My introduction to Cory Aquino was probably similar to how a lot of other people got to meet her: on television, during the funeral mass for her husband, slain senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino. Until then, she was in the sidelines, an extension of her more public and political husband. However (and hopefully my memory serves me well), on this most difficult day of days, she was at the pulpit with her children behind her. Dressed in black, she spoke into the microphone. I can’t remember if she delivered the eulogy or expressed her thanks to the multitudes of people who came out to pay their respects to her late husband, but the impression I got from watching her was this: She is one tough cookie. To stand there, the epitome of grace under duress, and calmly speak to everyone present was definitely something to behold. Three years later, she would be President. And yes, I’ve had the good fortune of meeting her.
The first time I came face to face with her was in Malacañang Palace. I was invited to sing a song with her daughter Kris and actress Janice de Belen (we three were teenagers at the time and worked together on a TV special, “Let’s Be Friends”). When President Cory walked in the room, she wore a traditional Filipino kimona with a long yellow dress underneath, and only a sweep of dark lipstick. No flash or panaché; just elegant simplicity. I met her again at the CCP when she came to watch “The Filipinos of Miss Saigon,” the Pinoy cast’s farewell performance before we all headed to London. We headed up to the Presidential Box after the show. She bid us farewell, giving each of us a yellow “I Shook Hands with Cory” T-shirt.
Almost exactly a year later, I was called once again to Malacañang where she would bestow the Presidential Award of Merit upon me, with my family in attendance. As early as that morning event was, she was all smiles.
This would be the last time I’d see her as President. She would gracefully step down at the end of her term, endorsing former general Fidel V. Ramos as her would-be successor. The next couple of times I’d see her, be it at a personal function or a public affair, she was simply Citizen Cory.
With her passing, she has become something bigger and far more meaningful. She has become our Mother of Democracy, our symbol of hard-fought freedom. In her death she has —as her husband did with his passing — galvanized and united the Filipino people that she loved so much. The rich and the poor all came in droves and fell in line for hours at La Salle Green Hills, stood under the blazing hot sun on Ayala Avenue as her motorcade went by, and lined up again at the Manila Cathedral to pay their respects, for one last glimpse of Tita Cory.
It’s Monday night. As I write this, I’m listening to a backing track of “Bayan Ko” over and over again. I’ve been asked, along with a pool of fantastic Filipino singers, to sing at her final funeral Mass. Here’s hoping that we are all able to steady our nerves in order to properly bid her farewell in song. And if the tears should flow, we won’t hold back.
Goodbye, Tita Cory. You will continue to inspire every Filipino with your example of grace, sincerity, strength and courage.
Ninoy Aquino wrote a poem titled, “I Have Fallen in Love with the Same Woman Three Times.” I have a feeling there’s a fourth time, now that they’re reunited in heaven.
THERE WAS an ineffable sadness in the air yesterday morning. We woke up to news that “Tita” Cory had passed away some hours earlier, and it seemed we were mourning not just for the woman in yellow but for ourselves as well.
The radio played “Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo,” the post-Edsa anthem that JIm Paredes happened to have written, and I was swept away by a flashback of the Edsa years, the euphoria of the moment, the tension of the years preceding it, the comforting presence of an “Icon of Democracy” in the years that followed.
And maybe that is why we are plunged into sorrow at the moment. For many times in the last few years, when crises threatened the stability of the country, she would speak up and by her mere presence offered a moral compass to the rest of the country who seemed to lose their way. Having lost Jaime Cardinal Sin who, with charisma and leadership, could summon hundreds of thousands to Edsa, we are suddenly bereft again of Cory Aquino, who lent her voice to seemingly hopeless causes, and provided strength to weary forces battling one political outrage after another.
Maybe that is what we mourn, in essence: the passing of an era, the end to the dream of Edsa. For decades now, our public consciousness has fed on these residual memories, sought solace in that brief period when the world took inspiration from Filipinos. Maybe from this day forward, we will need to create our own visions, find inspiration from new accomplishments, and create new icons from a generation that grew up not knowing Ninoy or remembering Cory.
A break from tradition, since Tita Cory, being not just a former president but a national leader beloved and revered not just here but all over the world, surely is deserving of the full pomp and pageantry that her nation can give her.
But then, a state funeral for the former president would have taken all of the preparations for and the conduct of the wake, funeral and burial out of the hands of her family and friends and placed them instead under the control of the government and its functionaries. It would at the very least create an entirely impersonal and officious aura around this event. At worst, it would leave the manipulation of symbols and the choice of images to a government that has many reasons to rue Tita Cory’s continuing influence, and her outspoken criticism of the present leadership.
Perhaps it was her children’s distrust of the present dispensation that led to their declining a state funeral for their mother. Then again, it could simply be a family’s way of reclaiming a mother whom they had largely lost to the Filipino people, for whose sake she had time and again sacrificed not just time and energy but even risked her life. If so, then it is time and privacy that I, a grateful citizen, gladly and openheartedly concede to them.
