THE possible return of the man suspected of masterminding the assassination of Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino on August 21, 1983, is set to split the country along pre-revolution battle lines.
News that former president Ferdinand Marcos' armed forces chief of staff, General Fabian Ver, has told former colleague Senator Blas Ople that he wants to return to tell his side of the assassination story has already split the Aquino family.
Former president Cory Aquino, who was carried to the presidency in 1986 on the crest of 'People Power', said General Ver should give his version of the story while he was still in exile and not in a position to pose a threat to national security from a domestic base.
'Let him say first what he has to say before allowing him to come home and make Filipinos suckers again,' she said, echoing a widely held view that the general might offer to exchange vital information on the assassination in exchange for immunity or other concessions.
The late opposition leader's brother, former senator Agapito 'Butz' Aquino, has called on Fidel Ramos' Government to allow General Ver to return to the Philippines in order to 'pinpoint the mastermind behind the murder', but warned that it could also serve to confuse the issue.
However, political observers believed that Mr Ramos, a second cousin of the late Marcos, would be loath to accommodate General Ver, with whom he was in constant friction. General Ver, a one time police major, was rushed through the ranks because Marcos was his half-brother.
General Ver, who has been in hiding in Europe and the United States since he fled into exile with the Marcos family during the revolution in 1986, was tried in absentia over the alleged cover-up of the Aquino assassination.