ANTIQUE – Feb. 11 marks the 37th death anniversary of slain former Antique governor Evelio Bellaflor Javier, commemorated not just by Antiqueños but also by the people of the provinces of Aklan, Capiz and Iloilo in Panay Island.
Gov. Evelio B. Javier Day is a special non-working public holiday in Panay by virtue of Republic Act 7601 signed by then President Corazon Aquino in 1992.
The Antique provincial government, headed by Gov. Rhodora J. Cadiao through the Provincial Tourism Office, will hold a commemorative program at the Evelio B. Javier Freedom Park in San Jose de Buenavista, the capital town of Antique.
Javier was assassinated in the said days after the 1986 snap presidential election, while vote canvassing was still ongoing; a statue of the governor now stands there.
There will be a wreath-laying ceremony and a 21-gun salute.
“Every year may ginagawa kaming simple program or activities to commemorate his death anniversary, kasi siempre hero ng Antiqueños sia,” said Cadiao.
WHO IS EVELIO JAVIER?
Javier was the eldest of four children of Everardo Javier, a prosecutor, and Feliza Bellaflor, a teacher.
He was born on Oct. 14, 1942 in Barangay Lanag (now Barangay Evelio B. Javier) in Hamtic, Antique.
He spent his college years at the Ateneo de Manila University (Bachelor of Arts in History and Government, 1963), then finished his law degree at the same school in 1968. He passed the Bar examination the same year.
Javier started his political career in 1971; he made history by becoming governor of Antique through a landslide vote. He was the country’s youngest governor at 28 years old, and would stay in office until 1980.
In 1984, he ran for assemblyman of Antique, though he was declared to have lost to former assemblyman Arturo Pacificador amid allegations of election fraud.
When then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. announced a snap election in 1986, Javier supported Corazon, the widow of slain senator Benigno Aquino Jr.
Prior to this, in 1980, when he turned over the Antique governorship to Enrique Zaldivar, he rationalized his actions by saying that public office was not something one held on to.
He voluntarily left the post, despite his popularity under Marcos’ Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party, to pursue a master’s degree under a scholarship at Harvard University.
In 1984, he came home and ran against Arturo Pacificador, a known Marcos ally, for the position of Antique assemblyman.
Javier lost in that election but was posthumously declared the winner in 1987.
Antiqueños remember Javier’s admirable concept of public office: “Bukut burugasan, bukut paranubliun” (Not a source of livelihood, not an inheritance).
A HEROIC DEATH
Javier’s assassination was one of the events that helped spark the EDSA People Power Revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
He campaigned for then-presidential candidate Corazon Aquino in the February 1986 snap election, which was widely deemed fraudulent.
Some three to four masked gunmen attacked Javier on Feb. 11, 1986, around 10 a.m. That time, he was talking to Aquino supporters in front of the provincial capitol in San Jose.
According to witnesses, Javier fled across the park, fell into a pond, but then continued to run to the comfort room of a shop, where he was cornered and finished off with more sprays of bullets. He was 43 years old.
Nine days later, on Feb. 20, 1986, Javier’s funeral attracted thousands of grieving Antiqueños wearing yellow shirts, Aquino’s snap election campaign color. They also played his favorite song, “The Impossible Dream.”
His killers are presently detained at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City in Metro Manila.
The mastermind, however, has never been identified./PN
