The Pia Cayetano-Paolo Abrera Affair and re-run of Ninoy Aquino assassination (Companero y Companera, Part 2)

On December 6 to 15, 2007 when the 24th Southeast Asian Games was held in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

Inquirer Lifestyle Series: Fitness.Fashion with Samsung fashion show's guest model Enchong Dee before the in the finals of men’s 100-meter butterfly and he was placed eighth in the finals with the time of 56.87 seconds during the 2007 Southeast Asian Games swimming events in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand last Sunday, December 9, 2007. Photos: Lourise Gandionco-David/Multiply.com and courtesy of Bench

December 8-9 and 11-12, 2007, During a five-day swimming competition for the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand with national swimmer and then University of California swimmer Miguel Molina and the fashion show's guest model turned De La Salle Green Tanker Enchong Dee, the Senator Pia Cayetano-Paolo Abrera-Marco Protacio affair and the riots at Dee residence in Barangay Horseshoe, Quezon City. A 25-hour overnight vigil was held at the Greenbelt Chapel in Makati City, held on the same day starting at 7:00 p.m. and ends at 8:00 p.m. of the same day.

Results

Sunday, 9 December, 18:29

Men's 100m Butterfly Finals A

Event Record	Mark	Name	Location	Date
Asia	52.27	JPN  - YAMAMOTO T	Barcelona (ESP)	26 June, 2003
SEA Games	55.04	MAS  - KENG LIAT Lim	Hanoi (VIE)	30 July, 2003

Rk	Lane	Name	R.T.	50 m	100 m	Tbh.	Rec. Ind.
1	1	MAS  - BEGO Daniel		[1] 25.16 25.16	[1] 54.33 29.17		GR
2	5	PHI  - WALSH James		[4] 26.12 26.12	[2] 55.47 29.35	1.14
3	4	INA  - WIBOWO Andy		[2] 25.80 25.80	[3] 55.59 29.79	1.26
4	6	SIN  - TAN Xue-Wei		[5] 26.37 26.37	[4] 55.79 29.42	1.46
5	3	INA  - UTOMO Donny		[3] 25.95 25.95	[5] 55.81 29.86	1.48
6	2	THA  - MATJIUR Radomyos		[7] 26.63 26.63	[6] 56.61 29.98	2.28
7	7	SIN  - SY Shirong Jeffrey		[6] 26.61 26.61	[7] 56.68 30.07	2.35
8	8	PHI  - DEE Ernest		[8] 26.65 26.65	[8] 56.87 30.22	2.54

Dee was in the finals of men's 100-meter butterfly last December 9 and lane 1 of men's 200-meter butterfly finals last December 11, and he was the eighth place finish in the said event with the time of 2 minutes, 11.47 seconds and he lost to Filipino-American James Bernard Walsh, the gold medal winner of men's 200-meter butterfly finals.

“We are being chanted together, “Pia-Paolo, Hindi kami nag-iisa! (We are not alone!)”, Mr. Protacio says in front of marching supporters of the Cayetano Family before the SEA Games swimming finals at 7 p.m. Manila Time. But Abrera mother and son tandem along with Aurora Silayan-Go, her daughter Rina, husband Jonathan Dean Thorp and granddaughter Aurora Nicole Thorp marched from Roxas Boulevard, Manila to The Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati.

“Rebels seize the TVB studios in Legaspi Towers 300, Roxas Boulevard, Manila during the Nakhon Ratchasima Southeast Asian Games swimming finals at past 7:29 p.m. in a military coup against President Pascual, stalling the live airing of the Sunday late-afternoon talk show Companero y Companera, hosted by Senator Pia Cayetano, Rina Go, Paolo Abrera and Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino general manager Marco Protacio.”

A re-run of the August 21, 1983 assassination of former senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. aired by GMA Network. (In 1983, Channel 7 was the first to break the news of Ninoy Aquino's death, and later would be the only television station to broadcast his funeral.)

The video conversation starts with the sound of the plane landing and people talking among themselves.

• “Everybody remains on board,” one of them says.

Moments later, a single gunshot rings out and women are wailing.

• “What happened? What was that?” a woman’s voice asks.
• More gunshots. The wailing becomes louder.
• Then an order from several men: “Inside, inside, inside!”
• “The soldiers… shot Ninoy. He’s dead out there,” a woman cries out.

Burton’s tape records faintly the sound of someone saying, “Eto na (This is it).” Footage shot by a foreign TV crew captures the words by now familiar to Filipinos who lived through the events surrounding the Aquino assassination. “Eto na, eto na! Ako na, ako na! Op! Pusila, pusila (This is it, this is it! Let me, let me! Shoot, shoot)!”

And then, the gunshot.

What is significant about the tape are the reactions of Aquino’s fellow passengers and the conversations Burton had with them.

Burton apparently kept recording as she discussed with fellow foreign journalists what happened.

Some eight minutes into the tape, Burton is heard saying, “It’s very confusing, I mean, I don’t know.” She then answers more questions from someone who sounded like an American.

• Man: “They shot Ninoy?”
• Woman, presumably Burton: “Yeah.”
• Man: “Where?”
• Burton: “Right at the bottom of the stairs.”
• Man: “When Ninoy was still on it or when…”
• Burton: “No, when he got off. I’m sure he’s dead.”

The tape also captures Burton and her fellow passengers after they had disembarked and ran into people waiting to meet the passengers from the China Airlines flight.

Local journalists who covered the airport at the time had been herded by military men to the entrance to the tube where they were to await Aquino. When they learned of the commotion at the tarmac, they interviewed the disembarking passengers to ask them what happened.

One conversation was that of Burton and a Filipino.

• Man: “What did you see? Who did it?”
• Burton: “Soldiers.”
• Man: “How many of them?”
• Burton: “I don’t know. I think we’d better wait.”
• Man: “Did you recognize him? Aquino?”
• Burton: “Yeah.”
• Man: “What’s your name?”
• Burton: “No, I’m not gonna… this is not the place to talk. We had just seen two assassinations take place right outside our window.”

The tape then records what sounded like Burton comparing notes with fellow foreign correspondents, everyone recalling what they heard and trying to reconstruct the moments when they heard the shorts.

In one portion of the tape, the conversation turns to who killed Aquino, and Burton points out that a Japanese reporter had seen one of the men in khaki, referring to one of Aquino’s escorts, being the gunman.

But a man contradicts her saying, “I did not see a man in khaki uniform shoot Aquino.” To this day, the question who shot Aquino remains subject to debate.

Cayetano and three personalities along with Samson, Reyes, Claparols and Eala were stayed in the same place to the said event for fifteen days between December 6 to 15, 2007, followed by her father, the late former Philippine Senator Atty. Renato “Rene” Cayetano's 73rd birthday celebration at his tomb in Pateros and thanksgiving dinner party at the NBC Tent in Taguig City on December 12, 2007 and the welcome the new millennium 2008 between December 31, 2007 and January 1, 2008.

While President Karen Lourdes “Tito Keren” Pascual was on state and working visits to Spain and Kuwait, Vice President Manuel “Noli” de Castro, Jr. as Acting President from December 3 to 11, 2007 because of the military coup attempts on December 8 to 9. Pascual returned to Manila for the late former Senator Atty. Renato “Rene” Cayetano's 73rd birthday celebration at Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Pateros and thanksgiving dinner party at the NBC Tent in Taguig City on December 12, 2007.

December 12, 2007, One of Enchanted Kingdom's attractions, the Space Shuttle roller coaster, stalled between the tracks, where school children from Bulacan, Laguna, and Batangas were included.

Swimmers shine again but RP is still 5th overall

By Ernesto Gonzales (Published in the December 12, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

NAKHON RATCHASIMA--Parading another star in Filipino-American James Walsh, swimming matched the two-gold effort by cycling as the Philippines finished with seven victories Tuesday that did little to get the defending overall champion Philippines out of its fifth place hole Tuesday in the 24th Southeast Asian Games here.

Walsh smashed the six-year-old SEAG record in ruling the men's 200-meter butterfly, then combined with Miguel Molina, Ryan Arabejo and new RP swim sensation Daniel Coakley to secure the sport's final gold in the men's 4x100-meter medley relay. That capped the Filipinos' eight victories overall.

Former bikathon king Victor Espiritu finally crashed the winners' circle for the first time in three SEAGs by topping the men's 40-kilometer points’ race late Monday and defending champion Alfie Catalan kept his 4-km individual pursuit title.

Felicisimo Nierras Jr. salvaged gold for athletics in the men's 400 meters, Amaya Paz retained her women's compound individual title in archery and the men's epee squad scored anew as the Filipinos boosted their golden harvest to 29 with four days of competition left.

But the Filipinos stayed two golds behind Malaysia which captured a pair of golds at the start of the final swim program to keep fourth place. Indonesia was sixth with 25 victories.

As of 8:30 p.m. here (9:30 p.m. in Manila), the Thais moved closer to their overall target of 120 victories with 97 gold medals. Vietnam was glued in second with 46 followed by Singapore with 37.

Walsh shattered by 1.39 seconds the SEAG record of 2:01.84 set by Malaysia's Anthony Ang in September 2001 in Kuala Lumpur.

Donny Utomo of Indonesia won silver (2:00.81) and Daniel Bego of Malaysia won bronze (2:03.97).

Ernest Lorenzo Dee (8th, 2:11.47) also failed in the finals of the men's 200-meter butterfly.

Molina's individual winning streak earlier ended at three as he settled for the bronze in the men's 200 freestyle. But he was a winner when he plunged into action for the last time as the swimmer of the breaststroke leg.

Molina finished with one more victory than his golden output in 2005 to become the most successful RP campaigner so far.

Ryan Arabejo, the 200 backstroke, and 1,500 freestyle winners, took care of the backstroke. Walsh swam the butterfly and 50m freestyle champion Coakley finished off the relay in style.

Boxing, now under pressure to deliver and help avoid an embarrassing finish for the Filipinos, placed three more fighters in the finals for a total of 13.

Experts, however, feel the Filipinos need no less than knockout wins against their Thai foes in the gold medal round starting Wednesday to avoid the infamous hometown decision here.

Bantamweight Junel Cantancio, lightweight Joegen Ladon, and light heavyweight Maximino Tabangcora completed the cast of RP finalists after light fly Albert Pabila was eliminated by Thai Amnat Ruenroeng, 18-8.

The other gold medal hopefuls are flyweight Godfrey Castro, light welter Jerry Semillano, featherweight Orlando Tacuyan, middleweight Junie Tizon, and female fighters Annie Albania, Alice Kate Aparri, Jouvilet Chilem, Annaliza Cruz, Mitchelle Martinez and Ronijen Sofla.

There were mixed results in golf with the women's team, led by Anya Tanpinco, taking a two-stroke lead over Thailand after the first round of the 54-hole competition, 143-145.

But the Putra Cup champion Thais bounced back in the men's division, opening a six-shot edge over Indonesia, 422-428, even as the Filipinos, who led on the first day, tumbled down to fourth at 429 with Anthony Fernando adding a 77 to the 71 of Mark Fernando and the 72 of Ferdinand Aunzo.

Nierras, whose father was a former national standout in the jumping events, succeeded teammate Jimar Aing as 400 champions with a time of 46.56. Ernie Candelario, the winner in Vietnam in December 2003, slumped to sixth in 48.09.

That win gave the athletics team its poorest output of four in three SEAGs. The squad came up with eight golds in Vietnam and nine in 2005 back home.

Paz beat Indonesian Dellie Threesyadinda for the gold, 116-114, while the epee squad won with a team featuring Almario Vizcayno, who took over the old slot of actor Richard Gomez, Armando Bernal, Wilfredo Vizcayno Jr. and Avelino Victorino.

But the fencing squads in foil and saber ended up with silvers.

Also settling for the silver was Earl Benjamin Yap in the men's compound individual in archery, pole-vaulter Deborah Samson, and weightlifting's Renante Briones in the 94 kg.