E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Tessie Aquino-Oreta sans the dance
Sunday, 04 22, 2007
On the night before the stealthy dawn proclamation of the “Garcified” winners in the May 2004 presidential elections, the leaders of the opposition were huddled in the house of Tessie Aquino-Oreta at Urdaneta Village in Makati City. On top of the agenda was the matter of adopting an appropriate response to the abominable “Noted” proceedings in the National Board of Canvassers.
Everyone around the table wanted to mount another people power revolt. From my count, when the vote was taken, only four went against that idea. One of them was Tessie, and another was the late Fernando Poe Jr. A believer in the rule of law, FPJ shot down the idea of taking to the streets, and calmly insisted that the legal remedies have to be pursued for him and Loren Legarda. FPJ’s edgy calm was reinforced by Tessie’s objections to the group’s plan, and I can recall exactly her words in that meeting, delivered with so much emotion: “Huwag na. Kung galit at galit din lang ang itutumbas natin sa pandaraya, anong mapapala ng bayan natin? ’Yung galit natin noong Edsa II nagbunga lamang ng karahasan sa magkabilang panig. Ilan ang namatay! May handa bang mamatay sa atin? Sundin na lang natin ang batas. Si Ronnie at Loren naman ay nakahandang dumaan sa proseso.”
That was a defining moment for Tessie.
Today I can very well understand her decision to join Team Unity (TU) after she was shunted out of the Opposition slate when she, among other things, refused to sign a manifesto whose main agenda is to pursue another round of impeachment against the sitting President, while the grounds for such impeachment have yet to be identified.
One of the hardest decisions made by Tessie was her joining TU after having been identified with the Opposition for a long time, particularly with her friend and longtime ally Joseph Estrada. Tessie is painfully aware that a great number of people find it hard to accept her sudden change of heart when she joined the Administration ticket, and misinterpret it as a sign of abandonment of her earlier political beliefs. But it is the farthest from the truth, as Tessie insists she could not allow the country to be laid to waste just because some of the country’s leaders would not give up their personal hatred.
The youngest sister of the slain Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. says her political beliefs were molded by her experience as a young wife during the martial law years when her husband Len and Ninoy were arrested and thrown to jail. Tessie and the Aquino clan fought for political freedom during those dark days of the dictatorship, and this selfsame freedom is what guided her as she rose from congressman representing Malabon-Navotas to become a senator in 1998.
The return of democracy in 1986 after the Edsa revolt showed Tessie that unity is vital to the nation’s success. Without the millions who with a united heart and mind shielded Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos and their military supporters from the Marcos tanks and troops who were moving in for the kill, Edsa would have turned out to be a wholesale massacre, a bloody killing field. God knows where we could be now if disunity and discord were absent at Edsa.
Tessie insists that she did not abandon Estrada nor is she taking advantage of the Administration’s resources. Rather, she who was closest to Estrada had to leave the Opposition because she — together with Greg Honasan, Tito Sotto and Ed Angara — was being eased out to accommodate other candidates. Also, she did not relish the nasty prospect of having to sign a commitment to pursue a presidential impeachment once voted into office.
Her unwavering belief in the importance of education in nation-building made her decide to return to the Senate under the Administration ticket. She could not, she says, pursue her plans to modernize the country’s educational system under a politics of hate that has defined the Opposition’s political strategy in the past few years.
Hate is a poison that consumes, and that is what Tessie may have avoided when she joined TU. As one writer noted, inasmuch as she is no longer looking into the eyes of her adversary, she will avoid becoming that which she was against.
The tears that came unbidden in her latest TV infomercial rose out of an inner sadness that is the wellspring of her contrition for that infamous “dancing queen” incident. She went through a personal calvary every time that scene was replayed on television. Each frame, unfolding in painful, accusatory slow-motion over and over again, cut a deep gash into her soul and left her scarred for a long, long time. Tessie’s close friends would later take notice that she sank into a blue funk after that nationwide exposure — and chastisement. She turned to God and religion for a deeper understanding of her situation.
Tessie now feels she is no longer the person that the media had painted her since that incident. She says the TV ad was not meant to boost her ranking in surveys, but rather to show the public how she really felt about the issue.
It’s time to give Tessie a break and return her to the Senate. Tessie had been a good legislator, pushing education reforms on top of her agenda during her terms as congressman, and later on as senator. At this time, when our nation’s future depends on making world-class citizens, a modern educational system is what we need.
And Tessie is the one we need in the Senate if we want this to happen.
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