I spent a rainy weekend in Batangas and came home to find that my neighbors had festooned the townhouse compound that we share with bright yellow ribbons. The ribbons were tied to the iron window grills and some of the neighbors’ cars. A yellow banner saying “Thank you, Tita Cory” was hung outside our main gate.
I’ve lived in this compound for years but I can’t say that I know my neighbors. I know someone works in Congress because of his cars’ plates. I’ve seen the reality show winner a few times. I’ve also met a few in the two homeowners’ association meetings I attended in a span of six years. Still, I do not really know what they are like and what their dreams for our country are. The yellow ribbons provided me with a clue and I am now speculating, not baselessly I hope, that not too long ago, they shared the same dream that I had.
I was eight years old when Ninoy Aquino was murdered. My parents and my friends’ parents were aghast and very sad. In very simple words, they explained to us that Ninoy was a good man and that he had returned to the Philippines to help us get our freedom back.
Those were abstract terms but my friends and I attempted to articulate how we felt about the events causing the adults in our lives so much misery by holding our own “rallies” based on what we heard the adults discuss.
We drew on pad paper and wrote “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All,” “Ibagsak si Marcos” and other slogans we fancied. We agreed to wake up early and converge under the giant sambag tree that alternately scared and fascinated us. My family owned a shop that manufactured sportswear at that time and we got leftover yellow cloth and braided them into headbands. We wore the headbands and marched around the tree with the drawings we made.
The story was very clear to us: Ninoy was good. Marcos killed Ninoy. Marcos was bad. We had to get rid of Marcos. Without Marcos, we would be free. I believed in this story and even told my Grade 3 teacher that if we wanted freedom, we had to join the New People’s Army and fight evil.
We tagged along when the adults attended rallies and I remember standing on someone’s vehicle near the Cebu Community Hospital to try to catch a glimpse of Cory Aquino giving a speech. This must have been shortly before the 1986 snap elections. We cheered and screamed and felt so much hope.
When we received news that the Marcoses had fled, we cheered some more and became certain that life was going to be better. What exactly a better life meant did not matter to us then. We just believed that Cory was good and she defeated evil. The end of evil meant that everything was going to be perfect and we would live happily ever after.
We grew up and realized that people had very different ideas about living happily ever after. The people who surrounded Cory when she was campaigning betrayed her. Others simply wanted to wield the power that Marcos had for themselves. Cory was just a way for that to be possible. Some of them are still around and have never given up on that ambition.
The death of Cory marks the end of an era. We are being reminded once more that we have the chance to imagine a better future for ourselves. Each yellow ribbon we see should serve that purpose. Maybe this time, we’ll know exactly what having a better life means.
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Email: kay.malilong@gmail.com