I was standing across 6750 Ayala Avenue at 11 in the morning with my hair wet all scrunched in a ponytail. I had belatedly decided I was going for a walk and my companion was on her way. I didn't mind waiting because the breeze was cool and the air was thick with a stillness which had remained elusive for the longest time.
A few minutes later, I saw her approaching. She made her way through the street with the quiet grace that had long been her trademark. There was nothing pompous, nothing grand about her last walk except perhaps for the yellow blooms which kept her company or the four uniformed men around her who kept quiet watch.
I waited as she came closer, my fingers gripping the iron railings which lined the street. The metal was still curiously cool to the touch despite the sun's grand re-appearance after days of unceasing rain.
The stillness had since dissipated and there was now a wispy feel to the air, like giant cats padding quietly across a stone floor. My walk was about to begin any minute now and I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder.
Nothing could have prepared me for the deluge of yellow flowers and the sight of my country's stripes - the deepest blue, the most fiery red, the purest white, the most vibrant yellow - draped over a wooden box.
As my former President's body slowly passed my inconspicuous little spot along Ayala Avenue, the tears came quietly in a stream as steady as the flow of people who had come to pay their respects to the woman in yellow.
Martial Law Babies in a Revolutionary Society
I was born during an interesting point of Philippine history - right at the fringes of the martial law era and smack at the doorstep of a revolutionary tide that was to radically reshape the environment that I was to grow up in. When I was a couple of months old, then senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was felled by an assassin's bullet in the tarmac of the Manila International Airport and by the time I was three, the Philippines had its first woman president in the person of his widow, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.
Bespectacled. Calm. Gentle. Mild-mannered. A woman of quiet strength and relentless courage. It was easy to look up to President Aquino with all admiration and hope as her husband had now become one of my great personal heroes. Her smiling face graced the pages of a coffee table book on EDSA Uno, her thumb and index finger stretched out to form the letter "L," symbolizing the Filipino word "laban." That pretty much summed up how the American-educated widow was thrust into the public limelight. She had taken up the cause of her deceased husband and was now fighting for freedom, for liberty and for democracy which the Filipino people deserved. Little did she know that her fight was not to stop the moment she stepped down from office in 1992. The Filipino people still came running to her like little children with scraped knees everytime the cornerstones of democracy came under intense attack. Willingly she came out of the confines of her life as a private citizen, her clear, steady voice cutting like a knife through the haze, akin to the constant sting a probing conscience makes on a guilty mind. At the last moments of her life, she fought the cancer that had ravaged her body until she finally yielded to the eternal rest that she so belatedly deserved.
To be honest about it, I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what she was like as a President in terms of policy. I was three when she took her oath and was nine when turned over the presidency to Fidel Ramos and all I cared about back then was my daily game of dodgeball. She survived seven coup attempts from disgruntled members and officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and I do know she got flack for some of her policies, including the Comprehensive Agrarian Land Reform.
President Aquino was not a perfect President but then she was someone who worked very hard to do what she could in an imperfect society. The fact that she has not lost the people's respect and admiration I think says a lot about the kind of President she was. Her support was still sought after by people in all the issues which has rocked this country's foundations and has threatened to suck our people's pride dry as dust.
President Aquino's strength and courage as a woman was of a different breed. She was not a Gabriela Silang, not a Boadicea, not a Joan of Arc, not a Xena Warrior Princess. It was difficult to imagine her with hair in wild disarray, mouth curled in a raging fit of anger, arms raised in a battle stance. She was more of deep water which ran with a strong current that belied its stillness. I vividly remember a picture of her sprinkling Holy water on her slain husband's coffin. Ninoy's body still bore the marks of his death and his clothes still carried the bloodstains. Her face was composed and her courage was unmistakable. She was determined, unfazed and focused but all tucked within the folds of gentleness, integrity and conscience. She could be tough and unyielding when the circumstances called for it, when truth and freedom were to the impending victims of a pillage. It is interesting to note how yellow, a color which supposedly relates to cowardice, has come to hold a different meaning in the Philippine context.
Yellow: A Color of Courage, Faith and Selflessness
Ever since news of her hospital confinement hit the country in June, yellow ribbons were seen fluttering all about the metropolis - in cars, buses, bicycles, motorcyces, lamp posts, tree trunks. Masses for her healing were held one after another. Where so many politicians and public figures had failed, an ailing former President had succeeded - in uniting once more a nation that was polarized by bitter divisions in class and politics. President Aquino was a woman of intense faith and she had urged the Filipinos to unceasingly pray for the Philippines. The support through prayer came spontaneously like the yellow ribbons which sprouted overnight, like the love which a grateful people felt for the simple housewife who stood up against a dictator.
Her simplicity was astounding and were she not selfless, she would not have taken the burden of becoming the country's president along with all its trappings, intrigues and the immense pressure. When Ninoy Aquino was in exile in Boston for three years, Cory described that time as the "happiest" in their married life. She obviously preferred a quiet life away from the limelight but because her duty as a citizen called for being more than just standing by the sidelines, she bravely accepted what had been thrust into her hands.
A Tale of Two Women
In a time like this, it is difficult for me not to draw comparisons between her and the current President of the country. Both are women, both came from politically affluent families, both were educated, both were thrust into power by a peaceful revolution, both came to prominence at a time of clamor for change, both took their seat as the highest official in the land with the highest hopes of their people spread before their feet like a sheet all ready for treading.
One has earned her people's love and sad to say, the other is in the opposite side of the spectrum. One has constantly upheld the truth and sad to say, the other has not. One has consistently fought for freedom and justice and sad to say, the other has attempted to bury them. One has tried her best to live a life of integrity and has become a beacon of light to her people. Sad to say, the other, even after eight years, has yet to earn her own people's trust.
The Presidency cannot always be about popularity but it does speak so much about what a leader is when her own people have not ceased to respect her.
Walking By
As I stood by that railing in Makati on Monday and walked along with the procession up until the Ninoy Aquino memorial along Paseo de Roxas, I realized that most of the people who stood and walked beside me were people my age. Most of them might have been toddlers or little children when President Aquino came to power. Some of them might not have been born yet even. But we call came to bid our farewell and pay our respects to the woman who had allowed us to grow up in a society where we have a significant degree of freedom, rights and liberties. A woman interviewed on TV said she withstood the heat and the rain just so she could see the late President at the Manila Cathedral, saying it was her "only way to repay" President Aquino. I understand where she was coming from but in reality, we could do so much more for her by continuing to safeguard the democratic ideals she had fought to restore, by not allowing anyone to take away our pride as a nation and as people and by continuing to fight for what is right, what is fair and what is true even in the simplest of circumstances.
A quick to flashback to 2001: I was a freshman in university and I was standing in the middle of the intersection of Ortigas Avenue and EDSA. Right in front of me loomed the huge image of the Virgin Mary atop the EDSA Shrine as people chanted and waved huge placards, urging then President Estrada to resign. It was almost 5PM and I was urging my friends Em and Shyne that I needed to go home badly. I had gone to the rally without my parents' permission and I had to be home before my mother checked on my whereabouts. We were weaving through the crowd and we finally reached a clearing. We slowly walked towards Galleria but when we passed the gate of Corinthian Gardens subdivision, I suddenly stopped and turned around.
"Did you see that?" I asked Em.
"What?" she asked.
I turned around and walked towards the direction of the Shrine just to confirm what I saw. All of a sudden, my excitement took the best of me and I ran back, my knapsack jiggling as I dashed back to the crowd.
Shyne and Em ran after me while shouting "What's going on?"
I turned around and shouted in one breath, "Cory, Cory, Cory!"
It was easy to remember how Shyne ran faster than I did when she heard me. After all, she was shouting "Kris, Kris, Kris" like a true fan girl. It was easy to remember the faces of the people in the crowd looked when they saw the former President approach. After she did so without the slightest bit of fanfare or deluge of bodyguards. But I will never forget what I felt the first moment I saw her emerging from the direction of the subdivision gate. She was in black and walked slowly, casually. She unaccompanied except by her eldest daughter Ballsy on one side and her actress-daughter Kris on the other. The three of them had walked past me when I was heading away from the crowd. I knew it was the former President when I first saw her but my mind went blank just like the black shirt I was wearing. She had a pleasant look on her face and gave everybody a ready smile. I felt something indescribable well up inside me and that was when I ran back like mad just so I could stand in the same crowd with a freedom fighter.
That memory rushed back to me as I stood momentarily in front of the Makati Stock Exchange on Monday morning. The flatbed truck bearing her wooden coffin had come to a halt because of the crowd. When a quiet chant began somewhere, I allowed my fingers to form an "L" as I spoke in unison with the people on the streets: "Cory, Cory, Cory..."
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