mother to us

Ninoy staked his life for every Filipino. Thus he remarked, “The Filipino is worth dying for”. The nation mourned for his passing and his burial gathered the majority (if not the whole) of the citizenry to a caravan toward his final destination. He left a family bereft of a pillar but he made sure that its light will help the country prosper in a way or another. His demise brought us to our knees; however he left us with a legacy that we thought would never flicker and help us bounce back. He went and paved the way for his widow, Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino who would later became a Philippine president.

Cory was an icon to most of us. However frail she may have appeared for her political foes, she faced them with an untarnished adherence to the duty we entrusted to her. A series of attempts to topple her out of her office were a crucible of endurance that few of us may see as heroism and martyrdom. But to my juvenile way of thinking, Cory was not an icon, neither was she a heroine; she is simply a mother who provided us an ocean of chances that we failed to discern as a gift but rather an act of intervention.

We sought democracy through her. We enjoy living our lives today free from any harm which she outdid in the past. We joined the herds of people walking in and out of Churches to devote a minute or two for her recovery and because of that her coping up was seen. She spent some time in the hospital notwithstanding her eagerness to inspire people, to become a mother once more. Despite her efforts to move us from the pit of indifference, she still failed, otherwise, we failed her.

Our eternal flame, as what Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc described of her, has already made her part for our development. Now that she’s gone (in physical sense), it’s never a crime to follow the trail she has given us to continue what she has started from the day she entered into our lives until the final day of her physical existence. Perhaps, she would feel rewarded if we ditto what she has done for the Filipinos.

She, being a perpetual source of inspiration for us, will live forever, for as long as democracy is imperiled, for as long as there is injustice and tyranny, the glimpse of light Cory endowed us will shine through and through.

I will give the amount of love and affection I render for my own mother to a stranger who made my existence worth living for.

In behalf of all Filipinos worldwide, “Cory Aquino, Dakila Ka!”