IT WAS already the fourth day of his detention but “Alpha” was barely touching his food. Probably, as the soldiers and officials of the 1st Military Security Detachment (IMSD) tasked with guarding him understood it, “Alpha” was wary that he would be poisoned.
But for the IMSD’s civilian-employee Basilisa Tolentino-Ollero, then 28, she had other feelings about it. It somewhat touched on a woman’s vanity who prepared food for others, especially to a very important person like “Alpha.”
“Alpha,” Ollero knew, was former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., a staunch anti-Marcos figure.
“Didn’t he like the food I prepared?” she wondered.
Though strictly prohibited from talking to the detainee, Ollero went to the small room where Aquino was lodged and personally asked him.
An apologetic Aquino replied: “‘Ne, ikaw ba ang nagluluto (Young lady, are you the cook)?” To which she replied: “Yes, sir. Kasi po, bakit hindi po yata kayo kumakain (Yes, sir. But I’m wondering why you were not eating your food)?”
“The food is tasty. However, I apologize, I have many ailments. Hypertension, heart condition, ulcer,” Aquino told Ollero in Filipino.
“Is that so, sir? Don’t worry, I will consider the restrictions in your diet when I prepare your food,” Ollero said.
Before she left, she heard Aquino ask for a particular snack that he wanted. “Plain crackers na lang at milk (Just serve me plain crackers and milk),” he said.
After that brief dialogue, Ollero said she observed that Aquino started enjoying the food served him. Ollero somehow felt elated about it. Nevertheless, she immediately apologized to the detachment officer-in-charge for breaking the rule when she talked to Aquino.
She knew that she, including the officers and soldiers of IMSD of the Army’s Military Security Unit, was under close watch by operatives of the counter-intelligence unit.
The IMSD was then charged with taking care of the two very important political prisoners at that time-former Senators Aquino and Jose W. Diokno.
Ollero was the lone civilian-employee of the IMSD then. She was the researcher, analyst, secretary, part-time radio operator, cook and “whatever our detachment commander told me to do.”
From March 12 to April 11, 1973, she became aware of the spirit-breaking plight of Aquino and Diokno, which those outside of the camp did not know.
She was aware that in that kind of a detention facility, food could be the least of worries of the detainees. The place was simply a “hell-hole.”
Handcuffed, blindfolded
They were told early in March 1973 that political detainees would be transferred from Fort Bonifacio in Metro Manila to Fort Magsaysay, Ollero, now 58, recalled.
For two weeks, their detachment headquarters, composed of two Marcos-type school buildings, underwent massive modification. When completed, the buildings and the immediate surrounding looked like a fairly big concentration camp.
The whole compound was enclosed by two layers of fence. The inner layer was an eight-foot high fence of barbed wires and the outer, a nine-foot high fence made of sawali (woven bamboo mats). On each corner of the outer fence, a 20-foot high wooden sentinel tower was built where armed guards could be posted.
“They were brought in by helicopter about sundown of March 12. They were blindfolded and handcuffed,” Ollero recalled. “It was only then that we realized that the detainees were Ninoy Aquino and Pepe Diokno.”
The detachment commander, who received them, placed each detainee in separate rooms. Each room measured four by five meters with its wooden jalousie windows completely shut. These were nailed and covered with thick plywood reinforced by iron grills. There was no electric fan and light was coming only from a ceiling lamp.
The detainees could not determine the time of the day as there was no wall clock and their wristwatches were confiscated. The passing of the day and night couldn’t be determined either as the lamp was kept lighted 24 hours a day.
No other clothing was provided them. Thus, they had only the pair of trousers and shirt they wore when they were brought in and an extra sando and karsunsilyo (men’s underwear).
The detainees were not allowed to talk to each other. The guards or duty personnel were also on strict instruction not to talk with the detainees nor answer any query from them.
The detainees were not stopped from singing, though, Ollero said. Other detachment personnel recalled that Aquino and Diokno frequently sang alternately to while their time away. If one sang “Lupang Hinirang,” the other would respond by singing “Bayan Ko,” they said.
The detachment personnel said they interpreted these singing episodes as one of the ways that Aquino and Diokno used to determine if the other was still in the detention cell.
Piped-in music was provided in the detention facility. The music, which was played over and over again, however, was meant more to deceive the detainees. In that early summer, Christmas carols were played.
Accounts pieced together about the detention of Aquino and Diokno revealed that the two determined the passing of each day through ingenious means.
Aquino was said to put marks on the window frames to determine the passing of each day. He reportedly determined that it was noon by peeping through a hole directly fronting a big post. The shadow cast by the post made him more or less aware if it was already noon.
On the other hand, Diokno marked the passing of each day by using tobacco residue in his pipe, which he deposited in an empty soapbox. Later, he marked the passing of the day by tying knots in his mosquito net.
Diokno thus surprised the jail warden when he asked on March 21, 1973 for 21 roses to be sent to his wife on the occasion of their wedding anniversary that day.
On April 8, 1973, after weeks of searching for her husband, Corazon Aquino was allowed to visit him. They met and talked, separated by a screened door. Only the guards were there to witness that meeting.
Three days after that meeting, Aquino and Diokno were flown back to Fort Bonifacio.
Memorial
The detention of the two former senators has been memorialized through a shrine now called the “Aquino-Diokno Memorial.” The shrine was inaugurated on Feb. 25 this year during the 17th anniversary of the 1986 Edsa Revolution.
Life-size wax figures of Aquino and Diokno, in their undergarments, are shown in the respective cells.
A quote from Aquino inside the facility summed up what happened to him during his detention. It reads: “I was able to talk with God and that gave me the strength and the spirit to fight for the Filipino people, to forget my political ambition, but to pursue a mission-to unify the people and attain their quest for progress and democracy.”