Galman’s mother still crying out for justice

A 73-YEAR-OLD mother in Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, will not visit the tomb of her son this All Saints’ Day. Saturnina Galman said she is too poor to be able to visit the grave of her son Rolando in a memorial park in Para¤aque, Metro Manila, more than 140 kilometers away.

“But his memory remains. I always pray for him, so that his soul will have eternal peace,” she said.

Saturnina’s pain of not being able to visit the grave of her son during this time of the year may be dismissed as just one of the many such occurrences due to varied reasons. But her case is different in the light of the circumstances of the death of her son and her fight to clear his name.

Like many other poor families, a tarnished name and dishonor are the last things that they want to befall them.

Rolando Galman, then 33, was tagged as the assassin of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. at the tarmac of the then Manila International Airport on Aug. 21, 1983.

National and military officials at that time described him as the gunman hired by local communists to kill Aquino to create confusion and chaos for an eventual takeover of government by the communists.

But Saturnina couldn’t accept the accusation that her son was Aquino‘s assassin. She knew that Rolando, her eldest in a brood of nine, was peacefully eking out a living as a farmer with his family in San Miguel, Bulacan.

Terrifying

A few days after the MIA incident, Saturnina, a widow, recalled that soldiers came to their house and took her and her children to Metro Manila. They were placed under the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation.

She was told to identify a body in the NBI morgue. She was told that the man, who was earlier identified as Rolando Vizcara, was her son Rolando.

“My mind refused to accept that the assassin was my Rolando. Why would he do that?” she said.

She said she did not tell them that the man was indeed Rolando because she was afraid the soldiers would harm her.

Then one man showed up and the fight to clear up her son’s name followed.

“I am Atty. Lupino Lazaro. Don’t be afraid, I am your lawyer. I will help you. Don’t go with anybody who will come here to get you,” Saturnino quoted the man as saying.

Lazaro helped her appeal to Camp Crame officials to release the body of Rolando, which was kept in the NBI morgue.

For five years, Saturnina stayed with the Lazaros until the completion of the hearings of the Agrava Commission and the Sandiganbayan.

She said she didn’t know Lazaro and his wife Gilda, but she knew that the couple went out of their way to help her and her family.

“What we offered them were only sincere thanks,” Saturnina said.

She said she appealed to Corazon Aquino, the widow of the senator, to allow them to bury her son at the Manila Memorial Park in Para¤aque.

Aquino granted her request and her son was finally buried on Nov. 8, 1983.

“Libo ang nakipaglibing. Lahat sila nakasuot ng dilaw na T-shirt (Thousands joined the funeral procession. All of them wore yellow shirts),” she said.

She said those who joined the funeral procession belonged to the August Twenty-One Movement (Atom) and Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (Jaja), two groups calling for a deeper investigation of the killing of Aquino.

She said Aquino‘s brother, former senator and now Makati Rep. Agapito Aquino, led those who joined the funeral procession.

Saturnina said even Mrs. Aquino and Butz Aquino did not believe that it was Rolando who killed the former senator.

“Ginamit lang siya (Rolando),” Saturnina said.

Saturnina said she wouldn’t be able to know who used her son as a fall guy. She also wouldn’t be able to know who abducted Rolando’s wife, Lina, in August 1983 and what they did to her. Since 1983, she said they have not received news on Lina’s whereabouts.

But she remains hopeful that the truth behind the Aquino assassination will come out. “Wala namang baho na hindi sumingaw (No foul deed can be kept a