The privilege of knowing Cory

(This is an update of a previous essay written when the late Mrs. Aquino was still in the hospital.) What I will remember most about Cory Aquino was her refusal to be categorized, managed, directed. Anyone who has come close easily recognizes that this woman was headstrong – although that was not my impression when I first met her in 1972. She was then housewife to a strong personality, the flamboyant Senator from Tarlac, Ninoy Aquino, who was poised to challenge the hold of Ferdinand Marcos on the presidency. I was assigned by my editor at the Manila Chronicle to write about future first ladies and of course, first on my list was Ninoy’s wife. So private was she, I didn’t even know her first name. She was the perfect housewife—supportive, devoted, non-competitive. “Whatever Ninoy wants," she would say over and over again. She was so good, so apparently submissive, to the point of being rather uninteresting. But I liked her instantly. She was warm, chatty. We exchanged notes about raising a toddler -- her Kris and my Monica. And the day the article appeared, she sent me a sans rival cake from Q Bake on Quezon Boulevard, with a proper note in her convent school handwriting about how much Ninoy loved my article. The author with former president Aquino at an Aurora Quezon Peace Award ceremony in the 1990s, year uncertain. I met her again in Boston some ten years later when Ninoy brought a group of us home to see Cory and have some coffee after lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Still the sweet quiet woman I met before, she served us coffee and watched from the sidelines as her man regaled us with a typical bravura performance. It was a different Cory Aquino who returned to Manila in August of 1983, to bury her slain husband. Although she looked fragile, she was grim, determined, headstrong. The widow in black spoke only a few words, but they were pointed and they hit the mark. She quickly put Marcos on the defensive as she accused him and his regime of murdering her husband. She was dubbed the symbol of protest but it was not easy to get her to attend just any event. She chose which ones she would grace. She had a special place in her heart for the families of political detainees. In remember she once came to an overnight protest fast by families of detainees in Plaza Roma. And once she went to Bicutan to visit the detainees, not discriminating between alleged communists and non-communists, to the dismay of some of the more pious ones. And she insisted on her own rules. I recall that she would not allow marches to stop at Mendiola Bridge. We could pass by it, on our way to Plaza Lawton, but we could not stop. When Cory was part of a mass action, it would be disciplined. When it was clear that no one could lead the opposition ticket more effectively than she, Cory demanded a million signatures before consenting to run. And when she got it, she did not look back. Not even to wait for the politicians who tried to run her campaign the traditional way. I covered her campaign, and was once privileged to ride with her in her car. “What are you doing here?" I heard her ask a provincial leader who was seated in the front seat as she moved from rally to rally in Manila. “Shouldn’t you be in your province, campaigning?" Then I saw her roll her eyes upward accompanied by a twist of her mouth – an expression we would become familiar with when she became president. She was tireless on the campaign trail telling her story over and over again to big and small crowds in the country’s towns and cities. In Baguio, over the Christmas holidays, asthma and fatigue did not stop her from delivering her speeches in her measured monotone .Invariably, the crowds wept as she spoke of Ninoy’s imprisonment, their brief sojourn in the US, and his tragic homecoming on August 21, 1983. In Cebu, the evening that EDSA 1 began, I heard her speak calmly on the phone with her once and future adversary – Johnny Ponce Enrile – and ending the conversation with, “I’ll pray for you." Later, as president, the public and her allies would realize how headstrong she was. At the suggestion that because of her inexperience she should just be a figurehead and allow the professionals to run government, she asserted that she WAS the elected president. And when rebellious RAM officers tried to label her the “Mother of the Nation", she replied icily, “I am Commander in Chief." Cory was no longer Ninoy’s submissive wife. She was president of the Republic, and she didn’t let anyone forget it.. She would be no pushover, as her political challengers and the rebellious military would find out. Although she would run the government erratically, sometimes like a roller coaster ride, she landed us safely at the end of her term, handing over the reins to her successor – not without a sense of relief, and with a great sense of having accomplished her mission to restore our democracy. Cory Aquino on the left visiting political detainees at a martial-law era detention center in Bicutan, between 1983 and 1985, year uncertain. Detainee Ed Olaguer is the man with glasses. Nobody thought she would survive her term but she would prove all her critics wrong, defying even Ninoy’s prediction that anyone who succeeded Marcos would not last six months. I went to work for Cory in 1995, after I retired from the Commission on Human Rights, where she had placed me in 1990, telling me to put my money where my mouth was. That appointment placed me on the track of human rights, peace and development, which I continue to pursue to this day. In 1995, the task at hand was to package and manage her as a former president, and ensure her continued relevance. What do former presidents do? We found inspiration in Jimmy Carter who had set up the Carter Center and became a forceful advocate of human rights. But Cory refused to be managed, much less packaged. No one could tell her what to do. What she wanted was to retire from politics and move people power up another level – to service to country and people. After a number of tentative initiatives, she finally found her niche in promoting micro-finance. However, she could not keep away from politics. Even after she had sworn it off saying she had already done more than her share, she felt duty bound to speak her mind and sometimes to make public appearances, some of which befuddled her adoring faithful. It was confusing and upsetting to many from the EDSA crowd to see her marching with traditional politicians of various stripes, with whom she was now united against President Arroyo. But she could not be silenced. I didn’t always agree with Cory politically. Her choice of Fred Lim as a presidential candidate drove me up the wall and when she asked me why, I told her so. Like many others, I didn’t think she should have allowed herself to be aligned with some really sleazy politicos. But being her headstrong self, there is no telling Cory Aquino what to do or not to do. Cory, the politician, is one of our last public images of her, calling for the resignation of President Arroyo. Imperfect as her she was, you just had to admire the public Cory Aquino. But I have much more pleasant experiences of her as a mere mortal, the ordinary yet special person I got to know up close. As one of her post-presidency speechwriters, I was privileged to spend quality time with her in her office or over lunch to discuss her ideas. The meetings were long and cordial and laced with chocolates. And invariably, we would end up discussing politics, reminiscing about the past or talking about common friends – just being ourselves. She would end the conversation, sometimes abruptly, but always with a warm “Thank You", a twinkle in her eyes, and an offer to take the rest of the chocolates home. She would call to thank me for a speech she especially liked. And she would always greet me on my birthday. When she called, it gave me great pleasure to say out loud to impress my family and friends, “Oh, thank you, Mrs. President!" Until she fell ill, there would be text messages expressing gratitude for small things. When my daughter Monica got married, I had nothing to do with the guest list so very few of my friends were invited and Cory Aquino was not in her list. Well, a month after the wedding, I was asked to drop by Cory’s office to pick up a present for my newly-wed: a set of genuine silverware for 12! I don’t know how she knew. President Cory Aquino with the Paredes Sicam extended family after Paulynn Sicam’s oath-taking as human rights commissioner in December 1990. The author is on President Aquino's right. An enduring memory is a dinner for visiting Czech president Vaclav Havel that Cory was hosting. I had heard about it and, thinking it would be a big affair, asked to be invited. Cory obliged. When I got there, I saw one large table set for 12, with the Czechs seated on one side and us on the other! I braved it, taking my seat at the end of the row and looking at my seatmate for signals on how to comport myself. In the course of the evening, Cory and Havel were doing small talk when, finding an opening, I asked President Havel a question about his writing, which he answered graciously. Cory looked at me, nodded and smiled. At the end of the evening, after President Havel had left, Miguel Perez Rubio, who had been Cory’s protocol officer in Malacanang, sidled up to me and said that he held his breath when I spoke, since I had committed a major breach of protocol! To which Cory replied, “Don’t worry about it, Meiling. President Havel was charmed." What’s not to love about Cory Aquino? One of the last times I saw Cory was at the Cojuangco home in Dasmarinas in 2009. I had attended the mass in Don Bosco Church commemorating Ninoy’s 25th death anniversary and was invited by her daughter Viel Dee to join the family and close friends for lunch. It was an offer I could not refuse. Although she was not allowed to shake hands or kiss anyone, Cory was gracious, solicitous, warm. It was a happy reunion of old friends, former cabinet members, and hangers-on like myself. There were also politicians but they sat at a separate table, away from us ordinary folk. As I was leaving, Cory thanked me for contributing to her grandson Jiggy’s book project popularizing the memory of his grandfather. I rode home from Dasma in tears. I have always been happy to do anything for Cory Aquino. She was one of the kindest and most thoughtful persons I have ever known. It was an honor journeying with her, serving her and counting her as a friend. I saw her again early this year at the US Embassy luncheon for the 2009 Ninoy Aquino Fellows. She had texted me the day before thanking me for the short speech I had written for her to deliver at the event – an annual task I learned to look forward to. “I am feeling much better these days and my voice is also louder," she wrote. “I pray I will be at my best on Thursday. God Bless!" President Cory looked frail. She could not walk unattended. But she braved it, going on stage to hand over the awards and delivering her speech. Then she stayed on to socialize, sitting at her table where people went to greet her. When I went to pay my respects, she again thanked me with her warm smile and that twinkle in her eye. I knew then that it would be the last time I would be in her presence. On my birthday last July 6, as we were storming heaven for healing for the ailing president, I received a text from Cory’s daughter Ballsy that read: “Hi Meiling! Am with Mom in the hospital and we want to wish you a very happy birthday! She said sorry she can’t text." Upon reading it, I broke down. Such thoughtfulness from a woman in deep pain! After my mother died in 1997, Cory gave me the book, “Whispers of Love" about experiencing the presence of loved ones after their death. I know one thing, Cory Aquino will be ever present to me. Like my mother, Cory lives in my heart.