Official Verities

Marcos' confidant testifies More than 500 spectators were waiting when the doors of Magsaysay Hall in the Social Security Building in Quezon City opened at 8:15 a.m. last Friday. They had come to hear the Philippines' top military officer testify about why his forces were unable to prevent the assassination of Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino last Aug. 21 at the Manila International Airport. General Fabian Ver, 64, chief of staff of the armed forces and a loyal confidant of President Ferdinand Marcos' was the official ultimately responsible for security at the airport. But if the crowds were waiting for Ver to incriminate himself or his government, they were disappointed. In five hours of questioning before the five-member commission investigating the murder, Ver clung to the official version: that Aquino was gunned down by a lone Communist hitman named Rolando Galman, who was immediately shot dead by security guards.

The public suspense over Ver's appearance was palpable. Among those especially eager to see him on the stand were members of Galman's family, who have reported that the accused assassin's wife was taken from her home in January by soldiers saying they were "under orders from General Ver." She has not been seen since. To avoid facing the Galmans, who came to the hearing with protest placards saying FATHER IS DEAD. IS MOTHER DEAD TOO?, the general arrived at the building an hour early, accompanied by a phalanx of guards.

Ver never once lost his composure. Under persistent questioning from Andres Narvasa, the commission's general counsel, he said that the government in February 1983 first learned from unnamed informants of a purported plot to assassinate Aquino. At that time he launched an intelligence operation dubbed Four Flowers, to "collate" information about the plot. In August, a few days before Aquino's return, Ver said, the chief government informant had unaccountably disappeared, not to resurface until well after Aquino's death. Ver testified that despite his orders to "locate the person behind the plot," by the day Aquino was killed, intelligence services had not been able to do so.

By that time, however, the government was nonetheless convinced that Aquino risked death if he returned to the Philippines. Accordingly, the opposition leader was warned by the government not to return. Two days before Aquino's arrival, Ver said, he ordered his men to launch Operation Homecoming, an elaborate plan to protect Aquino and deliver him to the proper authorities. Under that arrangement, if the politician arrived in Manila without a valid passport and visa, he would be denied entry. If Aquino did have the proper documents (an impossibility since the Philippine government had refused them to him), then he would be placed in protective custody.

At the last minute, however, the plan was changed. Said Ver: "Early in the morning of Aug. 21, we realized that we could no longer discourage him from coming." Thereupon a decision was made to arrest Aquino on the basis of a 1977 death sentence for murder and subversion. To facilitate that move, Ver said, he turned over documents to General Luther Custodio, commander of Aviation Security Command (AVSECOM), that "affirmed" Aquino's death sentence.

Ver then told the commission he was at his office on the grounds of the presidential palace, six miles from the airport, when Custodio informed him that Aquino had been killed by an unknown assailant. Ver said he quickly broke the news to Marcos. "The President was shocked," he reported. "He expressed a feeling of disbelief for this tragic incident." Under questioning, Ver denied he had informed Marcos that the killer was a Communist. Yet Marcos made just that assertion the next day in a television address.

Ver's testimony left some questions unanswered. How could he claim that Aquino faced a death sentence, when the matter was still under appeal? How could military officials not have known which plane Aquino would be on? How could the nation's top military officer be so astonishingly ill informed about the entire affair? The Philippine public, which after five months of testimony before the commission has grown increasingly skeptical of government witnesses, will have another chance to hear this one. Ver is scheduled to return to the stand this week.