Aida D. Fariscal (born c. 1940?) is a former police officer and watch commander in the
Manila Police Department in the
Philippines. She is now a retired grandmother living on pension in a one bedroom apartment. Her name is largely unknown outside of the Philippines.
Fariscal spent seventeen years as a homemaker before enrolling in the police department in 1977. The widow of a slain police officer, she rose through the ranks of the Manila Police Department, and in 1983 won an award for arresting three murder suspects on
Mindoro Island
Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ) and has a population of 1,408,454 as of 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of Luz ...
.
Antiterrorism
On the night of January 6, 1995, she was suspicious about a small fire that went out unassisted at the Doña Josefa Apartments; her suspicions were augmented by a wave of bombings that hit
Metro Manila, and
Philippine Airlines Flight 434. This led her to uncover a terrorist plot made by alleged
Al Qaida agents named
Operation Bojinka.
She came to the apartment with a partner, looked around, and left after a telephone rang. She had to ask 11 judges to find one that would grant her a search warrant. She, along with a group of investigators and police then uncovered evidence, before arresting a suspect who called himself Ahmed Saeed.
She refused to let go of the suspect, who turned out to be
Abdul Hakim Murad, after he offered her 110,740
Philippine pesos ($2,000
U.S. dollars
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
).
Her decision to investigate the fire possibly saved thousands of lives, including possibly that of
Pope John Paul II. She received a monetary award of the equivalent of 33,222 pesos ($700) and a trip to
Taiwan from the government. She also won a laminated award from the
CIA for her action. The certificate reads, "Awarded to Senior Inspector Aida D. Fariscal, in recognition of your personal outstanding efforts and co-operation." After she foiled the plot, the Philippine police assigned her two bodyguards for five years. The bodyguard service ended shortly before September 11, 2001.
In popular culture
She is depicted in the 2006
docudrama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typic ...
The Path to 9/11
''The Path to 9/11'' is a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television on September 10–11, 2006 and in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events lead ...
, although by a much younger actress. An actress portrays her in the ''
Mayday
Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications.
It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiza ...
'' (''Air Emergency'', ''Air Crash Investigation'') episode "Bomb on Board."
["Bomb on Board." ''Mayday''.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fariscal, Aida
Filipino police officers
1940s births
Living people
People from Manila