Cory and a bit of history by Tony Abaya

Two Women: Cory

By Antonio C. Abaya

Written on July 08, 2009

For the Standard Today,

July 09 issue

One is apparently at the end of her biological life and has philosophically accepted it. She has in fact expressed the wish to be reunited soon with her martyred husband.

The other is almost certainly near the end of her political life, but she stubbornly refuses to accept it. She is in fact scheming to prolong it, by fair means or foul, because she believes that there is no life after Malacanang. Or, if there is, it could be in foreign exile or, worse, in statutory domestic exile in Muntinlupa.

*****

I first came face to face with Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino in late June 1985. My father had died on June 26. A few days later, Cory – a dear friend of my sister Gigi – came to the wake at the Immaculate Conception Church on Lantana Street in Cubao, to pay her respects.

Taking advantage of the encounter, I walked over to her pew, teasingly knelt in front of her and jestingly asked her “to please run for president.” At that time, the draft-Cory movement was still in its infancy. Her response, just as jesting, was a smiling rebuke: “You’re not my friend!”

But, of course, she did accept the draft in late 1985 and she did run for president in the snap elections of February 1986. And the rest, as they say, is history.

However, the results were not so clear cut. Despite the dramatic walk-out of its own computer programmers over alleged orders to fudge the numbers, the Comelec declared Ferdinand Marcos and Arturo Tolentino the official winners of the snap elections.

The slower, though more credible, tally of the citizens’ watchdog organization, the Namfrel, showed Cory winning by a slim majority over Marcos. But as the days dragged on, that slim margin became slimmer and slimmer.

With only 72 percent of the precincts accounted for, Namfrel abruptly terminated its tally, even as more results trickled in from the rural areas, traditionally the reliable bulwark of any administration.

Theoretically at least, with 28 percent of the (mainly) rural precincts still unheard from, even in the Namfrel count, it was possible that Marcos could have caught up with Cory and the tally could have ended in a statistical near-draw.

But all this became academic when Cory called her followers – mainly from the urban middle classes – to a mammoth rally in the Luneta, drawing an estimated two million supporters, and, supposedly on the recommendation of an American political adviser, unilaterally declared herself the winner.

Her self-declared victory found resonance among the urban middle classes, who were fed up with the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda, no matter what the actual vote counts may have been.

The subsequent military mutiny led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Constabulary Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, drew sustenance from the prevalent anti-Marcos sentiment, and was actually saved from being crushed by Marcos loyalists, by the timely intervention of People Power multitudes rallied by Jaime Cardinal Sin .

The urban middle classes, some of whom shake in their designer boots whenever the R word is mentioned, should be reminded that Cory Aquino was elevated to the presidency, not by the results of the snap elections, but by a revolutionary turn of events.

That nothing revolutionary transpired during the Cory years was not the fault of Cory Aquino, It was more the fault of her political advisers, famously numbering 50, who should have known better but gave her poor advice. Such as mixing pro-Communists and anti-Communists in her Cabinet.

The pro-Communists were able to convince her to release Communist supremo Joma Sison from detention, which angered the anti-Communist military and led to several military putsches against her.

The ingrate Joma Sison, instead of being thankful to her for his freedom, went on self-exile to the Netherlands and waged a campaign to bad-mouth Cory Aquino before Europe’s generally leftist media, thus destroying her chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, for which she had been nominated in 1988.

The moral of the story is: the next time we have a revolution, it should be ideologically homogenous and not try to please all stripes of political opinion because, if it does, it would just wind up displeasing everyone. This is so commonsensical, it is a wonder no one thought of it in 1986-88.

The historical role of Cory Aquino was to dismantle the Marcos dictatorship. In this she was eminently successful, and the nation owes her a debt of gratitude for it. To her credit, Cory never thought that she deserved another term and never lifted a finger to seek it. No wonder she radiates an inner peace and the joy of contentment. ***** (To be concluded)