When Courage’s Other Name Was “Cory”

By Martin Jalleh

You will be remembered as the bespectacled ever-smiling woman in a blazing yellow dress, whose fire within burned brightest in the dark night of a brutal dictatorship that made your nation bleed to near despair – it was (in your very own words) “a country that has lost its faith in its future”.

You captured their imagination by your conviction and reignited their courage after being crushed and cowed by a cruel dictatorship fro 20 years. It was a nation that was crudely known as having “60 million cowards and one son-of-a-bitch”.

You inspired your “people without a soul” (Jose Rizal) with your selfless and single-minded spirit and stirred in their hearts a simple message of hope that resulted in a synergy called “People Power” that would eventually spread to other nations and served as a model of non-violence.

You were a beacon who told the people not to curse the darkness that befell the nation but to light a candle. You were their leading light which reflected the Beatitudes. Your buoyant calm in the midst of the fiercest storm was something to behold and so was your bold refusal to bow to brazen injustice or buckle under the barrel of a gun.

You bore what you would later call “great suffering” when your husband Benigno Ninoy Aquino Jr. who was “a president in the making” was kept behind bars under martial law for seven years and seven months. Little did you know then that you were being baptized into politics!

Tragedy struck when Ninoy returned to the Philippines after a three-year exile in the US , fully aware of the risks that he was taking. His conscience would not allow him to remain safe and financially secure in the US . He was shot in the back of his head by soldiers escorting him out of the plane.

Generations will remember your grief and yet dignified composure as you stood next to the open coffin of your husband still in his bloodstained white leisure suit. It would have been tempting to give up then. But Ninoy must not die in vain. You would allow divine grace to take you beyond his grave!

A court released all those implicated in Ninoy’s murder. It was not vengeance that you sought but “only justice, not only for Ninoy but for the suffering Filipino people”. A reluctant politician, you rose in rare courage and you accepted a role thrust upon you.

With the people’s reassuring support, you ran against the ruthless ruler in the snap presidential elections of 1986. You had declared: “Now, (people) were standing tall, like Ninoy, as he went down the stairs to his death. Better to die (standing) than to go on living on your knees.”

People Power

The dictator derided you as having no (political) experience. You deftly disarmed him: “I concede I cannot match Mr. Marcos when it comes to experience. I admit that I have no experience in lying, stealing, or assassinating political opponents.”

Marcos had also sneered: “She is just a woman. Women should not challenge a man. She teaches her husband – only in the bedroom.” He must have felt like a sure “son-of-a-bitch” when you responded: “May the best woman win!”

You had humbly declared: “The only thing I can really offer the Filipino people is my sincerity”. After 20 years of a treacherous and hypocritical regime, only honesty and decency could bring hope and healing to the land.

Your candidacy had galvanized the politics-shy or even indifferent business community, middle-class, and Catholic Church. It catalysed the unity of the fractious opposition. You were the beloved who gave your people a bond that took them beyond themselves.

Marcos cheated in the elections by bribery, bombs and ballot-rigging. You rejected the results and mustered a mass nonviolent protest – a crusade for freedom and democracy. Motivated by the leaders of the Catholic Church, more than a million people marched on to the streets against Marcos’ minions.

Marcos threatened to mow down the multitude, but they did not flinch nor falter. They formed human chains. Tanks were stopped in their tracks by fearless citizens armed with rosaries and flowers. Soldiers who had mutinied against Marcos were ironically surrounded and protected by human shields.

For four days Manila resounded with the mantra “Cory, Cory, Cory!” Marcos was eventually forced into exile. The world marveled at the miracle of how a “simple housewife” who acted as a moral compass led ordinary citizens, confronted by the biggest battle of their lives, to regain their freedom in a peaceful way!

The whole world saluted you President Corazon Aquino! The people power revolution that you had initiated would later serve as an inspiration to similar non-violent uprisings such as Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution”, Lebanon ’s “Cedar Revolt” and Ukraine ’s “Orange Revolution”.

You restored the country’s democratic institutions, rewrote the country’s constitution, reinstated the bicameral Congress (abolished by Marcos in 1973), renewed emphasis on civil liberties, released all political dissidents and sought reconciliatory and peace talks with insurgent groups.

Sincerity & Simplicity

You were criticised as being inept, indecisive and ineffectual especially in social and economic reforms. Perhaps you were more aware than anyone else of the shortcomings of your presidency but with faith and fortitude you stood firm and faithful to what you had begun at Philippine’s “finest hour”.

The Magsaysay citation puts it so aptly: “Cory Aquino could not possibly fulfill all the expectations she awakened. No one knew this better than she. (Nonetheless), she managed to restore her country’s democratic institutions and its good name in the community of nations…She governed with integrity…”

You had to contend with arrogant and oppressive landowners (your own family was part of the landowning elite), ambitious and aggressive politicians who jockeyed for power, agitation from pressure groups and attempted bloody coups (seven in six years, one during which your son was wounded). But you survived it all!

You willingly paid the price for the sincerity you had offered to your people. At the end of your presidency you would reflectively declare: “I realised that I could have made things easier for myself if I had done the popular things rather than the painful but better ones in the long run.”

You, who did not crave for power, would seek to relinquish power when the time came! Unlike your predecessor or your successors, you left no hints nor had you any hideous plans to hang on to power. You stepped down from the presidency as graciously as you ascended it.

You would continue to be intensely involved whenever democracy was imperiled. Your inner guiding light, indomitable spirit and incorruptibility continued to be an inspiration to the Filipino whom you stood alongside with in every street demonstration. You were and shall remain an icon of democracy.

You turned down the power, possessions, pomp and protocol which Marcos and others were possessed by and obsessed with. You returned to a modest bungalow surrounded by homes more affluent than yours. You declined a State funeral. Your simplicity prevailed even at the hour of death.

Coming from a wealthy and powerful family, you broke through and connected with the common people (whom you described as “the real saviours of this country”) by your simplicity. Indeed as they bade you farewell, the people gave you the “power” and acknowledgement which no State could accord – their respect and honour!

Coming from a wealthy and powerful family, you broke through and connected with the common people (whom you described as “the real savors of this country”) by your simplicity. Indeed as they bade you farewell, the people gave you the power and acknowledgement which no State could accord – their respect and honour!

Goodbye Cory – dutiful wife, devoted mother, daring widow, woman of deep spirituality, dedicated citizen and dignified President of the Philippines. Alas, you epitomised the biblical “valiant woman” whose “value is beyond the price of pearls” (Book of Proverbs).

May the memory of you live on in us as we continue courageously on the road less travelled..