The glory of democracy, in President Cory's words

(First of two parts)

So many have already written about former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who was laid to rest last Wednesday. I had already written my own tribute to her exceptional courage and equanimity amid seven coup attempts during her term, the fiercest one in 1989 with firepower in the streets of Makati. In the face of all these, there she was, the picture of superb poise, directing us, the relevant officials she had called to go to the presidential office with specific instructions.

She was absolutely in control! And when she delivered her last State of the Nation (SONA) address in 1991, she categorically stated that it was her last, and paid tribute to the “glory of democracy, that its most solemn moment should be the peaceful transfer of power.”

Printed here, because of the great value of this speech, is President Cory’s last SONA on July 22, 1991, when she said goodbye:

“In March 1973, six months after the declaration of martial law, Ninoy Aquino was taken blindfolded from Fort Bonifacio and brought to a place he did not know. He was stripped naked and thrown into a cell. His only human contact was a jailer. The immediate prospect, in such a place, was a midnight execution in front of a grave dug by himself.

“The purpose was as clear as it was diabolical. It was not to kill him yet, but to break him first — and with him break the compelling proof that men can stand up to a dictatorship. He came close to giving up, he told me; he slipped in and out of despair. But a power that must have been God held him together. He remembered the words of the epistle, ‘God chose the weak to confound the strong.’

“On the third anniversary of his incarceration in Laur, the recollection of his pain gave birth to a poem of hope. This is the poem he wrote: ‘I am the burning candle of my life in the dark with no one to benefit from the light. The candle slowly melts away; soon its wick will be burned out and the light is gone. If someone will only gather the melted wax, reshape it, give it a new wick — for another fleeting moment my candle can once again, light the dark, be of service one more time, and then … goodbye.’

“This is the anguish of good men: that the good they do will come to nothing. That pains suffered in obscurity or sacrifices made away from the sight of men, amount to the same, and mock the man or woman who bears them.

“Mr. Senate President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Congress, distinguished guests, my countrymen: That is not true. None of the good that we do is ever lost; not even the light in an empty room is wasted. From Ninoy’s burnt-out candle, and thousands like it in cells throughout the garrison state, we gathered the melted wax and made more candles. To burn — not as long in such loneliness — but much more brightly all together, as to banish the darkness, and light us to a new day.

“You might ask: When will the president stop invoking Ninoy’s name? My answer is, when a president stands here other than by Ninoy’s grace. And not while gratitude is nourished by memory. Not while we acknowledge that it was his sacrifice that gave us back our freedom. And restored the freely elected office whose incumbent must stand every year in this place.

“Five years have passed. My term is ending. And so is yours. As we came, so should we go. With grateful acknowledgment to the man who made it possible for us to be here. A man who discovered hope in the starkest despair, and has something yet to teach a country facing adversity again. It would be foolish to ignore what is staring us in the face: Our march of progress brought us far, but such misfortunes have come upon us to make us feel that we are not much farther from where we started. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo is the biggest in this century. Abroad, its effect is so far-reaching as to lower the temperature of the earth. At home, it is so devastating it knocked off 80,000 productive hectares from our agriculture, and destroyed the commerce of at least three provinces. It was an event so powerful it wiped out the largest military base in the Pacific, and changed the nature of our relationship with an old ally. In the wake of the volcanic eruption, more has been revealed about that relationship than was covered by its ash. But those natural calamities were preceded by another entirely the work of human hands: the massive December 1989 military revolt that cut short a second economic recovery, after the dislocation caused by the earlier August 1987 coup attempt. That one strangled the powerful rebound of the Philippine economy after the EDSA revolution.

“I mention these calamities not to excuse the perceived shortcomings of my administration nor to brag about my indestructibility. I mention them so that we know where we are, and why we are here, and the exact requirements of the task to build up this country yet again. I mention them because I will compare them with what we had and lost, and then I will ask, Was it all in vain? And I will answer, it was not; no more than a hero’s life is wasted.     

“By 1985, the economy had contracted considerably, its rate of growth had been negative for two consecutive years. The country was at a standstill, as if waiting only for the last rites to be performed. By 1986, we had turned the economy around — in less than a year. We improved on that performance the year after. The rate of unemployment was reduced, the volume of new investments significantly increased. New industrial projects were introduced, hitherto idle industrial capacity was fully utilized. The foundation of new regional industrial zones was laid. Public infrastructure and services strained under the load of expanding economic activity. I mention this not to offset the shortcomings of the present with the achievements of the past; I mention it to show what can be done in such a short time, and how much improvement was made from conditions far worse than what we have today — the dictator’s apologists notwithstanding, that the country is worse off now than when he and his wife were stealing the country blind.

“This progress was cut off by the August ’87 coup attempt. But the economy quickly rallied, and in two years recovered a great deal of the ground we had lost. We were on the verge of a second takeoff when the December 1989 coup broke out. It drained the last drop of confidence in our future from all but the hardiest spirits, and shattered our image abroad. Still we persevered, achieving gains that admittedly continue to fall short of the galloping needs of a fast-growing population, but real gains nonetheless: improved health care, increased housing, and — one of the proudest achievements we share with the legislature — free secondary education: 660,000 youth immediately availed themselves of it; another 200,000 private school students received scholarship grants under another recent law. 80,000 new classrooms have been built: the first preparation of the nation for the future of economic competition, which will take place in the highly educated minds of the youth.

“We have made the first serious effort to arrest environmental degradation — already so far advanced in the previous regime that it set up an agency that did nothing about it, anyway.

“But in one thing we grew from strength to strength — in the enlargement of our democratic space and the strengthening of our democracy. Every calamity tested the capacity of democracy to absorb distress, find relief, and meet the absolute necessities of the people without the least curtailment of freedom or compromise of rights. Against our economic gains that are ever hostages to fortune, stands one steadfast, unalloyed achievement: our democracy. Destined, I believe, to outlive our problems and deck with the graces of liberty the material progress of our future. That achievement is better seen from the disinterested distance of foreign admirers than from the myopic view of those at home who wish to destroy it. It is an achievement entirely in our power to preserve and enhance.

“Visitors from the new Germany asked me what things strengthen democracy. Economic progress, naturally, I said. But the attainment of that depends on external factors more than on the will of a developing country. But there is a way to strengthen democracy that is within any country’s reach: that is through the empowerment of the people. This is obvious to a government like ours that came to power by its means, as well as to a people like the Germans who attained complete freedom in the same way.” (To be continued)

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