‘Retrial of the Century’ Opens in Manila; 40 Charged in Benigno Aquino Killing

With the bang of a gavel, 25 soldiers and a civilian charged with killing the husband of President Corazon Aquino 3 1/2 years ago went on trial Tuesday afternoon for the second time in two years along with 14 new defendants in a case that Manila’s daily press has dubbed “the retrial of the century.”

The government’s special prosecutor, Raul Gonzalez, said in an interview that the government will introduce additional evidence in the coming months. Twenty-six of the defendants were acquitted in December, 1985, after a nine-month trial that the Supreme Court last year ruled was “scripted” and “stage-managed” by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Subsequent investigation led to charges against the other 14, the government said.

Gonzalez conceded, however, that the government’s general case against the defendants, who include Marcos’ former military chief of staff, Gen. Fabian C. Ver, and his former minister of tourism, Jose Aspiras, will be largely the same as that presented two years ago.

“The difference will be in the impartiality of the court,” Gonzalez added.

On Tuesday, however, there was little or none of the intense public interest that accompanied the case during the last three years of hearings.

The courtroom was far from full, and outside the building there were only a handful of demonstrators standing in the blazing afternoon sun, carrying posters declaring, “Justice for Soldiers; Justice for All,” and “Double Jeopardy: A Gross Violation of the Constitution.”

The dozen or so protesters said they are relatives of soldiers and believe that President Aquino is biased in the case and favors the nation’s Communists and leftists over her armed forces.

President’s Appointees

Prosecutor Gonzalez and the three-judge panel now sitting in judgment on the Benigno S. Aquino murder case were all appointed by President Aquino after she took power during last year’s church-backed military coup that overthrew Marcos.

But Aquino has been careful not to discuss the case, and she has stressed several times that she wants her husband’s murder treated no differently than any other human rights violation under the Marcos regime. And on Tuesday, Gonzalez said the nine months he is allotting for the retrial is “not inordinate when you consider the magnitude of the evidence we must present.”

Former Sen. Aquino was shot to death moments after he returned from 3 1/2 years of self-imposed exile in the United States. He was surrounded by nearly 2,000 government security personnel when he was shot at Manila International Airport. Slain by the security troops immediately afterward was a professional hit man named Rolando Galman, whom Marcos immediately identified as Aquino’s assassin.

Few Filipinos believed Marcos’ version that Galman was paid by the Philippine Communist Party to kill Aquino. Instead, they believed that Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were responsible for the killing, a belief that was bolstered in October, 1984, by a yearlong investigation by a civilian fact-finding board that recommended charging the soldiers and Gen. Ver with first-degree murder.

Fixed Trial Charged

After the Marcos regime fell, a Supreme Court appointed by Aquino’s widow heard testimony from a key government prosecutor who said that the ensuing criminal trial of the accused had been fixed by Marcos, who personally told the judges and prosecutors in the case how it should be handled.

Marcos has not been formally charged in the case, but Gonzalez said Tuesday that the former president “will be indicted” if new evidence implicates him during this trial.

The killing and its aftermath, all of which was closely watched by the nation’s 56 million people, clearly helped to change the course of Philippine history. It touched off two years of sometimes bloody street demonstrations and economic decline that culminated in the February, 1986, coup that President Aquino calls a “people’s power revolution.” In addition, opposition political leaders who originally selected and backed Aquino’s presidential bid against Marcos a year ago conceded that much of her popularity was based on her role as the widow of the nation’s most visible martyr.

But none of that public interest was apparent during Tuesday’s opening of the new trial.

The tiny courtroom of the special court assigned to hear the case in the basement of the National Museum was barely full. Two key players in the courtroom drama--a star witness dubbed “The Crying Lady,” who claims to have seen a soldier shoot Aquino in the back of the head, and former Marcos aide Aspiras--are both candidates in the upcoming legislative elections, and both were out campaigning in their home provinces.

Marcos’ Loyal Cousin

Gen. Ver, the once intensely loyal cousin of Marcos whom many military commanders now blame for politicizing and demoralizing the armed forces, was also absent.

Ver’s whereabouts are unknown. He has also been charged with contempt of court in the United States for failing to appear before a federal grand jury in West Virginia investigating the alleged misuse of U.S. military aid to the Philippines under Marcos.

Ver, who fled to Hawaii with Marcos and his family after last year’s coup, apparently fled the United States as well after the grand jury charges were filed last year.

Meanwhile, a leftist political party charged Monday that human rights violations have continued under the Aquino administration, which, among its first official acts last year, freed hundreds of political prisoners and formed a presidential commission on human rights.

Government’s ‘Savagings’

Romeo Capulong, a candidate for Congress, told a group of human rights advocates that the Aquino government “has exceeded the savagery of the overthrown Marcos dictatorship.”

The armed forces, he said, “has been launching unrestrained military operations throughout the country . . . crimes against people are the order of the day--harassments and intimidation, arrests and detention, torture, savagings (murders), involuntary disappearances, arson and rape.”

Capulong was one of two lawyers representing the underground National Democratic Front, the leftist umbrella group that negotiated a 60-day cease-fire last year between the government and leaders of the Communist insurgency.

In the war itself, the military reported this week that the intensity of the fighting with the rebels has decreased. The armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, told reporters that the kill count--the average number of soldiers, civilians and rebels killed daily--is now seven, compared with 12 daily killings last year.

Nonetheless, in specific regions where the rebels have struck and the military has launched counteroffensives, the killings have increased.

In Bacolod City, the largest metropolis on the troubled central island of Negros, Roman Catholic Church authorities reported that a grenade was thrown at the home of the island’s controversial bishop, Msgr. Antonio Fortich, Monday night. Local military authorities have accused Fortich of being a Communist. The bombing came just hours after similar grenades were thrown into the compound of the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group in Manila. No one was injured in either attack.