AN OUTSIDERS VIEW |
Ken Fuller |
An article posted on the GMA News Web site on Aug. 18 (“Ninoy networked with everyone, Reds included,” by Lisandro Claudio) gives details of the links between Ninoy Aquino and the Communist Party of the Philippines formed by Jose Maria Sison in 1968.
As Claudio concedes, however, these links are not exactly news. It has, for example, been known for decades that Aquino acted as a middle-man in the formation of the New People’s Army, arranging the initial meeting between Sison and Bernabe Buscayno, better-known as Kumander Dante, the NPA’s first leader. As this outsider researched a forthcoming book (A Movement Divided, to be published next year, is a sequel to 2007’s Forcing the Pace), one of my sources confirmed this particular link, adding that Aquino also provided arms and allowed his Times Street residence to be used by wounded NPA fighters.
Prior to this, Aquino had led an interesting life working with the CIA, a connection upon which Claudio is silent.
At President Magsaysay’s suggestion, Aquino spent four months in the USA, observing CIA training methods, following which he reported back to Magsaysay. By now he had married into the wealthy Cojuangco family. When the Spanish-owned Tabacalera company decided to sell the 7,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita, Magsaysay mentioned this to Aquino, as the former wished to avoid the property falling into the hands of the Lopez family. Aquino then approached his father-in-law, Jose Cojuangco, who purchased it.
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100831com5.html
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