The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Security concern for Pope Francis, who opens his four-day visit on January 15, runs deep. Authorities have not forgotten November 27, 1970, the day an attempt on a pope’s life, believed to be the first in modern history, took place in Manila.
Pope Paul VI was being welcomed at the Manila International Airport (since renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport) by top Philippines leaders shortly after his arrival when a mentally disturbed Bolivian painter posing as a priest attacked him with a knife.
As the man disguised in a black priest’s habit, later identified as Benjamin Mendoza, lunged at him, yelling, “Death to superstition,” according to a United Press International (UPI) report of the incident, he was quickly subdued by other people in the papal party. The Pope’s personal secretary, Pasquale Macchi, apparently was the first to push Mendoza to the ground.
According to later press accounts, the Bolivian assailant later signed a statement claiming it was President Marcos who had foiled his attempt. This was one of the lies elaborately constructed to raise the profile of the Philippines leader who would impose one-man rule less than two years later.
Pope Paul VI, the first Vicar to visit Manila, never talked about the attack, and the Vatican consistently denied he had been wounded in the assassination attempt. Only in 1978 after his death did the Vatican acknowledge that he suffered a chest wound.
Macchi provided an account of the Pope’s moving reaction moments after he was nearly killed.
“If you ask me what the Pope’s most beautiful smile was, it came during the attempt on his life in Manila,” he told UPI. “After I pushed back the attacker, who wounded Paul in the chest, fortunately not lethally, I turned to face the Pope. I will never forget his sweet smile, he continued. “And when he met my eyes it was as if he was somehow chastising me for the violence with which I pulled the assailant away to the police. It was as if he was enjoying a moment of inspired joy.”
The relic offered during Pope Paul VI’s recent beatification was an undershirt he was wearing in Manila during that November day in 1970.
Mendoza was held for a time at the National Bilibid Prison before being released and then deported to Bolivia.
Al-Qaeda planned to kill Pope John Paul II
Al-Qaeda planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II on two occasions during visits made or planned by the Pontiff to the Philippines in 1995 and 1999.
Masterminding the attempts was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also accused of plotting the September 11 attacks on the US, who was in the Philippines during the first papal visits, the newspaper The Times of London reported in 2002.
The highly publicized 1995 plot had been attributed to local terrorists, but the 1999 attempt had been kept secret, The Times reported. The first involved planting a bomb at the Rizal Park where the Pope was due to speak but the bomb exploded prematurely in a Manila apartment.
The terrorist responsible was Ramzi Yousef, who is serving a life sentence in the US for his role in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, a car bomb that exploded in an underground parking garage in 1993.
A police search of the Manila apartment yielded additional bomb-making equipment and a laser-guided sniper rifle, the newspaper reported.
Cancellation of the Pope’s planned 1999 visit thwarted the second attempt, the newspaper reported.
Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told The Times: “One thing you should remember about al-Qaeda – when they didn’t destroy the World Trade Centre first time around, they came back to finish it off. That is how it was with the Pope in the Philippines.”
TMM