Harvard, Widow Mourn Murdered Filipino Leader

The widow of slain Filipino senator Benigno S. Aquino came to Cambridge yesterday to attend a memorial service for her husband organized by former colleagues from Harvard and MIT, where Aquino held fellowships.

The service, held at 4:30 p.m. in St. Paul's Church, drew a crowd of about 200 professors, students and members of the Filipino community.

Five members of Harvard's Center for International Affairs (CFIA) and MIT's Center for International Studies gave readings to commemorate the Philippines' most visible spokesman for democracy, who left last June after three years in Cambridge.

On August 21, the returning leader was gunned down by an unknown assassin as he stepped off an airplane in Manila. Aquino faced a life-imprisonment sentence under the Marcos regime. Marcos suspended the sentence three years ago to allow Aquino to come to the United States for an operation.

"He was one of those rare people whose commitment to higher values will live long after him," said acting CFIA director Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Nye recalled that Aquino was absolutely certain that he should go back to the Philippines, despite the threats he received warning him to postpone his return. Nye recalled Aquino saying. "I have to go if democracy is to return there."

"I am very grateful. It brought back some sad memories, but also many happy ones," said Corazon C. Aquino, who flew in from the Philippines to attend the service.

Benjamin Brown, former director of the CFIA's fellows program, recalled Aquino's personal qualities. "He had an electric enthusiasm," he said, adding. "As a public figure, he seemed to reveal himself so fully, define himself so clearly." Eugene Skoinikoff, director of MIT's Center for International Studies, said that he best remembered Aquino's "need for understanding and honesty, and his avoidance of slick pharases. He simply told you what he thought."

Chorazon Aquino will be staying with friends in Belmont until November 24. She will spend the next few weeks organizing the couple's affairs, she said.

Aquino has sold the family's Newton house to the Benign S. Aquino Memorial Foundation.

The foundation plans to convert the house into a center for Philippine Studies, and, in addition, hopes to raise money to endow a Chair in Philippine Studies at either Harvard or MIT, said Steve Angular, the foundation's president.

Upon her return to the Philippines, Aquino said she plans to "support the friends of the opposition [to the Marcos regime] there." But she added, "I have no political plans for myself.