Who's your Tita?
I never thought I would care about it this much, but Cory Aquino’s passing left me teary-eyed, amazed and exhausted in pretty much that order. It’s a sense of loss that’s indirect but undeniably palpable. The goosebumps on my pale arms prove it.
Like most of you, I’ve only experienced Cory Aquino second-hand. My opinion of her was largely borrowed from faded images from my dad’s People Power coffee table books and news reports I half-paid attention to. Since I was a schoolboy in the single digits during the first EDSA revolution, I had no clue as to what she and her slain husband, Ninoy, stood for in the grander scheme of things. All I knew for certain was that she had a thing for yellow and that he wore grandpa-hipster glasses.
Every time people would share stories about the 1986 EDSA revolution, I would sit there letting my imagination go the way of a surreal film production, mixing sepia-colored tanks, soldiers, and nuns with the occasional Michael Crichton dinosaur. EDSA 2 was similarly vague as I was studying abroad when it broke out in 2001. After receiving e-mails from my brother — who was actually there and described it as a “party” — I Googled briefly; it looked like fun, but it wasn’t real for me. Meanwhile, I was here for this one, whatever it was and whatever it will be called in tomorrow’s textbooks.
An Upside-Down ‘Vanilla Sky’ Moment
In the office where I spend my weekdays, a leading British news organization, the vibe was a mash-up of somber and crazy the day Cory’s funeral cortege rolled into our neighborhood. As expected, there were requests from our Hong Kong and India desks to update the Cory Aquino slideshow on our site with fresh wire images; my co-workers prepped the pictures but I’d like to think that I was also part of that tribute, something that hopefully summed up the former president’s political legacy for a global readership.
What took me by surprise was the throng of nine-to-fivers who had gathered at the intersection of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas. It was lunchtime and the heat was brutal — were they high? Confetti swirled around, some taking flight like yellow-colored tumbleweed. It was an upside-down, inside-out Vanilla Sky moment. Clearly someone had emptied a paper shredder.
My view from our office washroom on the 42nd floor was perfect. All I had to do was look down and there she was: Cory Aquino in a coffin, baking in the sun as some dude with a bullhorn sang a song hardly anyone knew. As the same scene unspooled on our TV, I thanked the universe for my box seat to history in the making. I happen to live in the area where that pit stop took place, a short walk from the hospital where the beloved leader breathed her last.
An Epic PDA
When big things happen in my life — honestly, when anything (or nothing) happens in my life — I make a mad dash for the Internet. That Wednesday, however, was different. I tried to convince myself that I was too lazy to check my Tumblr dashboard, but in reality I thought that doing so — going about my routine, worrying about my plummeting Tumblarity — seemed unnecessary and crass in light of what was going on around me. Oddly enough, I took the time to step outside of myself in order to understand myself.
Friends who realized I wasn’t online contacted me the old-fashioned way: via text. In seconds, I was scrolling through messages expressing the same blend of bereavement and bewilderment at the series of events that had been taking place for four days now, from the massive lines at the wake in the La Salle gym to the requiem mass at the Manila Cathedral. Hordes escorted the final convoy despite the weird weather; the military people guarding Cory’s coffin on the moving truck hadn’t moved or gone to pee in over seven hours; Kris Aquino wore Chanel earrings. No one from my generation has ever seen a PDA of this magnitude. It was epic.
The ‘L’ Sign
Sharing my somewhat haphazard thoughts is the least I can do for the woman who made sharing somewhat haphazard thoughts, among other freedoms, possible. Not to be too melodramatic about it, but now I understand why many have come to fetishize Cory Aquino through their expression of public grief and subsequent show of love and support. Like Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, she stands for a variety of things and, to paraphrase a BBC discussion on the death of the King of Pop, the Cory Aquino you mourn depends on when you were born. Now the “L” sign means laban, not “loser.”
I guess I was moved the most by the fact that children had lost their mother, that grandkids were now one lola short. I put myself in their place and the thought made me sick. I marvel at how the Aquino and Cojuangco families can lead such open-book lives, especially at a time when they should be grieving privately amid relatives, friends, and tubs of ice cream.
A Pop Icon
I sincerely hope that the type of solidarity I saw these first few days of August is not fickle or fleeting. It’s easy to get swept away by a tide of emotion, more so when popular media leaves you no choice. Something pivotal just took place, kids, and I don’t think we’ll ever be the same. I think we’ll be better because of it but only if we keep our promise.
As far as I’m concerned, Cory Aquino’s pop icon status is totally in the bag. I can already imagine the Team Manila guys whipping up shirts with her likeness, this time in shutter shades. It’s heartbreaking that she’s gone, but I know her legacy will live on one way or another. As our nation exhales and springs back to life, that thought gives me so much hope and comfort.
