ICI should do an Agrava: Open the hearings

In the eerily quiet and refrigerator-cold Constabulary morgue in Camp Crame, the mother of Rolando Galman, the accused killer of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., “wept hysterically” as she identified her son's bullet-riddled body.

- IRIS GONZALES

This was according to The New York Times, in a Nov. 4, 1983 article about the first public hearing of the Agrava Commission held the previous day.

Ferdinand Marcos Sr. formed the body to investigate the assassination of Ninoy Aquino on Aug. 21, 1983, a shocking and bloody Sunday that would later change the course of the country’s history.

The Agrava Commission was led by retired Court of Appeals Justice Corazon Agrava as chair, with lawyer Luciano Salazar, entrepreneur Dante Santos, labor leader Ernesto Herrera and educator Amado Dizon as members.

The hearing “opened in an auditorium at Camp Crame and focused on testimony about an erasure in the logbook of the Philippine Constabulary Crime Laboratory, where an autopsy was performed on the body of Mr. Galman about 10 hours after the shooting. His name was entered in a space where something else had been erased. All-civilian commission,” the article said.

Clearly, the article shows that the public had access to the hearings, whether broadcast daily or open to everyone who wanted to be there.

Another New York Times article, published on Oct. 24, 1984, narrates:

“At the beginning, the Agrava Commission raised some doubts as to its impartiality. The first session began with the five members singing the national anthem, hands over hearts, in front of a picture of the President.

“But once the investigation got into full swing, it became clear that the board members were going about their task without restraint.