Listen to both Duterte critics and supporters, says Aquino grandson

In a thanksgiving Mass at EDSA Shrine, Kiko Aquino Dee said Duterte’s arrest on Tuesday, March 11, brought about “real catharsis” among victims of Duterte’s alleged injustice. 

At the same time, Dee acknowledged the different kind of catharsis felt by the former president’s supporters when Duterte rose to power in 2016. For a number of Duterte supporters, including those who lost their loved ones due to crime, his six-year term gave them a sense of justice that they had not felt under previous presidents. 

“I think we also need to find an answer for everyone. For those who we weren’t able to find an answer for, in the years prior to Duterte, those who were not able to seek justice and therefore chose to seek justice in the most brutal way,” Dee said in a speech toward the end of Wednesday’s Mass. 

“I hope that those of us who believe in democracy don’t stop with bringing Duterte to justice. But let’s find ways to bring justice to all Filipinos so that we never go back to this kind of harshness, to this kind of violence, to this kind of death,” he said.

Dee is the executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, an organization that seeks to preserve the legacy of the Aquino couple. The late Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was the opposition senator slain under dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, while his wife Cory was the country’s first woman president, who replaced the strongman in 1986.

THANKSGIVING. Catholic priests, religious sisters, and laypersons gather for a Mass at EDSA Shrine on March 12, 2025, following the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Photo by Rappler

The site of the thanksgiving Mass on Wednesday is symbolic because EDSA Shrine is a chapel built to remember the 1986 People Power Revolt, which ousted Marcos and brought Cory Aquino to power. 

The shrine is meant to make Filipinos remember history, as lies on social media challenge the EDSA legacy.

“That seems to be our disease. We forget, we’re easy to forget,” said Teresita Deles, peace adviser during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III, during the EDSA Shrine Mass on Wednesday.

Deles said she was hopeful during the 1986 uprising, when she was a mother to a two-year-old child whom she felt was fortunate to have experienced the “season of darkness” for only two years. She noted how darkness has returned — now that she has a 10-year-old grandchild. “That’s why the grandmother is still here.”

“Many people suffered under Duterte. The battle is no over until each Filipino, each child, gets a future that can be molded in his or her most preferred way,” Deles said. – Rappler.com