Poverty way of life for kin of man tagged as killer of Ninoy

FILE photo of Rolando Galman’s sister, Marilyn, testifying at the Agrava Board which investigated the murder of the Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ALIAGA, Nueva Ecija—Saturnina Galman, 87, mother of Rolando Galman, who was implicated in the 1983 assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., said she could no longer remember when she last visited her son’s grave in Parañaque City.

Not for lack of trying, she said. “You can’t travel there on a thousand peso budget. That’s all I have. I have no livelihood and life today is hard,” said Galman, whose son was tagged as the communist hit man who allegedly murdered Aquino at the Manila International Airport tarmac on Aug. 21, 1983.

Galman, however, is widely believed to have been just a fall guy in the plot to murder Aquino.

The murder triggered protests that led to the ouster of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in a People Power revolt in 1986.

A resident of Barangay Sto. Tomas here, Saturnina said she was certain her son was at peace, after the fact-finding commission headed by former Court of Appeals Justice Corazon Agrava cleared him of any involvement in the Aquino murder.

“For us, [Rolando’s death] has become a closed book and we have moved on,” the mother said on Thursday when President Aquino and the participants in the 1986 Edsa People Power revolution celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Instead of a celebration, Galman said she and her family offered a prayer for her son and went on with their day.

Rolando’s sister, Marilyn Galman-Duldulao, said life had not been easy for her mother and the family when government agents took them under their custody shortly after the assassination.

“We were under their watch for two months. We had no access to television or the newspapers. We had no idea then that our relatives were frantically looking for us while people were on the streets to protest Aquino’s murder,” Duldulao said. Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon