Remembering cool, calm Cory

MANILA, Philippines - In both her personal and political life, what stood out most about Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, the country's first woman president and widely regarded as a democarcy icon, was her calm demeanor.

When she first caught the public's eye, she was a grieving widow.

A popular story goes that when she and her kids arrived in the Philippines to go to the wake of her husband Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., she had to fight her way to the crowds in the wake. At one point, when it became impossible for her to reach the coffin of her husband, she had to excuse herself and tell everyone there that she was Ninoy's widow.

When she was urged by the people to run for the pesidency and go up against then dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a snap poll in 1986, it was said that she went on a retreat and prayed for wisdom.  She spent her time not with political allies and analysts, but with the Carmelite nuns.

Even the popular uprising that ousted the Marcoses from power and force them to flee the country was markedly peaceful. No gun was fired, no shot was heard.

Her administration faced seven coups, and it survived them all.

An article by The Independent quoted Voltaire Gazmin, then the personal chief security of Cory and now the Defense Secretary as saying: "I vividly remember the coup attempt of August 1987. I was out supervising the placement of armour around the palace when bursts of gunfire rang out. I rushed to the official residence and found the president and her family upstairs. I asked them to go downstairs and turn off all the lights, and instructed my guards to stand mattresses against the windows.

"I then made a head count and found one missing. I went back upstairs and noticed light coming through the open bathroom door. It was the president combing her hair."

When he begged Cory  to leave, she said that she had to be "presidentially presentable."

When she became private citizen Cirazon Aquino in 1992, she had to face a new set of heartbreaks.

Youngest daughter Kris Aquino had then embarked on a career in the entertainment industry and showbiz gossip and scandal would not be far.

In 1995, when she was just 23, Kris got pregnant by a much older action star - Philip Salvador, then 41 years old. Salvador then had three children with his wife and another child with a former partner.  Salvador was not yet then legally separated from his wife.

Cory, a devout Catholic, had asked then critics to stop condemning her daughter. She also asked for "prayers" for Kris during a national convention of single parents.

Kris' colorful lovelife  would not end with Salvador.

In 2003, she also got involved with politician-comedian Joey Marquez, who was married to but separated from Alma Moreno.

A violent tiff between the two led Kris to a tell-all interview on national television, baring that Marquez gave her a sexually trasmitted disease and that he pointed a gun at her.

Through all the ordeal, Cory kept quiet and appeared only on TV to embrace her daughter.

Finally in 2005, Kris married professional basketball player James Yap. It was not long after, however, when the marriage hit a rough patch.

Kris accused James of cheating on her with a receptionist at a Belo Medical Clinic.  It is said that Cory had prayed for and intervened so the couple could get back together. They did, but would eventually call it quits.

In 2008, the Aquino family announced that Cory had colon cancer.
The announcement came as a surprise as Cory was then active  in joining rallies and attending masses in support of NBN-ZTE scam witness Jun Lozada.

In a television interview with Jessica Soho on September 23, 2008, Cory said she was leaving her fate up to God.

"While you;re in this world, I mean, like Jesus Christ showed us until the very end, until he died, he was forever suffering.  Eh Diyos iyon eh. And who are we to complain? But luckily, when things were going very bad during Martial Law and I would think na, “‘Pag meron pang nangyaring isang masama o masakit, ay talagang hindi ko na siguro kakayanin." Tapos then something will happen, and even if I just have a week of relative peace, you felt re-energized and think, 'Ah pwede pa pala.'

So that’s how I feel now. Of course, who wants to get sick? Pero if that’s my fate, so be it. And so many people have been so helpful atsaka I don’t want to live for such a long time. Sabi ko nga, '75 na ako, tama na iyon.' Ninoy was only 50 but everything is just up to God," she said.

At 3:18 a.m. of August 1, Cory breathed her last while confined at the Makati Medical Center.

Like in life, Cory, according to statement then read by Noynoy, "peacefully" faced her death.