Word: agrava
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1984-1984
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...national ordeal that began 14 months ago reached a turning point last week, when Corazon Agrava, 69, chairman of the investigating panel, entered the Spanish-style Malacañang Palace for an audience with Marcos. She was immediately ushered into the presidential study. After a 15-minute discussion behind closed doors, Agrava and the President emerged together and walked to the palace's Ceremonial Hall. There, they sat in high, stiff-backed chairs before the blinding glare of television lights, until Agrava handed the President her own 121-page minority report on the killing. Said she: "Your Excellency...
Later that afternoon, Agrava traveled to Magsaysay Hall in Quezon City, where her panel had held most of its 120 open sessions, to announce her conclusions. Yet the crowd of some 500 that had gathered in the hall seemed disappointed at her report. Greeted by a sprinkling of applause and a blast of boos, the retired appeals-court judge reacted defensively. Said she, struggling to fight back tears: "Because I can face myself and in all conscience say that whatever I have placed in my report is what I believe in, I could hardly care whether you people...
...report that implicated the military in Aquino's death so graciously received by Marcos and so tepidly greeted by the public? Chiefly because Agrava failed to include one important name among the alleged conspirators: Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver, 64, Marcos' cousin, close confidant and most powerful protector...
...however, named in a competing report issued by the four other members of the Agrava panel. The day after the chairman presented her document to the public, her male colleagues-Amado Dizon, Luciano Salazar, Ernesto Herrera and Dante Santos-visited Marcos to give him a copy of their version. They were coldly received. For an hour they were kept waiting in the dining room of the presidential palace. Then a grim and unsmiling Marcos saw the four "Agravatars," as members of the panel are known, just long enough to bid them a chilly thank-you. He remained seated behind...
Shortly after that audience, the four panel members arrived at Magsaysay Hall to announce their findings to the public. They were met with wild cheering and applause. The mood in the room soured as Chairman Agrava formally closed the board's hearings. But when Deputy Counsel Bienvenido Tan began reciting the list of suspected conspirators that the majority of the board was recommending for indictment, there was pandemonium in the wood-paneled hall. Friends and strangers alike hugged one another, tossed flowers into the air and struck up a chorus of the once outlawed nationalist anthem Ang Bayan...