Body identified

Press, 5 November 1983, Page 11

Body identified

NZPA Manila The Philippines Government has turned over the body of the man it says shot Benigno Aquino to his mother after she was forced to identify his 1.0-week-old cadaver before a blaze of television lights in. a crowded military morgue. “My son. My son. Is this my son?” Rolando Galman’s mother, Satumina, aged 53, screamed, reaching out towards the naked corpse. “I love you, my son, even if your body is rotting,” she yelled in Tagalog as she was removed from the room. Mrs Galman appeared before the first hearing of a new commission probing the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos’ chief political rival. She told the hearing that her son was a simple farmer. The commission then adjourned to the

morgue. Mrs Galman had told reporters earlier she did not believe her son had killed Mr Aquino. Galman, who was 33, was killed by soldiers moments after Mr Aquino, was killed on August 21 as a group of soldiers escorted him from the plane that took him to Manila from three years voluntary exile in the United States.

Aquino family members and Opposition groups have blamed Mr Marcos for Mr Aquino’s murder. The Government has denied the allegations. An Air Force Colonel, Arturo Custodio, and a man who says he was a former communist rebel, Rosendo Cawigan, also identified the body in the morgue. It was the first time any military officials had been publicly linked to Galman.