The Legacy of the Two Aquinos

from CoryAquino​.Ph

Today, Cora­zon Aquino, eleventh Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of the Philip­pines, first female Pres­i­dent of the Philip­pines and of Asia, the Woman who took over the Pres­i­dency after a 20-year dic­ta­tor­ship, the wife of national hero Ninoy Aquino, mother of five, Mother of the nation, will be sent to her final rest­ing place.

It is a sad and glo­ri­ous day for the coun­try. We have lost one of the most beloved Pres­i­dent we’ve ever had. And we have lost one of the great icons of democ­racy in the mod­ern world. Before the Berlin Wall came down, before that man stood in front of the tanks in China, the world stood in awe and won­der as thou­sands stared down tanks and guns with rosaries and flow­ers. The world wit­nessed how we won our free­dom back with­out fir­ing a sin­gle shot. We won our free­dom not with the strength of our arms but with the power of our prayer. We showed the world at EDSA what Fr. Hora­cio dela Costa said decades before that: the Fil­ipino has two gifts from God–our prayer and our song. And so we prayed–for our deliv­er­ance. And so we sang–for our dream and our land. And so we won our freedom.

We have lost one of the great icons of spir­i­tu­al­ity in our coun­try. When the late Arch­bishop Jaime Car­di­nal Sin was very sick and was about to die, he was sup­posed to have told peo­ple who came to him and asked for coun­sel, to go to Cory and ask for her coun­sel too because he knew how impor­tant her advise was. Her life would be incom­plete in the telling if you do not men­tion her great faith and deep hope. How she prayed with us and for us dur­ing the dark­est times in our history.

We have def­i­nitely lost one of the best among us. She is one of the best a Fil­ipino or Fil­ip­ina could ever hope to be.

As Con­rado de Quiros put it,

“Through­out her life, she defied expectations.

Nobody expected her, an ordi­nary house­wife, to rise to top­ple some­one who, wield­ing unbri­dled and inex­haustible power, seemed des­tined only to last for­ever. Nobody expected her, an ordi­nary house­wife, to deliver a nation that, torn and bleed­ing from the can­cer that had spread across its every pore, seemed des­tined only to be grabbed by sundry plot­ters and would-be sav­iors. Nobody expected her, an ordi­nary per­son, to live a life that, by the warmth and radi­ance felt by those who came in con­tact with it, would make that per­son an extra­or­di­nary human being.

But she did.”

But the legacy of the Aquinos, then as it is now, has been that hope does not die when they die; in fact, hope bursts forth with greater power after their death.

When Ninoy died, mil­lions flocked to the streets to cry and grieve and mourn the death of him who was the best Pres­i­dent we never had. Hope could have died when he died. But it did not. In defi­ance, we shouted at the top of our lungs, “Hindi ka nag-iisa!” (“You are not alone!”) And we stood our ground against cruel tyranny. And won.

Now that Cory died, let it not be said that hope for a bet­ter coun­try died with her. Now, as it was when her hus­band died, mil­lions flock to the streets to cry and grieve and mourn the death of her who was the best Pres­i­dent we ever had.

Even now, EDSA is alive with yel­low con­fetti and laban signs and shouts of Cory! Cory! Even now, Cory is bring­ing peo­ple back to the streets for one last time. Even now, there is a resur­gence of Pinoy pride and love for coun­try in I AM NINOY shirts, Philip­pine Map polos, Rizal hand­bags, Three Stars and a Sun jack­ets, Manny Pac­quiao blog­posts, Ako Mismo dog­tags, and Philip­pine flag stick­ers in cars. Even now, teach­ers tell the story of Ninoy and Cory to a young gen­er­a­tion who never expe­ri­enced, and thus, never really saw the impor­tance of what it was to lose your free­dom and gain it back. Even now, one of the best love sto­ries ever told is com­ing to its right­ful end as the Wife who was Pres­i­dent is about to be interred beside her Hus­band who was Senator.

The legacy of the two Aquinos is giv­ing back faith and hope and love for our coun­try. It is remind­ing us that COURAGE, just like cow­ardice, is con­ta­gious, like a virus. And that their COURAGE has infected us and changed us for­ever. And this courage, like our faith, and our hope and our love reminds us that despite everything–despite our lead­ers, despite the cursed cor­rup­tion of our government–the Fil­ipino is still wor­thy of love, the Fil­ipino is still worth liv­ing for, and yes, the Fil­ipino is still worth dying for.

by Joe Galvez