Mia A. Concio, Kind-hearted Niece of Sen. Ninoy Aquino

Ni Oggie Medina

Multi-talented writer Mia A. Concio has been helping me in cheering up less fortunate kids. I remember she was one of those personalities (OPM icon Jose Mari Chan often joined me) who brought joys to the children with cancer in East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City. She spent her birthday with them.

Born Aurora Crismina Aquino Concio, or simply Mia, daughter of ace director Lupita Aquino Kashiwahara (Ninoy’s sister who is one of my favorite directors), remembers what her mom Lupita says about her Uncle Ninoy: “Mia, look at your Uncle Ninoy. He didn’t do anything. Do not cry. Be brave. This Ninoy Aquino is a role model. Try to apply your life in that mold. Ang ating kahirapan ay maliit lamang kung ikukumpara mo riyan.”

Mia was then 12 or 13 years old when they used to visit their Uncle Ninoy in jail. They experienced being bodily searched and photographed.

“Uncle Ninoy made kuwento. He was smiling. I have 50 first cousins. But, he made it a point to go to each one of us. He told me, ‘Kumusta ka na? Nagdadalaga ka na.’ I also remember his trials, he called the military court a kangaroo court. He didn’t eat for 40 days, and we went to mass everyday in Green Hills. You couldn’t break him and he was indeed larger than life for us,” clearly recalls Mia, who obtained her bachelor of arts degree in communication arts at Ateneo de Manila University in 1982 and pursued MBA course at the University of San Francisco in California.

When her Uncle Ninoy went to the US for his bypass operation, he “would go to San Francisco to visit us.” She still recalls that they ate in her uncle Ninoy’s favorite restaurant, the Max Fried Chicken in San Francisco.

When Mia came back to the Philippines a few days after the August 21 shooting, she became active in street rallies. She went to the grassroot to know how to address poverty and economic opportunity for everybody. She was writing and going to the provinces, in the Cordilleras, in Negros, in Laguna, in the Cavite area.

Mia believes that her Uncle Ninoy’s assassination was the seed, which later bloomed into flowers. “Each of us should be like a seed. It doesn’t end at the EDSA revolt, it’s just the beginning. With confidence, courage and faith, we can overcome everything. We can bring ourselves to God. Uncle Ninoy became very spiritual. Though he experienced isolation from the world, he didn’t crumble. Instead, he trusted his life to God.”

Mia A. Concio is a noted screenwriter of Kailan Ka Magiging Akin, Got 2 Believe, All My Life, Everything About Her and a lot more. She is the stepdaughter of actress and ABS-CBN executive Charo Santos-Concio.