Cory!!! Cory!!! Cory!!!

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE RAVAL

Cory!!! Cory!!! Cory!!!
Sunday, 07 12, 2009

This was the mantra and battlecry that we chanted 23 years ago as we sought to divert our senses from the numbing weight of injustice and focused our collective minds on the brave spirit of Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who was fighting an unbeatable foe who derided her as an ordinary housewife whose place should be in the bedroom and not in the barricades.

The ordinary housewife delivered big time, and in one brief shining moment, she delivered the nation from a dictator, sans bloodshed, sans violence and sans funereal dirge.

Today, at a time when the stage for the declaration of martial law is being incipiently set to prop up a virtual dictatorship, we long for that mantra to resound again. O how we wish we could see the lady in yellow leading the battle. But sadly the Cory of our affections is waging a battle of her own, which keeps her from waving that hand in defiance and flashing that smile which once assured us that everything would be all right.

It was once pointed out that when praise is bestowed during an infelicitous time and given tactlessly, it tends to wound the receiver’s heart as much as throw blame or assign responsibility for a grievous fault. So I harbor this fear of being thought of as maladroit and insensitive with this column. Or worse, as being a benighted singer of praises, inasmuch as others have been fulsome with them, out of a compulsory sense of political noblesse oblige. For, verily, it is often the baneful duty of public figures to be able to say something compassionate when a person of consequence suffers a reversal of health. And for the past weeks, we have seen an outpouring of sympathetic pity and concern for Cory in such a volume and degree that invited compassion fatigue or even distrust for the givers’ real motives.

Cory need not be pitied, or cried over for her present predicament. She is at peace with herself, sustained by that self-same spiritual courage and strength we all remember her for, which came shining through for all of us to behold since that infamous day in August 1983.

The end of her term as president — which she could have extended through the sheer force of the adulation and gratitude that the nation had for her — had not moved Cory to simply fade away. Whenever corruption, sleaze, vice and fraud reared their ugly heads, Cory did not fail to use her moral suasion on a citizenry that, ironically enough, too soon forgot that vigilance is the price of living in that brave new world that dawned on February 25, 1986, along that stretch of Epifanio de los Santos — the epiphany of saints, indeed!

Today, 23 years after that epiphany, our nation is once more being strangled by the repressive chokehold of a virtual dictatorship. But Cory has not lost that courage to confront danger, misfortune and injustice. Whether while yet at the crest of national adulation or much later in her failing health, which she prudently hid from us for as long as possible, Cory has continued to affirm to herself — and to the rest of us — that life with all its trials and tribulations is good; that everything is fraught with meaning even if, through some dark and devious machinations, others strive to pervert things beyond our understanding. And, above all, that there is always tomorrow.

In a sense, Cory’s illness draws attention to the malignancy that afflicts us: that an uncontrolled evil and degeneracy has engulfed the Social Contract between the governors and the governed, between us and them; and that nobody is willing to stamp out this social cancer, as long as the greed is kept to a moderate degree or does not directly invade our personal space. That it should be cancer — the killer that manifests itself only when it is already in its advanced stage — that afflicts Cory is a wake-up call to the nation: What ails us is the silence of those who should respond but do not, who choose to be cowed into a state of terrified and terrifying silence; and that the insidious and deadly malaise that afflicts us all is our indifference to those things which should trouble us, and our refusal to take positive and forceful action against the excesses of our governors.

It remains for time and circumstance, and God’s infinite mercy to grant how long Cory would be with us — to inspire us to dare to fight the unbeatable foe, as we did then; to rouse us to win, as we must do now. Never mind if we are foiled or bludgeoned along the way by the storm troopers of those presently holding the reins of power. As long as we are suffused by the courage of Cory, we, like her, shall not be reduced to a nation of moral cowards who allow themselves to be deceived and manipulated. Courage, after all, is going through one setback to the next, without losing hope and abandoning enthusiasm.

As a nation, we have been at this quandary since January 2001, suffering in silence, uncertain over what to do with the thieves in our midst. What we have to do now is to muster enough courage to reprise what we did a generation ago. Now that Cory is herself involved in a personal struggle, let that be a signal for everyone to carry on what Cory fought for. In her physical affliction, Cory remains undiminished before our eyes: a national heroine, an icon of courage, a beacon of hope, an anchor of deliverance. As Cory wages this one last fight of her life, let us allow her to inspire us all, that we may save ourselves from our nonchalant identities and be delivered again from a dictatorship.

For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph

The Daily Tribune © 2009