveal what each one knew about Ninoy’s circuitous route from the US mainland to Manila. Not even to fellow members. Everyone was fishing for information: what’s his route from the US to Manila? Where was he at the moment? Who were flying in with him? It became apparent that very few knew he was flying in from Taipei aboard China Airlines flight 811. I was among the privileged few in the know.
AS SECRET AS D-DAY – News coverage of Ninoy’s return was beginning to feel like a major top secret military operation, but ABC News had an edge over other US networks: ABC News San Francisco Bureau’s Ken Kashiwahara was Ninoy’s brother in law. His wife, Lupita is Ninoy’s sister.
Unknown at the time was the fact that United Press International (UPI), then the leading wire service news provider, was likewise with the group. UPI’s Max Vanzi, my brother-in-law, was collaborating with Ninoy on a book about Philippine politics and was accompanying Ninoy as a personal friend. Max had not told his brother Vic that he was coming.
My close friend Nelly Sindayen, Manila correspondent for Time magazine, would not touch the subject even after I told her I knew that her boss, TIME Asia Bureau chief Sandra Burton was in Taipei and would fly to Manila with Ninoy. I did not volunteer how I knew: that my own boss ABC News Hong Kong Bureau chief Jim Laurie and an ABC News TV camera crew were part of the small entourage.
ELABORATE COVERAGE PLAN – ABC News spared no expense; I was authorized to rent video cameras and editing equipment, hire cameramen, secure rented cars and install the equipment in a Manila Hotel Veranda Suite overlooking the swimming pool. The suite was chosen because of its accessibility through a short flight of stairs and two elevators. The Manila Hotel was picked for its location close to Malacanang Palace, and for almost unlimited parking spaces.
We secured airport access passes for four Filipino camera teams plus one team from Hong Kong. Lupita Kashiwahara, who was in Manila in advance of Ninoy’s return, was our main contact with the Aquino family; she kept us updated on negotiations between her family and airport security officials. Another major contact was former senator Salvador Laurel, considered at the time as the leader of the opposition. Laurel, however, got the wrong info and insisted that Ninoy was flying in aboard a Japan Airlines (JAL) flight from Tokyo.
We felt very confident about getting on video tape everything that could happen.
Among those we hired for the day were Buggy Perdon, Bert Salonga and Pablito Manalo, veteran government cameramen moonlighting on their day off. Perdon was assigned to stay close to Lupita, family matriarch Dona Aurora Aquino and the rest of the Aquino clan at the airport’s VIP Lounge. Salonga was to shoot the welcomers led by Laurel and Ninoy’s brother Butz; Manalo was to stay by my side to videotape whatever I think could go into the story. A specific spot on the airport’s driveway was designated for a pair of portable video recorders that would make duplicates of all footage; one set for the Manila Bureau and the second was to be hand carried by Laurie to the ABC News Bureau that same afternoon. Nothing was left to chance. We feared censorship if we depended solely on the Philippine government’s satellite facilities to transmit Laurie’s report. Satellite time was booked for both Manila and Hong Kong transmissions.
MAYHEM AT MIA – China Airlines Flight 811 landed at noon. Growing restless while waiting for the flight’s passengers to file into the customs inspection area and out the glass exit door, I pressed my face to the glass wall and sighted Ken Kashiwahara walking to the exit as if in a trance. Nobody recognized him. I ran back to the VIP lounge and literally pulled Lupita out, whispering that her husband was coming out of the customs area by himself looking like something was wrong. When they met, Ken faintly said something which made her turn around in tears, shaking as she hugged me tight, crying on my shoulder.
Max Vanzi, looking dazed, was heading for a public phone booth when I caught up with him. The Manila UPI Bureau had no inkling he was on Ninoy’s plane, but welcomed having an edge over competitor, the Associated Press. Because ABC News and UPI had been working like sister outfits, I eavesdropped as Max spoke to the UPI desk, catching the words gunfire, soldiers, dead.
I decided to take off and start shooting what the industry calls “situationers” which are a compilation of shots that show the situation at a given moment: people, vehicles, etc. The Baclaran Redemptorist Church was full of Aquino supporters holding balloons that carried “Welcome Home Ninoy” placards. Portable radios suddenly aired reports from reporters covering the airport. The crown turned quiet, releasing the balloons in grief and stoically watched their airborne placards float up and away, carried by easterly winds.
NO TIME FOR GRIEF -- As planned, everyone rendezvoused at the lobby of the Manila Hotel lobby. All the duplicate video tapes, plus a couple of shot after Laurie had checked in, were submitted to ABC News Tokyo producer Jim Bennett, flown in specifically for the Aquino story.
I rushed back to the airport when told by a source that there would be a re-enactment of the afternoon’s events on the tarmac. The Aquino assassination story was far from complete. Information was trickling in piece by piece from all sides. We shot the government-staged re-enactment and received guarded confirmation from military and airport contacts that Ninoy had been killed by an assassin. All the bits and pieces had to be relayed to Bennett by phone, the only communication tool available to us at the time.
LAST PHONE CALL – As is my wont, I was treating Ninoy’s return as just another coverage. I had just spoken to him the night before. Following our battle plan, I phoned the Grand Hotel around midnight on the eve of his departure from Taipei for possible last minute orders from Laurie. My call was connected to Ninoy’s suite, where Laurie was interviewing the senator. Ninoy, expecting an important call, answered the phone. I identified myself, and he responded by calling me Miss Sol Jose, the maiden name I used when I was single and covering him for local TV. He promised to grant me an exclusive interview on his life as a political exile, but warned that he was expecting to be arrested immediately upon landing at the Manila International Airport the following day.
I had interviewed him many times from the time he was Tarlac governor, and became a family friend after my ABC News boss Ken Kashiwahara married his sister Lupita. Never outgrowing his penchant for news scoops, it became our private joke that he would give me my biggest story, exclusive. On August 21, 1983, he made good on his promise.
His return to Manila was the biggest news story in the world. The videotaped interviews in Taipei and aboard the plane, his arrest by uniformed military men, images of his body sprawled on the tarmac are haunting reminders of an event that would trigger a change in government 30 months later.
My mind and body went on auto mode on the day he died. Only much later, while viewing his body and clothing caked with dried blood, did the full impact of his death dawn on me. I had looked forward to saying “Hello, Ninoy!” never imagining that it would be “Goodbye, Ninoy.”
(About the author: Sol Vanzi is a veteran journalist for both broadcast and print media. She headed the Philippine operations of ABC News (American Broadcasting Company) and continues to represent several international news organizations. She currently writes a weekly food column for the Manila Bulletin, and regularly contributes feature articles to Panorama magazine.)