Judging Cory

“Judging Cory”

As former president Cory Aquino fights her last battle in life, the nation watches. The role that she has played in shaping the post-Marcos era is taking added significance as the nation anticipates the ending of the Arroyo regime. People who are grateful for her contributions to the nation’s life gathered in churches even as angry protesters gathered in the streets against GMA.

Cory’s place in our history needs to be framed against the backdrop of the unique political circumstance that catapulted her to the highest office. It must also be seen in the light of her personal life as a woman who was bred in the feudal culture of the landed gentry and as a wife of a charismatic opposition politician. Acclaimed president by fiat of people power, she ruled from her court in Malacaňang but with the mind and will of a Corazon Cojoangco Aquino. As a natural-born Cojoanco and a Mrs. Aquino, Cory took upon herself the daunting task of putting together the pieces of a shattered nation.

As president of what amounts to a revolutionary government, Cory Aquino was expected to impose her will on a nation that was suddenly bereft of a strong-man leader. A revolutionary presidency had to be imperious and resolute in following through the objectives of the revolution. It took a nation-wide political upheaval to drive Marcos out of the country, but the storm that was EDSA 1 generated another storm that threatened an even wider swath of destruction. The disenfranchised faction of the elite wanted their privileges back even as the militant poor who bore the brunt of the struggle were pressing to collect the promise of social liberation. On the one end were democrats who were pushing the gates of democracy wide open; on the other end were mutinous officers of a politicized military who had tasted the wine of power and didn’t want to give it up. And then there was the powerful Catholic Church that saw in her an opportunity to regain its moral sway.

These were powerful contending forces over which the revolutionary president must prevail. Cory was not totally unfamiliar with them. After all, she grew up in Central Luzon, the hotbed of peasant uprisings and the heart of the communist insurgency. She had seen how her family managed to preserve and expand its landholdings against restive militant tenants. She was there with her husband throughout his political career and individual struggle against Marcos. Like the proverbial driver who knows all the family secrets, Cory heard it all and bore it all silently in her heart. But she was not a Ninoy Aquino, nor the dominant male patriarch of the Cojoangco clan. Raised to become a devout Catholic, she cast herself in the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the epitome of non-power. She had an intimation of God’s plan of salvation through her son but she chose to be quiet and kept her son’s suffering in her heart. The “fighting” Mary of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-54) seems to be an aberration in the piety of Marian devotees that is best ignored. Mary the mother of Jesus is the patron saint of those who suffer from incurable diseases and unchangeable circumstances. Mary is the paragon of the virtue of patient suffering and submission to God’s will.

The way Cory responded to the challenges and waves of crises that hit her regime would make sense given that self-understanding. Governing with an imperious will was totally out of her character. After what happened to her husband, she was beyond fear of the military but she refrained from commanding them like Marcos did. She trusted the few democrats in her cabinet more than those put there by the come-backing elites, but she allowed their democratic and social agenda to be set aside by the contingencies of political survival.

Cory watched and suffered as the dreams of the original EDSA collapsed during her watch. Like Mary, she surrendered to God her fate and the fate of the nation. But she has no regrets. She has been true to her calling to the very end. She is leaving it to God and the Filipino people to judge her.
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Rev. Everett Mendoza, D. Theol.