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Who is Cory to us?

MANILA, Philippines – How do today’s young people see Cory Aquino? They were either too young to remember her administration or they had not been born yet when she came to power.

But trust the young to know her—and why she mattered.

“Cory Aquino made a big impact on us women. She showed the world a woman could lead a country.”—Kim Lazaro, 20, University of Santo Tomas

“I admire her for being a mother, a single parent to her children and to the whole nation. We are so lucky to have such a dedicated president.”—Ruth Macabalo, 17, University of Santo Tomas

“Cory Aquino had no idea how to lead a troubled nation. Yet, she responded to the country’s call. I found in Tita Cory the spirit of a true Christian leader. She proved that there could be a government leader who could sincerely love and care for his/her countrymen.”—Junico Boribor, 15, Lourdes School of Quezon City

“Her birth was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to our country because she brought us our democracy. She also gave us pride by becoming the first woman president in Asia.”—Kit Jann Navarra, 17, San Agustin Iloilo

“Cory’s faith and humble personality makes us realize the true meaning of life.”—Jobelle R. Mayo, 18, St. Joseph’s College of Quezon City

“She is the very icon of honesty in politics which for decades has been made infamous by greedy, self-serving politicians. What has moved me most about her was her simplicity. Her humility and love of public service are admirable.”—Erika Mina, 15, Colegio de Sta. Rosa-Makati

“I like her simplicity, bravery, faith in God and the outstanding love she has for the people.”—Patricia Bianca J. Martin, 21, University of the East

“It would be a long time before our nation finds another woman to fall in love with. This is why I understand the outpouring of love for an icon that brought democracy to our nation.”—Alvin Solinap, 21, Far Eastern University

“She’s next to Rizal, a hero who changed the hearts of Filipinos to reform.”—Ice See, 20, UST

“Cory Aquino showed us all how tremendous her love for the country was. She will always serve as an inspiration for the youth like me.”—Lorenz Namalata, 16, La Salle Greenhills

“She is one of the greatest women in the world. I adore her because of what she did for our country. She was a mother who nurtured her children and the Filipino people.”—Anne Vitug, 18, UST

“Cory is the reason why people call me Revolution. I was born in 1987 but not during the Edsa Revolution. My parents tell me, ‘Hindi ka nung Edsa pinanganak, nung Edsa ka ginawa [You were not born during Edsa. You were amde during Edsa].’ My full name is Revo C. Naval. I came up with www.peaceloveandrevolution.com to commemorate her.”—Revo C. Naval

“Through Cory’s death, Filipinos proved that we can be united for a common cause.”—Ricci Antonio, 21, Ateneo de Manila University

“Cory Aquino is the perfect example of a Filipino mother: caring, loving and selfless.”—Ikee Tolentino, 18, De La Salle University

“I believe that the Philippines needs more presidents like her. She is indeed a great woman. Proof of that is the number of people who do love her.”—Joanna Ighut, 15, University of the Philippines, Manila

“She became an agent of change. She might not be a perfect president, but her integrity and faith in God were untarnished until the end.”—Andrew James Parungao, 22, University of the Philippines

“Having been raised in a family that supported Ferdinand Marcos, I used to only think of Cory Aquino as ‘just the grandmother of my friend who became the President of the Philippines.’ As time passed and as I developed a mind of my own, I realized that there was more to Cory Aquino than what I used to think. She was without a doubt one of the strongest women I have ever known. She was truly a phenomenal woman.”—Gretchen Gatan, 20, University of the Philippines , Diliman

“For the young people like me who did not live during the dictatorship, we can only imagine what the Philippines would be today without her.”—Camille Armas, 17, University of the Philippines, Diliman

“She makes me want to be a better person, to be the next female president of this country.”—Melissa Catura, 20, University of Santo Tomas

“She is my guiding light in becoming a better citizen and servant of this country.”—Erika Dizon, 18, University of Santo Tomas

“Cory loved the Filipinos. That’s undeniable. She also knew how to rock the color yellow.”—Angel Yulo, 19, University of Asia and the Pacific

“Whenever we talked about her in class, whenever I saw her on TV, I saw a person whose mere presence radiates freedom and peace, spirituality, love of God, strength and unconditional love. Even now, I see her and I feel safe.”—Kristine Segui, 18, Bicol University College of Nursing

“What amazes me is how one simple woman could have the power to change a whole nation.”—Alekz Toyhacao, 17, St. Scholastica's College , Manila

“I am lucky to have lived to see her alive and strong, and to have known about her good deeds she did for the Philippines.”—Gia Mendoza, 17, St. Paul College, Pasig

“She was the one who, up to her last breath, believed that the Philippines is a good country and that Filipinos are good people.”—Josephine Blomdahl, 16, St. Paul College, Pasig

“She showed the whole world that we could fight or achieve what we want for our country without shedding a drop of blood. She is a moral force and she led and governed the Philippines with pure honesty, integrity and compassion.”—Macey Mapanao, 16, Philippine Science High School, Southern Mindanao Campus

“She fought the battle with peace and conviction as her weapon. She was an advocate of prayer and justice.”—Jessa Mae Lumanas, San Beda

A Virtual Farewell to Cory Aquino

Former President Corazon C. Aquino peacefully passed away on August 1, 2009 at 3:18AM after more than a year of battle against colon cancer; an icon of democracy and a symbol of ‘people power’ in the Philippines and around the world.

An advocate of peace and unity, we thank her for what she accomplished, for what she achieved, and for what she sacrificed for the Filipino people.

What follows are some scenes from the wake in De La Salle Greenhills (August 1), in the Manila Cathedral (August 4), and the funeral parade (August 5).

The Funeral Parade

At the Manila Cathedral, Intramuros

At the La Salle Gymnasium

Encyclopedia of World Biography on Corazon Cojoangco Aquino

Corazon Cojoangco Aquino (born 1933) was the first woman to run for the office of the president of the Republic of the Philippines. The results of the 1986 election were so fraudulent that both Aquino and her opponent, the incumbent, Ferdinand Marcos declared victory. As a result of the election, the Filipino people rose in protest and Marcos was forced to flee the country and Aquino assumed the office of president.

Corazon Cojoangco Aquino was born on January 25, 1933, the sixth of eight children born to Jose Cojoangco of Tarlac, a prosperous province 65 miles northwest of Manila, the Philippines capital. The Cojoangcos were members of a wealthy landowning family prominent in politics.

Aquino attended an exclusive Catholic school for girls in Manila before travelling to America to attend Philadelphia's Raven Hill Academy. After earning a degree in French and mathematics from New York's Mount Saint Vincent College in 1953, she returned to the Philippines and enrolled in a Manila law school. While at law school she met her future husband, Benigno Aquino and married him in 1954. The marriage united two of Tarlac's most prominent families.

The Politician's Wife

Aquino's husband belonged to a family whose involvement in politics went as far back as the last century. One year after they were married, Aquino's husband was elected mayor of the city of Concepcion at the age of 22. Her husband was considered one of the Philippines' brightest political hopes.

Moving up in politics, Aquino's husband became the youngest territorial governor and later the youngest senator in the Philippines. Through out all her husband's political successes, Aquino stayed in the background, preferring to concentrate her energies on raising their four daughters and a son.

As her husband rose in prominence, he became an outspoken critic of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, Aquino's husband was one of the first persons arrested and put in jail. During the long years of her husband's incarceration from 1972 to 1980, Aquino's role as a quiet wife slowly changed. Becoming her husband's main link to the outside world, she was instrumental in having his statements passed along to the press and to activists outside the prison walls. From inside his cell, Aquino's husband even ran for a seat in Parliament, with his wife conducting a large portion of the campaign.

In 1980, Aquino's husband was released from jail in order to undergo heart surgery in the United States. Aquino's husband worked as a research fellow at Harvard University for the next three years. His family lived with him in the Boston area and his wife described the time as the best years of her life.

In 1983 supporters of the anti-Marcos factions persuaded Aquino's husband to return to the Philippines and to lead their cause. When his plane landed on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, Aquino's husband was assassinated. A commission formed to investigate the murder indicted the military men assigned to escort him as well as their military superiors. However, the court which eventually tried them for the murder acquitted all 26 defendants.

Homemaker Turns Politician

Her husband's assassination served as the turning point of Aquino's life. As her dead husband became the rallying focus of anti-Marcos groups she, as his widow, became the unifying figure for the different factions of the opposition. Aquino was catapulted into the role of keeping the unity alive. On October 15, 1985, the Aquino presidential campaign was launched at the National Press Club in Manila by 250 founding members, many of whom were businesspeople and professionals.

Aquino agreed to run if one million supporters signed an endorsement of her candidacy and if President Marcos called for a snap election. The supporters collected more than one million signatures, and her candidacy was endorsed by six opposition political parties as the common candidate for president in the election called for February 7, 1986. The political support she amassed, and the exoneration of the military men tried for her husband's murder, made Aquino accept the mandate to run for the presidency, "not in vengeance but in search of justice."

She picked Salvador Laurel, leader of the opposition's largest faction, as her running mate. Initial negotiations fell through in a disagreement about which party's name to carry--her husband's LABAN (Fight) Party or Laurel's UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization). Before the deadline for filing candidacy she and Laurel agreed to run under the UNIDO banner.

Countering Marcos's charges of her political inexperience, Aquino counted as her main asset her diametrical opposition to the president. Her supporters considered her a fresh new face with a reputation for moral integrity. Her main assets in the campaign were her reputation for moral integrity along with her avowal of her slain husband's ideals. To these were added the quiet support of the influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, whose prelate Jamie Cardinal Sin was instrumental in the Aquino-Laurel reconciliation.

The homemaker-turned-politician responded to the challenge with enthusiasm and a singular commitment to the cause of justice. Her opponent, Marcos, had extended his term of office for more than 20 years through a declaration of martial law and constitutional changes that increased his powers. The true results of the election may never be known as the incumbent forces used intimidation, scattered violence, and overt fraud to declare Marcos the winner. The people took to the streets in protest; some army leaders revolted; the United States expressed its indignation. Less than three weeks after his alleged election victory in February 1986, Marcos fled the Philippines. Aquino became the acknowledged president of the republic.

The Presidency and Beyond

Aquino admitted that she faced numerous challenges as the new Filipino president. The release of 441 political prisoners and the forced retirement of 22 pro-Marcos generals were among her first actions as president. She also reinstated the writ of habeas corpus, the right of a prisoner to appear before a judge, and abolished the government's ability to imprison people at will, which had been in effect since 1981. Aquino promised to promote the right to assemble peaceably, and free speech along with prosecuting corruption and abusers of human rights.

Protecting the countryside was another of Aquino's goals. She planned to accomplish this by disarming the private armies that roamed the rural areas and establish industries there. Aquino said she would revitalize the sugar industry by breaking the monopoly. She acknowledged the special relationship with the United States but emphasized that her concern was with the Filipinos, not the Americans.

Aquino knew her popularity would wane and that her leadership would be harshly criticized. At least seven coups were directed at her government during her tenure as president, many times by former allies who had helped her come to power. Besides dealing with factious parties both within her cabinet and in the nation, Aquino had to contend with natural disasters and frequent power failures.

In 1991, a constitutional amendment was passed by referendum which enabled Aquino to remain president until June 30, 1992. Her successor was Fidel Ramos, her former secretary of defense and Marcos' former deputy chief of staff of the armed forces. Ramos, who assisted Aquino in fending off the coup attempts, has continued to support Aquino's democratic ideals. Aquino has still retained her popularity with the Filipino people and works for reform by participating in cooperatives and non-governmental organizations in the Philippines.

My childhood in the time of Cory

MANILA, Philippines – I was still awake when Cory Aquino died. A friend’s Facebook status popped up. “RIP Cory.”

Oh my God, I said. She’s gone.

It shouldn’t have come as a shock; she had been sick for over a year and had been in the hospital for weeks. But her death still seemed sudden, her goodbye coming too soon.

I tried to think of my Facebook status. I had to say something. Her death was something I couldn’t ignore.

Coldplay’s “Yellow” started playing in my head. But I decided not to post lyrics. Instead, I wrote, “Pam Pastor thinks she’s finally with Ninoy.” It was a beautiful thought, one that offered comfort.

Unlike Michael Jackson’s death, Cory’s passing felt personal. I never met her, she didn’t know who I am, but I felt I had lost someone.

When you think about it, I did. Our lives are linked by history. We believed in the same things, we fought the same battles.

Mourning

When her husband’s body was brought to Sto. Domingo Church, my maternal grandparents were there, just two of the many faces in the crowd, mourning the death of a great man. I was only two then, but my mom and paternal grandmother also took me to Sto. Domingo, so we could pay our last respects to Ninoy.

My maternal grandparents also went to Plaza Moriones for a rally against the dictatorship. Mel Lopez invited my grandfather, an ex-politician slash lawyer, to go there to speak. My grandfather, active in the opposition, would go to wakes of activists and opposition leaders killed by the military.

My uncle, then a student at Ateneo Law School, built a coffin with friends from school. My uncle said the coffin was a symbol of the death of democracy. They built it in my grandparents’ house, unmindful that they were only a few doors away from a precinct.

My uncle, his friends, my grandparents, my great-grandmother, my mom and my aunt brought the coffin to a huge rally at Liwasang Bonifacio. My grandpa once again took the microphone at the rally to speak about Ninoy. What they were doing was dangerous, they knew, but they were fighting for something important.

“It’s different when something hits you emotionally. There, in the middle of the crowd, we forgot about the danger. At that point, we thought, if bombs dropped, then we’d all die together,” said my maternal grandmother.

Out on the streets

In 1986, during the Edsa Revolution, I was only five but I was out on the streets with my mom, my paternal grandmother, my six-year-old cousin, aunt, uncle and three of our helpers. My paternal grandfather was furious—why did they have to expose us children to danger?

But I am thankful they brought us there to be part of history. There, we gave sandwiches to soldiers. I remember being lifted by soldiers to have our photos taken atop one of the tanks, but later, my uncle’s film was accidentally exposed.

I may not have pictures, but I have memories.

We were back in Edsa the year after, for the anniversary of People Power. I was six then, and grandma says I was enthralled by the fireworks.

I was still a child when Cory became president. But she was more than just a name I had to memorize for Social Studies class—and not just because she was a woman.

During the coup attempts against her administration, I remember spending hours in my parents’ dark bedroom, just listening to AM radio to find out what was going on. That memory is embedded deeply in my mind that to this day, I cannot listen to AM radio without thinking of those days.

I was scared—I wasn’t even 10 then—and I found refuge in reading my thick pink Bible. I think Cory would have liked that.

The year 2001 found me on the streets again, in the second Edsa revolution—another peaceful revolution Cory played a key part in. Surrounded by thousands and thousands of people who were fighting for the same thing, I felt an overwhelming love for Filipinos. That was the first time I cried for my country. I was already 20 then.

I was at Edsa practically every day—with my grandma, cousins, writers from this section. When I wasn’t at Edsa, I was home making posters and watching the news.

One of those days, I had to walk from Ayala Avenue to Edsa but I didn’t care. There was also that night we catnapped in a friend’s car. We were exhausted but we didn’t want to go home. We wanted to be there when Erap finally stepped down.

Pillar of faith

Cory was president, a political symbol, a pillar of faith, an icon of democracy. But she was also a mom. And we saw the kind of mom she was every time something big happened in Kris Aquino’s life, or when Noynoy ran for the Senate. Her children are lucky.
The same thought popped in my head as I watched her loved ones give eulogies. They are lucky. Not just her children but her friends as well, her relatives, people who worked with her, people who worked for her. They got to know Cory more, spent time with her, had fun with her, learned from her.

But then I realized, I am lucky, too. Because Cory was part of two of my proudest moments—as a child in the first Edsa Revolution, as an adult in the second.

Because I have her to thank for press freedom, without which I’d be living an entirely different life. Because she showed the world what strong women can do. Because she was always there, always an inspiration, never wavering. Because she made me proud to be Filipino.

Yellow ribbons

Two days after Cory’s death, I sent my grandmother a text message, asking how she felt about it.

She said, “I believe she was the only president not tainted with corruption. It is sad that she suffered so much dealing with her illness and I’m glad she’s above all that now.”

I thought it was beautiful that the whole country is united in love for her.

I feel the same love for Cory, which, sadly, I recognized only after she was gone.

As I write, I can see images of her cortege on TV. The procession isn’t over yet, but it will be soon. I hope her burial wouldn’t be the end of this outpouring of love and unity.

A friend wrote online that he feels as if he’s lost a tita. I cannot call Cory tita, I do not feel like I have the right to. To me, she will always be Cory, the mother of democracy. I’m glad she’s finally with Ninoy again.