When your own uncle is asking you to resign
The deepest pain that a leader can feel, or any person for that matter can suffer, is when your closest relatives and friends would not only refuse to support you at your most difficult challenges, but even push you to the edge of total destruction. This was perhaps the pains that the Lord Jesus Christ must have to endure when he was abandoned by his apostles, except by John, while He was hanging in the cross in Golgotta. This must have been the anguish that Julius Caesar must have felt when he saw his close friend, Brutus joining his assailants in stabbing him.
This too must have been the feelings of President Noynoy Aquino when he came to know that his own uncle, Peping Cojuangco, and the latter's wife led a rag tag group that had the audacity to demand for his resignation. It is Peping, his mother Cory's dearly beloved brother, not Danding who is just a cousin of President Cory and often a political rival in Tarlac politics, and also the known ally of their arch nemesis, the late president Ferdinand Marcos. Had it been Danding, PNoy would understand because Cory's children have never been close to that side of the Cojuangco clan.
What must have hurt the President most, and also disappointed his sisters Kris, Ballsy and the rest is that they have always showered their Uncle Peping and Auntie Tingting with much affection and accorded them with so much respect. If President Cory were alive today, Peping would not have done such an ultimate burning of filial bridges. It was the most painful blow to the President. He has no father, no mother, no wife. He has only sisters sticking it out with him. His beloved uncle stabbed him at the back. It must have been terrible. To be abandoned and insulted like that by your own uncle is terrible.
It has been said that one always hurts the one he loves, and hurts even more the one who loves him. I remember when I was young, I was an avid supporter of the YOL (Youth For Osmeña Leadership). My uncle was a municipal councilor in our town, Ronda. He was a staunch leader of the KBL. I was for Governor Osmundo Rama, the uncle of now Mayor Mike Rama. My uncle was for Beatriz Durano. I was a watcher and my uncle was trying to harass me inside the polling precinct because I was objecting to the appreciation of the ballot. My uncle demanded that I resign as a watcher. And I stood my ground. My candidate won in Cebu but we lost in my precinct.
Today, my uncle is weak and old. I came to him and help him and his children all the ways I can. Then he just broke down and asked for my forgiveness for what he did to me in the 1960's. Truly, what he did to me still leaves a tinge of pain deep in me, because, of all people, he is my uncle. I would not have minded being bullied by politicians that are not related to me. But from my uncle, I consider our relationship as an aggravating circumstance. Of course, I have forgiven him now and I'm trying hard to forget that incident. But many others are experiencing this deepest pain.
That is why I can empathize and even sympathize with the President in what he must be going through these days. I heard that the Vice Mayor in our town and his uncle who is my distant cousin, are experiencing some problems. That is sad. They always say that blood is thicker than water. But experience tells us that politics, at times, is thicker than blood. But it hurts, it really hurts.
- Latest
