Shaded by giant trees, the concrete two-story Aquino Museum and Center is in a two-hectare log inside the Hacienda Luisita
in Tarlac.
A wide expanse of stairs leads to the museum proper to the right and the Institute for People Power on the left where the library will be housed.
It is the museum that draws people these days young and old to discover, reminisce, and reflect on the heroism and sacrifice of one man.
The lobby is a high-ceilinged hall where four huge photographs are displayed. They show Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. as he appeared before the military court that tried him and where he declared that he was not going to defend himself before a kangaroo court; a panel has a collage of the assassination with the outstretched hero lying face down on the Tarmac after he was shot, kissing his native soil in death; a grieving widow, Cory in black sprinkling holy water on her husband’s body; and the tumultuous outpouring of love and grief in the historic funeral march that took 11 hours to reach the memorial park.
The museum proper relives Ninoy’s lonely incarceration when the dictator tried to break his will. It has replica of Ninoy’s room in Bonifacio where he was in sokitary confinement for seven and a half years on trumped-up charges. There are letter of Ninoy to his children, pieces of old calendars which he marked to keep track of the days, then within an enclave of video walls showing how a million turned out for his funeral, the suit he was wearing when he came home, the dried blood stains on the once-white linen fabric.
There are also memorabilia of the years when the opposition was just beginning to test its voices with Ninoy, their leader, still in jail Street parliamentarians can scan the posters, news clippings and photographs to see if they were caught by the camera for posterity after their hero was shot. By then, people had found their courage to spread up and go out to show their quest for freedom.
The People Power revolution or EDSA 1 occupies a prominent section of the museum, and then it is followed by the
presidency of the first woman president of the Philippines from February 25, 1986 to June 1992.
Presidential visits are featured, as well as
historical documents, gifts, and token from head of states. Never before has the public been able to view a presidency up close as in the Aquino museum. It is visual learning experience.
The exhibits end with the section of Private Citizen Cory Aquino.