Here's praying for Tita Cory

Of all places, I found myself saying a prayer for you in Araneta Coliseum while watching the concert of Duran Duran last Thursday. After all, both of you rose to international fame in the ’80s. When Simon Le Bon started singing “Save a Prayer,” I whispered to my three college friends beside me to say a prayer for you, too — for your speedy recovery, for you to be spared from pain. I jumped for joy as I listened to the song, imagining that the almost jam-packed coliseum was also praying for you.

Truth is, I have always been praying for your welfare ever since I learned about your cancer. How I cried when Noynoy and Kris confirmed on nationwide TV what I first heard in the STAR news desk early afternoon of March 24.  I rushed to the washroom so no one would see me cry in the office.  Inside the toilet cubicle, in between silenced tears, I managed to text my nieces and nephews, my constant conduits in prayer brigade, to fervently pray for you. They have not stopped saying a prayer for you since.

Why did I cry? Why do people cry for someone they don’t even know personally? I cried because I felt for the icon of my political awakening — you were the mother who, by virtue of what you did for our country, taught me to understand what democracy was all about. Even without us knowing each other personally — and I ask for your understanding with my temerity in calling you Tita — I have always regarded you as my mother in more ways than one. And here’s a son saying a prayer for you. And like the million others who do the same, I have this fervent belief that God acts fast on our pleas. 

I was only 10 months old when martial law was declared; 11 years old when your husband Ninoy was assassinated; and 14 when the late strongman called for a snap election. If only I could vote then, I would surely write your name on my ballot. But my parents and my other relatives did.

Life in my little and sleepy barrio in Laguna went on with the heat of the presidential campaign slightly felt. We had no TV yet then but our transistor radio was always on.  It was the same radio that my parents would bring to the rice field. (I remember having to place two big Eveready batteries under the sun hoping that doing so would charge them longer). In the farm, my parents would wear identical yellow long-sleeved shirts made of polyester with “Sobra na, Tama na, Palitan na” slogan. Those shirts of theirs would naturally be smudged with mud at the end of the day but mother would always find time washing them. At least twice a week I would see my parents wear those shirts to the field. By the time those yellow shirts faded to white with constant washing and the slogan almost wiped out, the tenant in Malacañang was also expunged like the dirt in my parents’ shirts after a hard day’s work in the field.

It was at the height of the presidential campaign that I understood brilliantly the meaning of charisma. All I had to do was to watch you in our neighbor’s television and you would simply become charisma personified-with the mammoth crowd surrounding you, listening intently to whatever you would say. That gave birth to my being drawn to what they called then the Cory magic. 

When People Power ended on Feb. 25, 1986, my parents declared a holiday from working in the field. I felt I also won. Indeed we all won!

Since then, I have become a silent fan. The rallies, marches and demonstrations against Marcos from 1983 to 1986 that I heard or saw in the news escorted me on my way to being politically aware.  You were at the center of this awakening. And I feel, I owed it all to you.

 You were installed into power via a bloodless revolt that the rest of the world will remember. And for the democracy you restored for me and the rest of the Filipino people — a prayer every day, anywhere, anytime is all that a stranger son like me can offer you.

“Don’t say a prayer for me now, save it ‘til the morning after. No, don’t say a prayer for me now, save it ‘til the morning after,” Simon le Bon sang at the concert. But I was stubborn. I said a prayer for you right there, right away. But still, I saved a prayer for you for the morning after. Praying for your health has become part of the order of my day. I just said one as I ended this.

(Thank you for all your mails. Will answer them all soon. For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com. You may also snail mail me at The Philippine Star, c/o Allure Section, R. Oca cor. Railroad Streets, Port Area, Manila. Have a blessed Sunday!)