Immortalizing Cory

The 10-day national mourning for the demise of our country’s first woman President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino ends today. From the day she died on Aug. 1, all Philippine flags were flown at half mast, military rituals and other official activities were done to honor the memories of former President Aquino who served our country after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution until June 30, 1992.

President Arroyo also issued Proclamation 1851 that declared a special non-working holiday during the burial of the late President Aquino last Wednesday.

When the Senate convened its sessions Monday, Sen.Mar Roxas II immediately filed a Resolution seeking to declare Jan. 25 of each year as “Cory Aquino Day” in honor of the birth anniversary of the late President. Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, only son of the late President, belongs to the Liberal Party (LP) headed by Roxas. Noynoy’s father, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was also an LP stalwart.

But paying honor to the late President Aquino went beyond politics. Senate president Juan Ponce-Enrile, one of the key players of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, suspended the sessions for the rest of the week as their way to honor the late President. Enrile himself was once a Cabinet Minister of Mrs.Aquino until they had a bitter parting of ways after the discovery of the alleged “God Save the Queen” military putsch against her administration.

Not to be outdone, the House of Representatives also came up last Monday with their own Joint Resolution in honor of former President Aquino. Rep. Erin Tañada (Quezon Province, LP) filed his own “Cory Aquino Day” Resolution. The House likewise suspended their sessions for the rest of the week.

As all of these memorial honors wind down, the activities shift back to Congress. Members from both Chambers are expected to come out today with their respective Joint Resolutions which, among other things, seek to confer to the late President Aquino the status of national hero.

As good as I know the late President Aquino, she was not one who sought attention especially to herself. She frowned upon anything that tried to give too much importance to her presence while she was still the President of the country. When Congress passed a law that increased the salaries of all government officials and employees, she made sure that the specific provision of the law on the pay scale of the President would prospectively apply to the next occupant in Malacañang Palace.

Even when there was a move in Congress to declare her slain husband as a national hero, she dissuaded the lawmakers not to do so while she was still in office because she would only veto it. That was how decent she was in office.

Not once she used the Office of the President for her own benefit nor abused her executive privilege to make a co-equal branch of government like Congress and the Supreme Court to kowtow to her administration line. One proof of this was the late President Aquino’s marching in streets along with the pro-Bases groups to appeal to the Senate to extend the RP-US Military Bases Agreement (MBA).

She could have used the resources and powers of the Chief Executive to win the majority votes of the Senators needed to ratify the MBA extension. Or she could have invoked their long family’s friendship with the likes of her former trusted Cabinet member, then neophyte Senator Rene Saguisag to vote “yes” for the MBA. I heard a radio interview of ex-Sen.Saguisag, who survived a fatal car crash last year but lost his wife Dulce in the same accident, swore Mrs.Aquino never did any such thing.

Commenting on parallel moves by certain Catholic Church groups to nominate to the Vatican the late President Aquino for beatification and eventual sainthood, Saguisag remarked: “From being our Presiden-Tita, she can now be our Santa.”

But days before these honors and titles were being proposed to be conferred on her, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. beat them to the draw. He was the first to announce plans for the construction of a monument to immortalize President Aquino’s leadership that restored to the Philippines its democratic foundation firmly set on solid grounds.

Manila Mayor Fred Lim later also announced that a monument for President Aquino will rise along Roxas Boulevard where monuments of other Presidents of the Republic stand on its entire stretch. The boulevard was named after the late President Manuel Roxas.

The bereaved family is of course, I’m sure, very thankful for all these honors being bestowed on their late mother. Such unsolicited honors and memorials are coming in spontaneously from all people whom President Aquino had inspired during her presidency.

The latest is the proposed inclusion of the picture of President Aquino in the P500 bill along with her late husband’s photo. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov.Amando Tetangco Jr. announced he has already recommended the putting of the portrait of President Aquino in the new generation currency notes to be issued by the BSP within the next two years.

Actually, days before the BSP Governor made this announcement, ex-Energy Secretary Vince Perez, a former Cabinet member of President Arroyo (GMA), texted me that he has been “lobbying” the BSP to issue new P500 bank notes in yellow color featuring Cory Aquino on the currency together with the photo of Ninoy Aquino. “Many folks feel it would be a wonderful idea. We need to rise above the differences between GMA and Cory in the past,” Perez cited. We’re all for it.

This reminded me of the homily delivered by Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J., at the funeral mass for former President Aquino at the Manila Cathedral. With cracked voice, Fr. Arevalo who has been the father-confesor of the Aquino family, in near tears, described the late President: “You truly now belong among the immortals. But these words are for those mortals who with bruised hearts have lost the mother of a people. Maybe less elegantly than the seminarian said to me Monday, they would like to say also ‘She was the only true queen our people have ever had.’ And she was queen because we knew she truly held our hearts in the greatness and the gentleness of her own.”