As any respectable Filipino should know, former president Cory Aquino died of cardiorespiratory arrest after complications of her colon cancer at the age of 76 on August 1, 2009, 3:18 a.m., at the Makati Medical Center. No other woman has been as symolic, as influential as our late former president. The week following her death has been one of the most tragic and heartbeaking in Philippine history.
The fifth of August has been accorded the honor of being a special non-working holiday in honor of President Cory's funeral. I woke up on that rainy Wednesday morning with my father watching a live coverage of the requiem mass in her honor. It was then that her death became so real, and for a few hours I was overcome with grief, touched by how much Filipinos love her, where he memory is reserved a special place in each of Filipino people's hearts. On the way to the dormitory that afternoon, we met her convoy, already on their sixth hour on the road, near the junction where the Skyway and the expressway meet. A few dozen people carrying a banner for her ran to meet the convoy, chanting "Cory! Cory!" with the thousands of people lining her way, over the din of the clanging bells symbolizing the arrival of her wake. There amidst the hundreds of "L"s being waved, lies our late former president, adorned with yellow flowers with four guard standing over for her protection. It would take a hundred lifetimes to forget such experience.
President Cory Aquino is remembered not as the most efficient president of the still-young Republic of the Philippines, but as the most honest, the most righteous. She is remembered for her strength and courage, fighting against twenty years of authoritarian rule that has changed the course of Philippine history. But most of all, she is a beacon of democracy and human rights, showing the Filipinos the way, a candle amidst the darkness where suppression of the freedom of speech, though underground, still exists and takes the form of murder of several influential journalists. As our English teacher puts it
The fifth of August has been accorded the honor of being a special non-working holiday in honor of President Cory's funeral. I woke up on that rainy Wednesday morning with my father watching a live coverage of the requiem mass in her honor. It was then that her death became so real, and for a few hours I was overcome with grief, touched by how much Filipinos love her, where he memory is reserved a special place in each of Filipino people's hearts. On the way to the dormitory that afternoon, we met her convoy, already on their sixth hour on the road, near the junction where the Skyway and the expressway meet. A few dozen people carrying a banner for her ran to meet the convoy, chanting "Cory! Cory!" with the thousands of people lining her way, over the din of the clanging bells symbolizing the arrival of her wake. There amidst the hundreds of "L"s being waved, lies our late former president, adorned with yellow flowers with four guard standing over for her protection. It would take a hundred lifetimes to forget such experience.
President Cory Aquino is remembered not as the most efficient president of the still-young Republic of the Philippines, but as the most honest, the most righteous. She is remembered for her strength and courage, fighting against twenty years of authoritarian rule that has changed the course of Philippine history. But most of all, she is a beacon of democracy and human rights, showing the Filipinos the way, a candle amidst the darkness where suppression of the freedom of speech, though underground, still exists and takes the form of murder of several influential journalists. As our English teacher puts it
Ninoy Aquino once said, "The Filipino is worth dying for." Well, Cory stayed a while longer to prove that the Filipinos are also worth living for.And so, to our late President, I give a final salute. Her memory will always be remembered in books, in words and in the hearts of everyone in our freedom-loving nation. It was President Cory, the unwilling president, that has carved the biggest chunk in Philippine history. President Cory has become immortalized by the love she has received from her people.
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