The Politics of Dying

I write this while listening to a rebroadcast of the memorial services for the late Philippine President Corazon Aquino shortly before her internment. The glowing platitudes and expressions of love from, among others, close political friends and allies, reverberated inside the Manila Cathedral. Now, “Madame Cory” belongs to history and whether or not she liked being referred to as one, she was a Filipino politician – a creature of Philippine politics – through and through.

From the moment of her death, I have advocated in this blog the view that former President Aquino’s death be not politicized, or taken advantage of, by her political allies to advance their adversarial cause against the current administration, at least, during the first few days of her family’s bereavement up until her burial. It appears, however, that while politics may be removed temporarily from death as an event, one cannot remove politics from politicians at any time, in any occasion.

Now that “Tita Cory” has been laid to her final resting place, let me join those who have been insisting, in words and deed, to “let’s talk politics”. Ms. Aquino was “reluctantly” catapulted to the presidency largely as a result of what appeared to be a tragic politically – motivated murder of her husband Benigno. Mr. Aquino himself came home from self-exile in the U.S.A. for the stated purpose of trying to convince Marcos to have a kind of modus vivendi with him, a sort of shared leadership with Marcos still at the helm, to save the country from the communists who were getting stronger day by day. Mr. Aquino was, evidently, not prepared to die. He had a large retinue of foreign journalists with him, including his brother-in-law Ken Kashiwahara of ABC tv network. He made sure he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, “just in case”, although he expressed a concern that it would not be of help if he was shot in the head.. For his part, Marcos (in the words of his wife, Imelda) was said to be worried of alleged report that the subversives were conspiring to kill Ninoy upon arrival so that the people would turn against the dictator and make the country ripe for the picking. To this day, the nation is still in the dark as to who ordered the killing of Ninoy.

As everybody knows, Mrs. Aquino’s presidency was not at all hanky dory. The country never recovered economically during her watch. Her government remained infested by marcosian collaborators, dispossessed trapos of the old order, extremists from both sides of the ideological spectrum, and most of all, traditional rent-seekers and other elites of the society. Her political base was not exactly masa, i.e., D.E. class, but predominantly A-B, the wealthy and educated ilustrados. She was credited with the adoption of the much-criticized, much-maligned 1987 Constitution that is being blamed by its detractors for the current problems the country has suffered and is still facing.

When the former president Cory Aquino joined the chorus for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation in 2005, she evidently misread the mood of the people. This writer believes that Mrs Aquino was laboring under a mistaken belief that she had sufficient political following to sway a million or more people to the cause of PGMA’s ouster. The events that repeatedly transpired must have caused her heart-breaking disappointments, and a realization that even her best efforts could not lead to a duplication of Edsa 1 and Edsa 2. This was later confirmed when she decided to march and lend her name to the Jun Lozada crusade of some religious activists at De La Salle University.

In various threads here at FV, I have commented on the seeming failure of the late former president to effect a reconciliation, or exercise the absolute and unilateral power to forgive, vis a vis President Macapagal-Arroyo. Reacting to reports of what Ms. Aquino’s children, Noynoy and Kris, said in connection with PGMA’s planned attendance at the wake and the holding of a state funeral, I speculated that the children’s attitude were a reflection of the deceased’s frame of mind up to her dying moments – which they were just giving effect to. I don’t know what monumental affront the President has committed against the former president personally and her family. All I can say with sadness is that, considering that both of them are devout catholic and are always surrounded by priests and bishops in all their daily life, it’s lamentable that, apparently, they would not find it in their heart to forgive one another and reconcile in peace while both of them could still do it.

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