Where were you when…
It’s the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino. “Do you remember where you were when you first heard that Ninoy had been shot?” asked my friend, the Princess Poulet. Yes I do. I remember that it was a weekend and I was at home with my mother. Everyone knew that Senator Aquino was arriving that day, so we expected to see the television coverage. But there was no TV coverage of the homecoming, and as the day wore on it was obvious that something bad had happened. Then there was the news bulletin that he’d been shot, allegedly by a hitman who was identified by the name sewn onto his underwear.Â
Poulet’s innocent question quickly turned into a morbid game of Where Were You When. On September 11, 2001, when the first plane hit the tower, I was standing in front of an ATM on Wilson Street in Greenhills. My druid and I had just eaten a big dinner at a Chinese restaurant. She had noted that it was the Coptic New Year. Then as I was withdrawing money from the machine, my druid got a text message saying a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We thought it was a joke in very bad taste.
I was in front of the ATM at United Supermarket (it’s no longer there) in Greenbelt during the big earthquake of 1991. I had just withdrawn money when the ground began to shake violently, then swirl like the contents of a blender. There were aftershocks for days. I remember watching TV coverage of rescue workers retrieving people from collapsed buildings. One TV reporter shoved a microphone at a girl half-buried in rubble and asked, “How are you feeling?”Â