Cory, Saturday Morning

The banner headlines tomorrow will mark the mournful pause that Cory's passing has brought the nation. And I find myself today taking that same pause and reflecting on why I am moved by her death as well.

I never identified with Cory's yellow army from the onset. When my grade school classmates were flashing Cory's laban sign in 1986, what I would interpret later on as a middle class identification, I was the lone Marcos loyalist in the classroom on account of my own social identifications. I thought it was incumbent upon me to toe the official line since I was a military brat. I remember debating with my classmates and the strongest argument that my 10 year-old brain could muster versus Cory's supporters then was that Cory was "just" a woman. I have since repented of course having realized that intelligence, fortitude, grace, on the one hand, and even despotic traits and arrogance, on the other, are not the monopoly of male leaders.

Cory indeed went on to make history in the snap elections of '86 and the ensuing people power revolt but I generally remained ambivalent about her place in history. While the same middle class high school classmates were defending the extension of the US Bases just like Cory, I wrestled away from my own identifications and took a stand against the bases. Since then I have unlearned many social givens and learned about how Cory's presidency supported landed interests, tolerated low intensity conflict approaches to combat the insurgency, and relied on American support to keep her presidency versus the coup attempts that plagued her administration. I have also learned that the decades of organizing and struggle being waged in the countryside and the cities set the stage for the overthrow of the dictatorship. So why am I now mourning her passing?

She was a simple housewife who reluctantly took on the reigns of a popular anti-dictatorship struggle after her husband's assassination. I would like to believe that Cory's patriotism had something to do with the timeless images of ordinary people braving tanks, offering their lives, and finding solidarity in each other in the fight against a tyrant no matter how fleeting or illusory these may have been. Cory in her yellow dress, that man in tears braving the tanks, the nun offering flowers to armed soldiers, and the common folk finding political release in Malacañan after decades - powerful images of men and women who fought for the same nation we continue to fight for till now. Cory remained consistent and uncompromising, even standing up against the present-day tyrant in our midst and she continues to inspire generations both old and new to challenge power with truth.

The lessons of Cory's patriotism and peaceful revolution must continue to be debated upon and our collective gains from these must be defended. But there is reason to pause and mourn her passing. Though she was greatly impaired by her milieu and ideological horizon, Cory Aquino rose to the demands of history as a patriot. The nation, including me, should be deeply grateful.