TARLAC CITY, TARLAC—A crowd of more than 200 people showed up at the reopening of the Aquino Center and Museum on Feb. 24, the eve of the 39th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution.

Family members, friends and admirers of the late anti-dictatorship and democracy icons, former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and former president Corazon “Cory” Aquino, and their son, former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, gathered in a reunion of sorts to remember the uprising that toppled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and forced him and his family out of Malacanang.

The renovated museum in the sprawling Luisita Industrial Park in this city now has a new section for Noynoy, who died in 2021, five years after serving as the Philippines’ 15th president. A highlight of the day’s event was the launch of a 200-page picture book on his presidency, “PNoy Filipino,” published by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF).

“PNoy” was the nickname that Noynoy gave himself during his six years as president.

In his remarks, Rapa Lopa, Noynoy’s cousin and president of the NCAF, said some members of the two “generations” of the Aquino Cabinets were present.

Quite a number of them were graying but bright eyed, excited at seeing old friends and comrades in the street protests back in the day. Most wore yellow—the color of the anti-dictatorship movement led by Cory, who was widowed by an assassin’s bullet on Aug. 21, 1983.

A backdrop to the stage where a program was held inside the ballroom on one side of the Aquino Center was dominated by images of the three Aquinos, each resting chin to hand—Ninoy on the P500-bill, Cory on the cover of Time Magazine as its 1986 woman of the year, and PNoy in a picture.

Democracy and courage

Former senator Leila de Lima, who was justice secretary in the PNoy Cabinet, said the Aquino Center and Museum would help Filipinos remember “the most, most significant event in the country’s history.”

“We recall, we remember, we appreciate the journey that Ninoy has gone through and we appreciate also the achievements of his son, the former President Noynoy Aquino,” De Lima said. “With this, we are emboldened now to tell and retell the story about what happened to Ninoy Aquino and what the Marcos dictatorship has done to him.”

She said the strongest legacy of the three Aquinos was “democracy—strong, vibrant—and unbreakable, unwavering courage … to fight for what is good, for what is right, for what is just for the country.”

Museum visitors are led to pairs of doors labelled to symbolize milestones and challenges faced by Ninoy, Cory and Noynoy, one after the other. These open to other sections in the museum that show the consequences of the choices that each of them had to make at crucial junctures in the nation’s history.

For Ninoy as a young man, it was first a choice between “Comfort” and “Adventure.” He chose the second. Later it was to “Resist” the dictatorship or to “Collaborate” with then President Marcos Sr. who declared martial law in September 1972 and ordered the arrest of his political rivals, including the then senator, locked down Congress, and muzzled the press.

For Cory, the choices were “Contentment” and “Sacrifice,” after her husband was murdered on his return from exile in the United States. Choosing the latter, she became a leader to the opposition to Marcos Sr.’s rule, abandoning a widow’s life of caring only for her children and grandchildren.

NCAF executive director Kiko Dee said that after Edsa, his grandmother Cory was focused on installing and defending democracy and the institutions that support it. “Her goal as president was to seal all paths to power except through the ballot,” he said.

After Cory died in 2009, the choices confronting PNoy were to “Rest” or to “Fight” for good governance worthy of his parents’ legacy. He was first reluctant to run for president, but when he decided to “fight,” he became a resolute reformist.

PNoy’s presidency

Lopa said the picture book ensures that the story of PNoy’s presidency, which fulfilled the legacy of “the democracy that Ninoy died for and Cory restored,” is “preserved and passed on.”

Most of the pictures were taken by Pnoy’s close-in photographer, the veteran photojournalist Gil Nartea. The book project, proposed by Nartea, was led by Thelma Sioson San Juan, a former lifestyle editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

PNoy, who was averse to calling attention to himself, didn’t want to have a book about him, but he finally agreed during a stormy night in 2019, according to San Juan, a close friend. He wasn’t able to participate in the making of the book because of the pandemic and his sudden death.

“For PNoy, it was never about him. The presidency was never about him. His eyes were focused on the tasks ahead, not on his legacy or his place in history. It is up to others to define that—that is how he thinks,” San Juan said, adding:

“The book’s story is very simple—how PNoy proved that transformative governance is doable within a democracy, without the slaughter of people, ‘kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap,’ without the curtailment of people’s rights.”

Lopa said the motivation for the renovation of the center and the publication of the book was “to complete the Aquino love story with our people.’’

“While the Aquino brand of democracy was not perfect, it worked,” he said. “But beyond remembering, we hope to inspire others to make a daily commitment, just as Uncle Ninoy, Auntie Cory and Noy did—to remain faithful to the cause of making democracy more meaningful and relevant to the vast majority of our people, especially those that are still left behind.”

On display

Among the items on display in the museum are a replica of Ninoy’s military detention cell and the actual thermos bottle which has a removable bottom that opens to enough space for him to smuggle manifestos or messages to the outside world from Fort Bonifacio and Fort Magsaysay.

There is a reproduction of his letter to then 13-year-old Noynoy saying, among other things, that he had no money to bequeath to his son, only his “untarnished and respected name.”

As if foretelling the future, Ninoy told his son: “There is no greater nation on earth than our Motherland. No greater people than our own. Serve them with all your heart, with all your might and with all your strength.”

Ninoy is credited for inspiring resistance to the dictatorship, Cory for restoring democracy and rebuilding institutions with the 1987 Constitution, and PNoy for defending and fighting for democratic governance.

Among the items on display in PNoy’s section of the museum are two copies of the Philippine Constitution, one with many frayed pages and bookmarks. Dee, his younger sister Viel’s son, said PNoy often carried this copy and consulted it whenever a legal or constitutional issue arose.

The picture book includes a photo of PNoy’s close-in aide Cedrik Forbes carrying a bulky bag that holds this copy of the Constitution, along with a few other things like maps of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, briefing kits, a large calculator, and some candies.

West Philippine Sea

Prominently displayed is a large map of the Philippines showing the West Philippine Sea, part of the country’s 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone that is claimed by China. PNoy was determined to resolve this maritime dispute with the “behemoth” early in his administration when he took Beijing to court in 2013.

“What is ours is ours” became a slogan of the PNoy administration against China’s “nine-dash line.”

“We stood up to China because it was the right thing to do,” PNoy said a few months before his death.

The international landmark arbitral award invalidating China’s expansive claims to the West Philippine Sea is one of his lasting legacies. The ruling by the arbitral tribunal in The Hague was handed down in July 2016, less than a month after he left Malacañang.

PNoy also resolved to end the decades-long armed Muslim separatist movement that Marcos Sr. and the succeeding presidents, including his mother, were unable to do.

Peace talks were arranged and a breakthrough came when he flew to Tokyo to meet with Moro Islamic Liberation Front chair Murad Ebrahim and other Muslim rebel leaders in August 2011. This “frank and candid” meeting was captured in a photo included in the picture book. In 2014, the two sides sealed the peace accord called the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro in ceremonies at Malacañang.

‘Tayo’

The museum leads people to the last section labeled “Tayo” (Us), a call to the people to continue the legacy of the three Aquinos highlighted by the Edsa revolt of 1986 to end repression and one-man rule.

Dee said Edsa was for everyone to use to call out the powers that be, but misusing it in a way that doesn’t keep its spirit would be “ironic,” as when the Marcos and Duterte camps vilified the “dilawan” (yellows).

He said there is incongruity when former president Rodrigo Duterte accuses the dictator’s son, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., of turning into a totalitarian, and the latter responds by saying that the country would no longer return to days of killings and media suppression.

It’s like President Marcos Jr. talking about his own father’s one-man rule and Duterte referring to his own administration, Dee said.

“They didn’t understand what Edsa was for and they cannot sort of present themselves in a way that stands on their own,” he said.

Dee said the Dutertes are just trying to use “the gloss and imagery of Edsa” to rouse people against the President, their former ally. “But I think it’s not working because it is so blatantly ungenuine,” he said.

Read more: What to expect on Edsa