CONCEPCION, TARLAC ? Living for 84 years a block away from the ancestral house of the Aquino family in Barangay San Jose here, Bernardino Yumul said he had seen Benigno ?Ninoy? Aquino Jr. grow up from a playful 7-year-old boy to a charismatic politician who had a way with people.

As a frequent visitor to the Aquino house, Yumul said he would often watch Ninoy frolic in the garden and run around the house. Yumul?s family was close to the Aquinos as his grandfather, Dalmacio Payang, used to work as an overseer of the Aquinos? farmlands.

Yumul was 15 then and Ninoy was 7, so he would sometimes watch over him.

?Ninoy was really playful, he?s listless, so people watching over him would complain,? he said.

Even as a boy, Ninoy, who loved to eat ?daing na hito? (dried catfish), really talked a great deal, he said.

Talkative

Ninoy never learned to outgrow his talkativeness, he said, and as mayor of Concepcion (he was elected in 1955) he earned the moniker, ?Sarsa,? (gravy) because of this.

?When he started talking there was no stopping him,? Yumul said.

Motor mouth or not, however, Ninoy was undeniably charismatic.

?He really had great appeal to people,? Yumul said.

?Can you imagine Ninoy beating a veteran politician,? he said, referring to the then 22-year-old Ninoy?s 1955 electoral battle against reelectionist Mayor Nicolas Feliciano.

Yumul said Ninoy, during campaigns, had a habit of saying a silent prayer while laying a hand on the swollen tummy of a pregnant mother.

Charisma test

It was supposed to give Ninoy good luck, but whether it actually did no longer mattered because local women loved him for that, he said.

To Yumul, Ninoy?s charisma was best illustrated when cousins Jose ?Peping? Cojuangco Jr. and Eduardo ?Danding? Cojuangco Jr. faced off for a seat in the province?s first congressional district.

Ninoy, then governor of Tarlac (he served from 1961 to 1967), supported Peping, elder brother of his wife, Corazon ?Cory? Cojuangco-Aquino.

Yumul said whenever Danding?s political leaders would visit the provincial capitol to see Ninoy, they would be told to support Peping instead.

Yumul said Peping won because of Ninoy.

?Danding lost to Peping not because of Peping but because of Ninoy,? he said.

It is said that this political showdown between the Cojuangco cousins aggravated the rift between them. The tension would lead to a decades-long feud between the two factions of the Cojuangcos, climaxing in the 1983 assassination of Ninoy and easing only a few years back after Danding?s return from exile.

Necessary death

In 1980, Yumul said he accompanied Doña Aurora Aquino, Ninoy?s mother, in visiting Ninoy in his cell at Fort Bonifacio. There he realized how Ninoy was willing to die to bring down strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Quoting Ninoy, Yumul said: ?If I don?t die, cousin, is there anyone out there who can win against Marcos??

Although they weren?t cousins, Ninoy often called him ?pinsan,? Yumul said.

?I felt fear,? he said.

But then he forced himself to continue to listen to Ninoy, who answered his own question by trying to explain to them how the political opposition could use him to oust Marcos.

?No one, no one will win against Marcos if I don?t die. My death will become the reason for his downfall,? Yumul said, quoting Ninoy.

Yumul said Ninoy was so serious and sincere when he said those words that when Cory asked him if he believed him, he said, ?Yes.?