(We just marked World Press Freedom Day. Few recall how Benigno Aquino, confined in a Fort Bonifacio maxiumum security cell, shattered the Marcos dictatorship's censorship.

In "The Aquino Papers," Filipina journalist Miriam Grace A. Go reveals how Aquino smuggled to the Bangkok Post the first media challenge to the "New Society." The Marcos regime punished Corazon Aquino for this "crime of committing journalism." Here's the abridged Go article. -- JLM )

BANGKOK - Five months after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, the Bangkok Post ran articles written by Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Smuggled into to Thailand, (they) become the Post's "world-exclusive. How did this "subversive" material get to editor in chief Theh Chongkhadikij?

Marcos had closed down independent papers. TV was censored. "Subversive" journalists were detained. And those released were under surveillance.

(Before fax and internet) the only way was: have Aquino's papers published outside the country. Alfonso Policarpio Jr.,Ninoy's assistant, asked journalist (and Bohol Chronicle columnist) Juan L. Mercado: "Can you get the papers out?"

Released by the military two months earlier, Mercado had resumed work with Press Foundation for Asia. "Poli" counted on PFA's extensive media contacts.

Theh earlier wrote about the country's underground press (samizdats). "I had known Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. as a journalist, a politician and a governor," he wrote in introduction to "The Aquino Papers."

"It was Poli's job to get the paper out from Camp Bonifacio," Mercado recalls. My job was to get it out of Manila."

Aquino's oldest daughter, Ballsy, smuggled the papers from prison "During visiting hour, Ninoy (signaled) Ballsy: go to the rest room after he came out," recalls Corazon Aquino, the wife who'd later become president. In the rest room, Ballsy shoved her father's writings into her pocket.

Cory recalls that Ninoy instructed her: give a copy to Policarpio and Robert Chaplen of The New Yorker. In his book, Policarpio wrote: Aquino added: Stanley Karnow of Baltimore Sun, T.J.S. George of Far Eastern Economic Review, Carl Zimmerman of Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Theh.

After Policarpio gave the papers to Mercado, the latter picked "a carrier pigeon."-- the Air India manager who flew out of Manila regularly. 'Would you carry an envelope to Theh as part of 'company mail?' Mercado asked. "His eyebrows arched…But he didn't flinch. Neither did he ask questions. He brought it out of Manila."

Mercado learned from Theh later: the manager-friend even hand-carried the envelope to the Post. "'God bless Air India,' I've always said since then," Mercado says.

The Post published in full Aquino's "situationer-memo," But Theh was remarkably balanced. "The Aquino Papers," he wrote, "are probably like the Pentagon Papers, giving only one part of the story, (albeit a) documented part." The senator gave "an honest account of what he knows or thinks he knows… Keep in mind that he is a politician with great rhetorical skill."

(Two weeks later) the Post ran, in full, Marcos's reply. Cabled by then Press Secretary Francisco Tatad, the 8,000-word rebuttal mentions Aquino's name only once, at the beginning. He was thereafter dubbed only as "the man" or "the detainee."

The reply downplayed the significance of the Post exclusive and cast doubts on Aquino's integrity. "Perhaps some of our detainees will write memoirs, others, articles for the newspapers.… They will seek an outside audience, having no one to listen among their own people."

"Not content with having the last word, (Marcos) sought to teach the usual suspects a lesson. Cory Aquino found "their visiting privileges were suddenly suspended. When she asked Deputy Defense Minister Carmelo Barbero why, that was the only time she learned about the Post series.

"My children and I were not allowed to visit Ninoy for 43 days as punishment for the Bangkok Post publication," Mrs. Aquino said. The New Yorker magazine came out with Robert Shaplen's article. But luckily we were not punished for that."

Policarpio was detained in Camp Crame. Aquino and his cellmate, Sen. Jose Diokno, were transferred to solitary confinement-and almost starved to death-in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.

Just say the Post series was done by his speech writer, the Fort Bonifacio commander asked Ninoy, Cory recalls. But Aquno insisted that he alone wrote that series," Cory says.

An assassin gunned down Ninoy at the Manila International Airport tarmac. The mastermind still has not been pinned down. Theh passed away in 1995. Before his death, Policarpio authored a book titled: "Ninoy Aquino: The Willing Martyr" and manuscripts for another book.

The Air India executive has retired in New Delhi but wants to remain anonymous.

Mercado remains in active journalism. He says "this is the first time his five grown-up children and will be hearing about his role in the "smuggling" of the Aquino papers." Go adds.

Robert Mugabe's Zimbabawe today resembles the Philippines of Marcos. In both, you can be punished for "committing "the crime of journalism." That is what the Aquino papers tells us in today's World Press Freedom Day rites.

(E-mail: juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com)