I have searched for words to describe my reaction upon learning of Cory Aquino’s death. Days before, knowing she was terribly sick, I did not feel anything. Not grief nor sadness but a sense of inevitability. Nothing is finite and all beginnings must have an end. Since I do not have a god to which to pray, I had no recourse to the usual avenues of comfort.
On Saturday morning a friend alerted me to the news before I could plug in. The whole weekend I searched for a way to articulate my feelings and the thoughts in my head. I watched a few of her speeches on YouTube and sat teary-eyed every so often. I remembered what I had said earlier when the false news of her death had leaked, I’d said “Her death will mark a sunset to many things.”
Cory was our neighbor, my playmates said. She lived a few dozen meters down from my home in Kalookan. My playmates and I would come to her house and steal glimpses of her from outside her gates as she moved about her home preparing meals or scolding her children. We all wondered why she did not wear her trademark yellow. We reasoned, it must only be for her public appearances.
Much later I would realize that this woman was not in fact the new president of the country, as older folks would tell me. “No, that is not the President!” they would insist, but rather a look alike. My little heart was crushed as the reality dawned. And here I thought we had something special in our sleepy little neighborhood.
She has been described as many things – the mother of democracy, the homemaker, the politician’s wife, the reluctant president. As a child, she was an enigma, a leader so charismatic everyone spoke of her only in reverence. I would later come to know her politics in adulthood. I would know that she did not in fact deliver us from evil, that her constitution was a compromise, that the restoration of democracy would also restore the old power alignments peopled by old and new faces. Power alignments that had and indeed continue to threaten our fragile democracy. It is the same kind of realization one has when one realizes one’s parents are not infallible, that they in fact are human beings replete not only with strengths but also with weaknesses.
In adulthood we take responsibility for the successes and failures of the past. As our young nation gropes its way through the dark, we too make mistakes. We must all grow up one of these days.
Corazon Aquino’s death marks the sunset of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, where the people’s yearning for order gave way to the rot of centralized power and of centralized greed. That was the struggle of our parents and grandparents.
On Wednesday Corazon Aquino will be laid to rest. I can only hope that as any good daughter, we take with us the memories of her infallibility as child and what made her fallible as a grown-up. Our country’s democratizing project is far from over. It has only begun. Laban.
SOURCE: Philippine Commentary
5 comments:
"I would later come to know her politics in adulthood. I would know that she did not in fact deliver us from evil, that her constitution was a compromise, that the restoration of democracy would also restore the old power... Power alignments that had and indeed continue to threaten our fragile democracy. It is the same kind of realization one has when one realizes one’s parents are not infallible... replete not only with strengths but also with weaknesses."
Well said, sparks. Cory showed us that a fail-safe way towards the path of full/genuine democracy is sincerity, from which springs forth the honesty to recognize the wrongs and ills in society--including one's own acts of fallibility--and the courage to act on them.
The Cory neighbor you write about, the one who goes about preparing meals and scolding her children, we have her as a neighbor, too. In fact, we have one just like her right in our own home.
I do not think that Cory Aquino pretended to be someone or anything else. Even as president of the Philippines, she remained to be Cory. This is probably why people loved her so much.
Someone wrote :
cory passed on at 3 am today... =( i'm actually in tears... i liked her best for the purity of her heart though i always felt anguished by the massacre of the labor day protesters in her time, the persistent corruption in the army under her command, and her being a mum member of a family of greedy heartless landlords (issues that typified not her leadership, testified not to her vision of it, but the fragility of her office within a network of influence vaster than marcos's as a singular figure). i'm in tears for forever i shall remember her for being one of the most decent, if naive, women and officials we've produced for governance thus far.
Kailangan pa rin ng bansang Pilipinas ang Truth Commission. Hindi lang si Benigno Aquino ang na-murder at na-torture, napakarami pa! Puwede silang bigyan ng pardon, pero una muna ay malaman ng mga Pilipino kung ano ang hindi nila dapat gawin sa kapuwa Pilipino. Kailangang malaman ng mga taong sumakit sa kapuwa-Pilipino kung anong batas ang kanilang winaklas.
At kung may manga bangkay na hindi pa naibabalik sa kanilang mga kamag-anak, kailangan naman isara na ang libro.
I'll have to agree with you, Anon yymous, that massacres/killings happened during Cory's time.
The Mendiola Massacre, I remember reading in our library, seemed unbelievable for her time such that I thought it was an old issue from Marcos' time. Thing is we know Cory never approved of, nor ordered them--just the rightists in the AFP. Also, the NDF has recently expressed their gratitude to her for the peace talks, etc.
As for the Cojuangco mga greedy hacenderos, I'll agree but let us not single them out--elites have ruled us since when so it should be some national policy that should address such (as if naman feasible).
Human rights? In this country, the lower your status, it seems the lesser rights you have. Who knows, however, if such a Truth Commission will materialize? Napakarami talagang iba pang na.torture at napatay, based on HR group reports, but deny lang the government ....
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