Medal of Valor awardees Steve Psinakis (seated, leftmost) and Doris Nuval (2nd from right)Our Lopez Group kapamilya were among the freedom fighters honored by the Ninoy Aquino Movement (NAM) during the commemoration of the former senator's 29th death anniversary on August 21, 2012.

Steve Psinakis and Doris Nuval, along with three others, were conferred the NAM Medal of Valor for their leadership roles in the anti-Marcos movement more than 20 years ago.

Psinakis is a retired project mechanical engineer and Lopez Group executive who built the Rockwell power plant. He later married Presentacion Lopez, the only daughter of his boss in Meralco, Eugenio H. Lopez Sr. The former head of the San Francisco council of the NAM, the Greek-American was cited for "his commitment in the struggle to restore democracy in his adopted country."

In the foreword of his 2008 biography, "A Country Not Even His Own," Pres. Cory Aquino wrote of her husband Ninoy’s close friend: "Steve's steadfast commitment all those years to the struggle to restore democracy in the Philippines was admirable and inspirational. For him, the Filipino cause took precedence over everything else and never did he waver in making whatever sacrifices were necessary."

Nuval was a full-time activist and labor organizer during the martial law years.

"I had pissed off the dictator and spoiled what would have been his international coming-out party at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila," she recalled in a 2007 essay. "A bomb had exploded while Ferdinand Marcos was delivering the opening address at the 50th anniversary of the American Society of Travel Agents' annual convention. They blamed the bombing on me."

Nuval, then 28 and mom to a toddler, had just returned to the country from New York, where she was based as a member of the Philippine diplomatic corps. She was to spend the next four and a half years in Camp Crame, alongside "military renegades and hardened criminals from Muntinlupa."

"Throughout the next few years, I went through mock trials conducted by the military and subsequently by civilian courts when martial law was 'lifted.' In between those years, there were 'stints' at the Quezon City jail and solitary confinement for misbehavior," she wrote.

Now, Nuval is "still active in the social movement," this time as executive vice president of Knowledge Channel Foundation Inc.