Evelio Javier was a Filipino lawyer, civil servant,
politician, and an opposition leader during the regime of President
Ferdinand Marcos. Javier ran for governor of Antique and
won in 1971 by one of the largest margins in history, making him, at
the age of 28, the Philippines' youngest governor.
Javier was assassinated in the closing days of Ferdinand Marcos's presidency. A staunch supporter of then-presidential candidate Corazon Aquino, he was shot on February 11, 1986 four days after the Snap Elections of 1986 were held but while the counting was continuing. The assassination of Evelio Javier helped lead to Marcos's fall from power during the People Power Revolution.
On the day of the funeral and burial to
his final resting place at his hometown of San Jose de Buenavista,
Antique, thousands of mourning people in Antique followed his funeral
procession to the cemetery wearing yellow shirts and tying yellow
bands to their wrists. They played his favorite song, "The
Impossible Dream," during the procession to the cemetery.
In September 1986, Isagani Cruz wrote
about Javier at the end of his decision in Javier vs. COMELEC:
Let us first say these meager words in tribute to a fallen hero who was struck down in the vigor of his youth because he dared to speak against tyranny. Where many kept a meekly silence for fear of retaliation and still others feigned and fawned in hopes of safety and even reward, he chose to fight. He was not afraid. Money did not tempt him. Threats did not daunt him. Power did not awe him. His was a singular and all-exacting obsession: the return of freedom to his country. And though he fought not in the barricades of war amid the sound and smoke of shot and shell, he was a soldier nonetheless, fighting valiantly for the liberties of his people against the enemies of his race, unfortunately, of his race too, who would impose upon the land a perpetual night of dark enslavement. He did not see the breaking of dawn, sad to say, but in the very real sense Evelio B. Javier made that dawn draw nearer because he was, like Saul and Jonathan, “swifter than eagles and stronger than lions."
From Wikipedia
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and
calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with
scars
Still strove with his last ounce of
courage
To reach the unreachable star