‘Best part of martial law was its end’

THE best and most unforgettable part of Martial Law, according to former Cebu City congressman Antonio Cuenco, was the way it ended with the February  1986 People Power Uprising.

“When we were informed that there was a revolution about to  happen in Manila,  we immediately secured Cory  (the late president Corazon Aquino) and  her daughter Kris who were both in Cebu at the time,” he told Cebu Daily News.

About a week after the Feb. 7 snap elections, the widow of the slain senator Benigno Aquino Jr. called up Cuenco, then an assemblyman in the Batasan Pambansa, to organize an indignation rally in Fuente Osmeña on Feb. 22, 1986.

She was calling the nation to boycott crony companies of President Marcos.

“I was  the emcee at the rally  and Cory was about to deliver her speech but it did not happen,” he added.

Mrs. Aquino’s brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco told Cuenco to end the rally.

“Tony, we should stop this, it is not safe anymore. I think  a revolution  is already happening,” Cuenco recalled Cojuangco telling him. This happened   soon after Marcos’ Defense Secretary and military aides had withdrawn their support for Marcos.

Cuenco immediately  announced to the  crowd that there was trouble in  Manila and ended the program at 6 p.m.

With his wife Nancy in tow, Cuenco first drove  Cory, Kris and Peping Cojuangco to the home of Norberto Quisumbing Jr. in Cebu City for a meeting with allies.

There, it was decided that Cory and the others  had to find a safe haven because she was a target for liquidation by security forces loyal to  Marcos.

Hurried calls were made by Nancy Cuenco to the superior of the Carmelite order in Mabolo.  The mother superior agreed to provide sanctuary.

Cuenco admitted he was so tense that he walked into a glass door, smashing his glasses and wounding his forehead.

Nevertheless, he carried out his role as the assigned driver with wife Nancy by his side and the Aquinos and Cojuangco in the back seat of a new red sedan owned by Cebu businessman Lito Osmeña.

At Peping Cojuangco’s request, nobody else knew where they were  going.

“I was driving in a zigzag manner,” recalled Cuenco, of his effort to avoid detection.

The gates of the Carmelite monastery are locked at night. The mother superior  had instructed Cuenco to blow the car horn following a specific pattern as their “password”.

Cory and Kris were given a second floor room. While Kris, a 15-year-old girl then,  slept the  night in her mother stayed awake praying the rosary.

In the morning, US Consul Blaine Porter visited the monastery.  He confirmed that her security was at risk but Aquino insisted on returning to Manila where the People Power Revolt was unfolding.

“He offered to send Cory back to Manila on a submarine. She declined  and went ahead with her plans to return on a private plane of the Ayalas,” Cuenco recalled.

On the morning of Feb. 25, or four days after the Edsa Revolution broke out, Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the first woman president by the late chief justice Claudio Teehanke in simple rites at the Club Filipino in Greenhills. Correspondent Michelle Joy L. Padayhag