President Gloria M. Arroyo has declared August 21 as a national public holiday and for a good reason.

The day marks the 23rd death anniversary of senator Benigno Aquino - a contemporary national hero who paid the supreme sacrifice of his life in order to bring freedom to a land devastated by 20 years of tyranny and oppression of Ferdinand Marcos.

There are heroes and there are heroes.

One can trivialize heroism and say hero is James Yap who scores the winning basket in a PBA championship; Popeye for rescuing Olive from brutish Brutus and Dustin Hoffman for saving VIPs in a flaming airplane in "The Accidental Hero."

There is, however, a kind of heroism that dwells beyond self, family, friends and vested interests. It is the kind that makes one give up one's life for strangers or the nation at large.

It was the Great Carpenter from Galilee who once said: "Greater love than this no man has, that he lays down his life for others" and they nailed Him at the cross in Golgotha.

Such a hero is Ninoy Aquino who passed off an exile's life in Boston to return to his country threatened by a civil war or chaos that would ensue following the departure of its despot whose death was imminent. His wife Imelda and a set of salivating throne pretenders were lurking at the shadows - ready to grab the throne by hook or by crook - by crook in all likelihood.

Ninoy had foretold his own death when he said in that fateful plane to Manila "I have a bullet-proof vest here but if they hit me on the head, I'm a goner. You all have to be very watchful because this could be over in a few seconds."

The rest as you know is history but without its final chapters since to this day the brains who ordered the cowardly soldiers to shoot Ninoy in the tarmac (who everyone knows) have not been convicted.

Ken Kashiwahara, Ninoy's brother-in-law had earlier offered the "Chain Solution" while aboard the plane where he and Ninoy were to be handcuffed together in order to avoid foul play.

Somehow the Plan never got implemented.

According to one account, one soothsayer had once told the First Family then that "Once Ninoy's body touches Philippine soil, this will mark the beginning of the end of your regime." Some nervous wrecks plotted to abort the oracle by hatching the tarmac assassination.

But indeed one cannot fight prophecy for the dead carcass of Ninoy did touch Philippine soil - and from then on the Marcos fortunes cascaded to the pits.

Ninoy's murder at the tarmac was just a huge media event that tragic Sunday - only to send chills down the spine of many the following day. For it began to dawn to all that if they could do that to a media copy like Ninoy, they could do it to anyone else.

In his lifetime, people were impressed with the robust lawmaker from Tarlac - mesmerized by the brilliance of his thoughts, the sparkle of his oratory and the courage of his vision.

Aquino was a man of destiny - perhaps larger in death than in his life - who was a man in a definite hurry. He was the nation's youngest news correspondent, presidential assistant, mayor, governor and senator. We knew then that it was just a matter of time that he would become Philippine president.

Aquino was incarcerated for 7 years and 7 months and almost died after fasting for 40 days. In the lowest ebb of his despair, Aquino reportedly sought God in the Bible and found his peace.

As a government official, Aquino was a passionate scholar whose well-researched exposes and eloquent speeches moved his enemies to pee in their pants and for his fans to look for his autograph.

Ninoy Aquino could have walked tall among fellow politicians of today's breed. He could be remembered for what politicians today are not.

For look around us, the present-day politicians openly or silently partake of pay-offs, balatos and kick-backs, do shabby legislative work if they are not indulging in silent meditation inside session halls or murdering the English language, or worse working for personal and collegial interests rather than the national good.

That's when we really miss the man, Ninoy.

That is the reason why business in Binondo stopped on the day of his burial in 1983 - the longest funeral march ever in Philippine history.

Imelda Marcos immediately branded the funeral as a "big fart" while the Manila daily called Daily Express (daily suppress, it was) published two paragraphs on the event while its headline screamed: "Man Electrocuted while Watching Aquino Funeral."

These clearly showed you the state of Imelda's olfactory nerves (and other nerves, besides) and the depths Martial Law journalism had fallen into.

Meantime Ninoy's death had galvanized support for the reluctant widow Cory Aquino as the moral choice to battle Marcos in the polls of 1986. All through the earthshaking events of the election down to EDSA people power, the long shadow of Ninoy cast its image on the nation.

And to the spiritual-oriented march from Ninoy's death to our freedom at EDSA was a script written from the Above much like the deliverance of the Isaraelites from their oppressors.

That the democratic governments after Marcos are all hard-put in putting the Philippine house in order only serves to tell us how the physical and financial resources of the nation had been ransacked by the Marcos ghouls and how much the culture of corruption and greed has seeped into our bureaucratic consciousness.

That the struggle for complete emancipation continues today does not, at all however, debase the glory of our liberation in 1986.

Let us remember the man Ninoy who helped us savor democracy once again - and let him remain in our hearts, the place he truly belongs.