It wasn't ambition which powered her to command the people and lead them like a shepherd would do to his flock. It was the command of the people that empowered her, thrusting them towards the ambit of their ambition, or dream, and to continue to draw upon that monumental legacy an infinite source of hope. She was a wife first and a leader second. But at the height of massive oppression, she was more than willing to exchange the first for the second without having to abandon one over the other. Some say she was at the right place at the right time. Still, others say she was unprepared when the moment was ripe enough to seize. Others simply say she was the right one. Whichever way they put it, only the insane could see her not as a flicker of light in absolute darkness but as a nimbus that is out to wreak havoc on barren soil. She is gone. Like memories, there is the danger that she will be reduced to nothingness, or a footnote in history, when those who remember her today might forget her in the coming years, swayed perhaps by an already depressing state of affairs in this country. But like memories, her image will remain as vibrant as the day when she took the path where few genuine men dare to brave, so long as forgetfulness is not bound to swallow those who mourn over the loss of yet another rare gem.
I was born in the same year when Cory Aquino took the oath of office. To say the least, I am a post-EDSA baby. I have no living recollection of what transpired on that fateful day. Neither do I have a vivid memory of what took place four or five years down the road, or thereafter. I have only learned about her in books and in the television, which came at a time when I was already around ten years of age or so. In more recent times, I've only witnessed through the web the more significant points of the days after the peaceful revolution in what was once known as Highway 54. Add to that the strings of articles which I've read from the newspapers and the tomes which I was required to read during my high school and undergraduate years. At the most, I was one of the thoroughly detached generation of people from those turbulent times. But certainly, that is not enough, as it ought not to, to deprive my sensibilities of a history worth looking back and learning from.
After her term as president, I recall that Cory never withdrew from the calling of serving the interests of the people. If at all she defaulted at times, one can say that she did so not because she was a deity who was slowly withering but because she was human first and last. True, in politics there are no permanent allies and friends. But it is truer still that in politics, or in honest to goodness politics you have to sustain your principles even if it meant swallowing the bitter pill. Some say they can hardly forgive her for asking for forgiveness before a plunderer whom she stood against and ousted together with the people. Others say that they have forgiven her, but that they will never forget what she did. For them, to forget may be to forgive, but to forgive is never to forget. It was as if she had committed a mortal sin that no amount of chastisement or clemency can ever begin to pardon. It was as if she had brazenly abused the trust bestowed upon her as a former president. It was as if she had consummated a grave misconduct that will go down in the annals of history as a sorry or a sorrier point worthy of disgrace and discomfort.
I do not entirely agree. While it stands to good reason that you do not make friends with your enemies, it stands equally if not better to say that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for a far more noble purpose. Hers was a humbling experience that no proud man would have ever crossed. She did, not because she was after her own benefit. She did because she was after the benefit of a nation so confused between what is sensible and what is crazy. To be crazy at that time was to be immobile, daring not to burn old conflicts in place of a better allegiance not between human beings themselves but between human beings and the urgent call of the time. To be sensible at that time was to be active, constantly harboring all the forces needed in order to dethrone an illegitimate ruler who thinks of herself as anointed by no less than god. Prudence took the better part of her judgment while the rest simply wallowed at the thought of amending a previous move. Truly, the difference between fools and sages becomes all the more glaring when both are pitted against the harshest of days. Looking back, I know now I was a fool.
But that certainly should not stop us from heeding the lessons Tita Cory taught us. If there is anything that we should remember from her, it is this: shrink not when day falls into night, or tremble not at the sight of epic injustice. Rather, stand your ground and rise up to the occasion. For having lost a husband and a nation having lost a beacon, she rose from the thickness of the ashes instead of mourning for the rest of her life in the confines of a safe place away from the scrutiny of the public. For having been cheated at a time when people were given the opportunity to exercise their right to suffrage, she did not fall back and emptied herself in misery. Instead, she made certain that the voice of the people shall be heard thundering across the archipelago. For having been thwarted by her political enemies at a time when the nation badly needed someone to look up to, she did not resist the compelling clamor of the masses. Instead, she allowed herself to drift in that same direction.
Unfortunately, we have lost her to the inescapable hands of death. No longer shall we see the refined lady in that unmistakable yellow dress challenging the bastards to our Constitution. No longer shall we bear witness to a mother who nursed this country like her own child. But the entire point of her life, it seems, is not to drag our coffins to our own graves. The entire point of her life, it seems, is not to shovel the ground and make ourselves our own resting place when the bitterness of things casts a gloomy—nay, ghastly—shadow over us. Rather, the point of it all is to confront the challenges head-on while subordinating yourself to nothing but the people's will, like an epiphany that clings to you no matter how hard you try to steer it away. She's gone to a better place and we can only learn a thing or two from her not only as a leader but also as a human being who did things not out of frailty or frivolity but out of a far more circumspect insight of things. We can only hope that within each of us remains a living Cory.
Heaven might truly be working in its own mysterious ways. The good ones it takes. The bad ones it allows to roam freely in this world. The good ones it delivers to heaven. The bad ones it delivers to, well, the Congress and the Palace. The good ones it keeps for itself. The bad ones it leaves to rot in this earthly place. The good ones it plucks out of their misery. The bad ones it nails down deeper in their positions. It might be asking too much, but the pious should by now have begun to question what is set to be the divine order of things. Where is a miracle when you badly need one?
Cory once was. And she will be missed.
PBA09s6n52pp
I was born in the same year when Cory Aquino took the oath of office. To say the least, I am a post-EDSA baby. I have no living recollection of what transpired on that fateful day. Neither do I have a vivid memory of what took place four or five years down the road, or thereafter. I have only learned about her in books and in the television, which came at a time when I was already around ten years of age or so. In more recent times, I've only witnessed through the web the more significant points of the days after the peaceful revolution in what was once known as Highway 54. Add to that the strings of articles which I've read from the newspapers and the tomes which I was required to read during my high school and undergraduate years. At the most, I was one of the thoroughly detached generation of people from those turbulent times. But certainly, that is not enough, as it ought not to, to deprive my sensibilities of a history worth looking back and learning from.
After her term as president, I recall that Cory never withdrew from the calling of serving the interests of the people. If at all she defaulted at times, one can say that she did so not because she was a deity who was slowly withering but because she was human first and last. True, in politics there are no permanent allies and friends. But it is truer still that in politics, or in honest to goodness politics you have to sustain your principles even if it meant swallowing the bitter pill. Some say they can hardly forgive her for asking for forgiveness before a plunderer whom she stood against and ousted together with the people. Others say that they have forgiven her, but that they will never forget what she did. For them, to forget may be to forgive, but to forgive is never to forget. It was as if she had committed a mortal sin that no amount of chastisement or clemency can ever begin to pardon. It was as if she had brazenly abused the trust bestowed upon her as a former president. It was as if she had consummated a grave misconduct that will go down in the annals of history as a sorry or a sorrier point worthy of disgrace and discomfort.
I do not entirely agree. While it stands to good reason that you do not make friends with your enemies, it stands equally if not better to say that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for a far more noble purpose. Hers was a humbling experience that no proud man would have ever crossed. She did, not because she was after her own benefit. She did because she was after the benefit of a nation so confused between what is sensible and what is crazy. To be crazy at that time was to be immobile, daring not to burn old conflicts in place of a better allegiance not between human beings themselves but between human beings and the urgent call of the time. To be sensible at that time was to be active, constantly harboring all the forces needed in order to dethrone an illegitimate ruler who thinks of herself as anointed by no less than god. Prudence took the better part of her judgment while the rest simply wallowed at the thought of amending a previous move. Truly, the difference between fools and sages becomes all the more glaring when both are pitted against the harshest of days. Looking back, I know now I was a fool.
But that certainly should not stop us from heeding the lessons Tita Cory taught us. If there is anything that we should remember from her, it is this: shrink not when day falls into night, or tremble not at the sight of epic injustice. Rather, stand your ground and rise up to the occasion. For having lost a husband and a nation having lost a beacon, she rose from the thickness of the ashes instead of mourning for the rest of her life in the confines of a safe place away from the scrutiny of the public. For having been cheated at a time when people were given the opportunity to exercise their right to suffrage, she did not fall back and emptied herself in misery. Instead, she made certain that the voice of the people shall be heard thundering across the archipelago. For having been thwarted by her political enemies at a time when the nation badly needed someone to look up to, she did not resist the compelling clamor of the masses. Instead, she allowed herself to drift in that same direction.
Unfortunately, we have lost her to the inescapable hands of death. No longer shall we see the refined lady in that unmistakable yellow dress challenging the bastards to our Constitution. No longer shall we bear witness to a mother who nursed this country like her own child. But the entire point of her life, it seems, is not to drag our coffins to our own graves. The entire point of her life, it seems, is not to shovel the ground and make ourselves our own resting place when the bitterness of things casts a gloomy—nay, ghastly—shadow over us. Rather, the point of it all is to confront the challenges head-on while subordinating yourself to nothing but the people's will, like an epiphany that clings to you no matter how hard you try to steer it away. She's gone to a better place and we can only learn a thing or two from her not only as a leader but also as a human being who did things not out of frailty or frivolity but out of a far more circumspect insight of things. We can only hope that within each of us remains a living Cory.
Heaven might truly be working in its own mysterious ways. The good ones it takes. The bad ones it allows to roam freely in this world. The good ones it delivers to heaven. The bad ones it delivers to, well, the Congress and the Palace. The good ones it keeps for itself. The bad ones it leaves to rot in this earthly place. The good ones it plucks out of their misery. The bad ones it nails down deeper in their positions. It might be asking too much, but the pious should by now have begun to question what is set to be the divine order of things. Where is a miracle when you badly need one?
Cory once was. And she will be missed.
PBA09s6n52pp
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