Rational Insanity
Saying goodbye to a Filipino icon
I have been around the region in the past month and I barely spent any time at all at home. In other words, I have been terribly busy. This, however, was sorely disturbed by a moment of silence when last Saturday, at about four in the morning, while I was sleeping in a van on my way to Iloilo to catch the first boat ride to Bacolod, I was awakened by a text message from our beloved mayor, Mayor Vic Bermejo. The text was asking me to say a prayer for then president Corazon Aquino who had passed away at three a.m. of the same day. I bolted upright in my seat and I felt a momentary feeling of shock, first, because I always pictured Cory as a vision of life, strength and composure, and for a moment, I could not get it into my consciousness that she was already dead; and second, because the previous day, the news reports claimed that she was in a stable condition and was simply resting. Nevertheless, it had to be accepted that she was really gone. For the rest of my trip to Iloilo, I was wide awake pondering and thinking about how I remembered this fine and virtuous woman.
I was barely in my teens then during the EDSA revolution and I remember being at the beach that time; my parents had with them a battery-operated radio from which a loud hiss was coming from. They were closely monitoring the events at EDSA, and at about 9 PM that same day, news broke that Marcos, the dictator, had left the country with his entire family for exile in Hawaii. It was like New Year’s eve in my hometown, there was fireworks, cans pulled by cars on the run, the atmosphere was festive and celebratory. After that fateful evening, the color yellow became the color of democracy and freedom as it was first worn by the late President Cory Aquino who ran under the Laban Party during the 1986 snap elections. I remember people referring to her as the ‘widow in yellow’ who had restored democracy to the country. She then appeared in newspaper front pages then on, as well as on the covers of international magazines like Time and Newsweek. During that time, the ‘yellow fever’ was eating up the entire populace; there were Cory dolls, Cory shirts, and a whole lot more ‘Cory’ merchandise, if not to remind the people of the greatness of this women, more to assure people that democracy was finally ours.
So, what did ‘Tita Cory’ do to me as a young mind growing up during the martial law years, and witnessing first hand, the struggles of the Filipino people for freedom from the abusive reign of a dictator? Personally, what happened then did not dawn on me until later in life, in particular when I would watch a movie and see people seated while the National Anthem is being played. This was my first encounter with the patriotism that ‘Tita Cory’ had left in me, even without my knowing it. While I was growing up, the significance of Cory’s role was never really as apparent to me as it had been a few years back when democracy was again in danger of being lost, because of the greed and self-interests of a few of our leaders. The abuses of the 90’s as well as the early 00’s served to awaken in me the fervour that Tita Cory planted with her efforts and sacrifices to win back democracy for the Filipino people. Now, that she has passed away, many feel that she brings with her the fervour for democracy that she once started, however, the truth is, her legacy remains, and grows even stronger as we are again faced by a leadership that seems to want to cling to power. Saying goodbye to a Filipino icon is not really the end of the line for all of us because the challenge of defending our democracy remains. Cory was able to strengthen us and remind us of the struggle but it is still up to us to continue the fight.
I believe the best way to say goodbye to Cory is to commit ourselves to the greater task of preserving what she has fought for and left us with – the democracy that seems to be in danger of begin taken away from us again. Cory would not have left us if she felt we were not yet prepared to defend the legacy that she has left us, we have grown and grown enough to be trusted with something so precious, and so saying goodbye to Cory could very simply be done by saying…thank you…
Be rational; be insane…every once in a while! TTFN!
I love you all! Byers!