Remembering Cory

BAGUIA

Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino, beter known to the world as Cory Aquino, died nine years ago today.

Historical revisionism if not nihilism threatens to blacken the memory of Cory, and though blackening the name of the dead constitutes libel, those who besmirch the reputation of the Philippines’ first woman president cannot be held liable. Cowardice long ago bade them wrap themselves in anonymity’s cloak within cyberspace’s underbelly.

They blame Cory for blackouts that continually hounded the archipelago during her time without for instance seeing the wisdom of her government’s refusal to open the

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. While that could have powered the country at low cost, the plant sat on an earthquake faultline that would have exposed its operations to the possibility of a meltdown.

They accuse Cory of vindictiveness in the institution of the Presidential Commission on Good Governance that over the years recovered the wealth of the late dictator, his family, and his cronies.

In doing so,  they forget that the strongman and his wife’s incomes can never account for the wealth that they amassed while he was in power, thus rendering their richness suspect and by rights minimal as compensation for the survivors of their regime of incarcerations, enforced disappearances, and deadly salvaging.

They accuse Cory of weak leadership, supposedly proven by at least seven unsuccessful military attempts to wrestle the reins of power from her hands.

But Cory had proven her strength at least thrice in the face of lure of power.

She restored the democratic structure of the government instead of remaining a revolutionary leader. She stepped down from the presidency although the Constitution did not bar her from seeking a fresh six-year term in 1992.

The people cannot be blamed for never taking the side of military adventurists each time they mounted a putsch against her. She possessed a detachment from power that galvanized respect and public loyalty and trust.

Thus did she disabuse the military of the idea, instilled in them in the years of the dictatorship, that power was their heirloom and plaything.

If you were alive with a socially awakened conscience when Cory was president, then it would be easy to understand if you miss her today.She would be farthest from breaking into tantrums against peoples of faith.

But that’s because she drew to her camp peoples of various creeds, from the Protestant Jovito Salonga to the Muslim Santanina Rasul, both senators.

One of her daughters, Kristina Bernadette is engaged in show business but Cory shunned the glamor of celebrity.

She did not need renowned filmmakers to direct her State of the Nation Addresses, only her monotone that on hindsight became symbolic of the personal integrity that turned the compositions of her speechwriters into poetry.

After returning to being an ordinary citizen, Cory indulged many invitations to give talks the world over. “Without the right values in the people, a democracy is only a confederacy of fools,” she said in a speech in Rome, Italy.

“If I were to be asked what of my presidency I would want to continue: it is these intangibles more than any policy I think, at the moment, is correct for the country. Circumstances change and international trends can shift direction; new approaches may serve the country’s interests better than those I laid down,” she added.

Cory went on: “But what doesn’t change are the elements that go to make up good decisions and right policies: sincerity, integrity, solidarity, universality, and of course – in recognition of the historic verity that man proposes and God disposes – prayer. Prayer, whereby the great make themselves humble and fitter to govern men. Prayer, which gives strength to the weak and pride to the humble. There are languages that are said to be better suited than others for certain things. English for law and banking, French for diplomacy, Italian for poetry, Spanish for piety, German for technology, Japanese for trade, and Chinese – it is said – for everything in the future. Yet there is only one language for accessing the greater reality behind this one. It is prayer, for speaking to God. It comes in any of the languages I have mentioned, because it has less to do with the sound of the voice than with a habit of the heart and a posture of the spirit. It is the thing that prepares you for any eventuality, and enables you to cope with whatever might take you unpleasantly by surprise. It is the first thing you learn after you’ve come into the world, and the last you will say when you leave it. It may seem like a trifle, at this moment when you find support in being over a thousand strong in this hall. But each of you will find himself alone at critical moments, as I did. Yet, with nothing in your hands, you will find it full with prayer.”