Test of Wills

Marcos makes a concession

There was not an empty seat in the room as the five-member commission assigned to investigate the assassination of Opposition Leader Benigno Aquino opened its first meeting in 24 days. The audience was particularly interested because General Prospero Olivas, Commander of the National Police for Metropolitan Manila, would present the military's official version of the events that led to Aquino's murder seconds after he stepped off a plane at Manila International Airport on Aug. 21. Instead, there was yet another surprise in the brief but checkered history of a commission whose credibility has been assailed from the day it was created by President Ferdinand Marcos.

Commission Member Felix Antonio announced that Arturo Tolentino, a respected politician who had turned down Marcos' offer to be chairman of the panel, had persuaded the President to accept several new conditions. In order to give Tolentino "a free hand," Antonio said, the entire commission would resign. Four days later, Marcos announced that a totally new, and presumably more independent, panel would be named. Two of its members will be appointed by the Marcos-dominated parliament, but three to five others will be chosen on the basis of recommendations from "various sectors of society." Said Commission Member Filemon Fernandez: "The eyes of the world are watching to see if the Philippine people are capable of selfcriticism, to see whether they have the capability to assert the supremacy of law and bring those responsible to the bar of justice."

Although General Olivas' testimony was locked into a vault along with the commission's other documents, it was quickly leaked to the press. He reiterated the government's claim that Aquino had been killed by a Communist hitman who had somehow managed to penetrate the airport's tight security. But politicians and diplomats who analyzed the report found glaring contradictions between that claim and the photos and videotape footage of the seconds just before and after the shooting, which have been widely circulated in the Philippines.

According to Olivas, the five khaki-uniformed guards who met Aquino aboard China Airlines Flight 811 were unarmed. As Aquino stepped off the plane, escorted by the guards, a single fatal bullet entered the nape of his neck and passed in a downward path through his chin. Seconds later, soldiers gunned down Rolando Galman, who, Olivas contended, had "suddenly darted toward [Aquino] and shot him from behind."

Olivas' "report" did little to dispel doubts about the official government version. Amadeo Seno, the commission's deputy counsel, told newsmen last week that he had found a number of contradictions in Olivas' testimony. Four hours after Aquino was killed, Seno noted, Olivas had described the assassin as being 5 ft. 6 in. tall. But the physician who performed the autopsy later reported that Galman was 5 ft. 9 in., or 1/4 in. taller than Aquino. Galman's height is a crucial clue in determining whether he was tall enough to walk behind Aquino, as the government claims, and fire into his head a bullet that would take a downward path.

Other sources close to the investigation noted that the .357 magnum pistol allegedly taken from Galman was handled by so many soldiers that no one will be able to determine if Galman's fingerprints are oh the gun. Seno further disclosed that paraffin tests carried out on the five supposedly unarmed men who escorted Aquino off the plane indicated that two showed "positive" results for nitrates on their hands, a finding that suggested they could have handled a gun. Seno's comments appeared in Filipino newspapers after being reported by the Associated Press. On Friday, the presidential palace issued a statement saying that Seno was suing several foreign newspapers and the A.P for libel. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.