Thread by @ProjectGunitaPH

FALSE INFORMATION. What archival materials say:

1. There are no credible sources at all that indicate that Cory Aquino was “playing mahjong” with Carmelite sisters in Cebu in 1986.
2. Cory’s exact quote: “Tell him it’s okay to go. My only condition is that he leave the country.”

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON FEBRUARY 22, 1986: Cory Aquino was in Cebu to pitch for the civil disobedience campaign that she started on Feb 16 in Manila. At 6:00 PM of that same day, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos defected from the Marcos dictatorship.

Even before Cory flew to Cebu, her aide, Lt. Jose Honrado, already informed her of rumors of a coup against the Marcos regime. But later that evening, through Belinda Olivarez-Cunanan (one of the journalists covering her since the snap polls), she knew of the Enrile-Ramos break.

Contrary to false claims that Cory was “playing mahjong” with Carmelite sisters in Cebu, at 10:00 PM of Feb 22, she was talking with Enrile through a tapped phone after Jaime Cardinal Sin called on people to go to EDSA. It was Enrile who warned Cory that her life was in danger.

An American official, Blaine Porter, assessed Cory’s situation in Cebu. He sent a coded message to U.S. ambassador Stephen Bosworth asking for advice. Cory’s circle of advisers were mulling over safehouses where she could stay for the night. Cory thought: the Carmelite monastery.

When everyone agreed Cory’s place for the night, they waited for her youngest daughter, Kris, to come home. Cory’s brother, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr, tracked her down. After forty minutes, Cory and Kris were brought to the Carmelite Convent.

There, the two would seek shelter.

The nuns DID NOT invite Cory to play mahjong with them. Instead, they first assured Cory that “they’d have to kill us first” before they can even walk to the opposition leader — then Cory with the nuns prayed the rosary and, in Cory’s words, “surrendered everything to the Lord.”

Thirty years after it happened, the Carmelite nuns recalled the event. [Also: Cory’s security apprehension stemmed from a report that Marcos issued a “shoot-to-kill” order on her, which pushed Nancy Cuenco to call the monastery.]

From @ryanmacasero’s report for Rappler in 2016:

Cory was not playing mahjong in Cebu. In the Carmelite sisters’ recollection, they even saw that Cory “feared for her safety.” This was evident in her choice of room — the one with least number of windows, so that no one could see her.

Together with Cory, Kris, and the Carmelite nuns were Assemblyman Antonio Cuenco, his wife Nancy, John Osmeña, Marcos political detainee Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr, and Ramon Mitra Jr (a Ninoy cellmate in Fort Bonifacio in 1972), who arrived around midnight of February 23.

The cloistered walls of the Carmelite Monastery in Brgy. Mabolo, Cebu City, Cebu sheltered Cory for 14 hours. Nancy frantically called up the Carmelite sisters at 8:30 PM of February 22. But it was enough to shield them from any threat.

Cory left on February 23, 1986, 11:30 AM.

This was a photo of Cory alongside the Carmelite nuns who shielded her for 14 hours, courtesy of the Ninoy & Cory Aquino Foundation:

More from the recollections of Mother Mary Aimee Ataivado, who was the Mother Superior in 1986:

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 25, 1986: When it became clear that the Marcos dictatorship was falling, Marcos’ Prime Minister, Cesar Virata, called up Cory to negotiate a “safe exit” for the dictator and his family from Malacañang.

Cory’s ACTUAL answer was here:

A few hours later, Cory received a phone call from U.S. Ambassador Bosworth, who relayed Marcos’ request to be allowed to stay for two more days in Paoay, Ilocos Norte. Cory initially thought: “Poor man, let us give him two days.”

Her advisers disagreed. Cory told Bosworth: No.

To know what really happened on the four fateful days of the People Power uprising, it is a primordial task to revisit the archives. These are what historical material have told us about those days.
#FromTheArchives
#DefendHistoricalTruth

ARCHIVAL SOURCES:
1. “Chronology of a Revolution,” Angela Stuart Santiago. Link: edsarevolution.com/chronology/
2. “‘Are we safe here?’ The night Cory Aquino hid in Cebu,” @ryanmacasero. Rappler. February 22, 2016. Link: rappler.com/nation/123165-…

3. “The day the Carmelite nuns hid Cory,” Ador Vincent S. Mayor. Cebu Daily News. February 21, 2016. Link: cebudailynews.inquirer.net/86832/86832
4. “Nasaan si Cory noong EDSA People Power?” TV Patrol, 2016. Link:
5. “EDSA 25: Sulyap sa Kasaysayan,” ABS-CBN. 2011.

6. “Quartet of the Tiger Moon,” Nick Joaquin. 1986.
7. Asiaweek, March 9, 1986.
8. Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 28, 1986.
9. Veritas Special, October 1986.
10. “People Power: An Eyewitness History,” 1986.
#DefendHistoricalTruth