Arroyo did right in visiting the wake

People can say what they want. But in the end, the visit by President Arroyo to the wake of former president Corazon Aquino — no matter how brief and unwelcome, if we are to take it from Kris Aquino — was the right thing to do.

First, both Arroyo and Aquino are devout Catholics. And whether or not you sneer at the “devoutness” of Arroyo’s Catholicism, the fact remains that it is a matter between Arroyo and God and we are not the appropriate judges for that.

As Catholics, we are obliged to offer prayers for the dead. It is our belief that prayers can help anyone, including presidents, gain forgiveness and attain holiness befitting acceptance to heaven.

This is the very reason why, in times of death, we solicit the prayers of anyone, including those we do not even know, to be said on behalf of a dead person. Prayers help, and it is not within our right or authority to make distinctions from whence they come.

Second, both Arroyo and Aquino are presidents. As a matter of right, courtesy and protocol, it is demanded of Arroyo to at least show up at the wake of Aquino. It is not the person of Arroyo that demands her welcome at the wake but the sanctity of her office.

Arroyo may be accused of having defiled that sanctity, but in the course of performing an official engagement in accordance with an official demand on such an office, what defilement there may be perceived has to be set aside.

True sanctity is inviolate, hence the continued strength of the presidency as an office. If a presidency can be defiled by an occupant, there would have been no more aspirants seeking to occupy it. But our nation continues to submit to it. The honor is untarnished.

Third, Arroyo and Aquino are Filipinos. We may fight and we may work for the downfall of one another. But death casts a very profound mantle over Filipinos. It is something that affects us with no frivolity. We go to great lengths to deal with it.

And one way of dealing with death in the culture of Filipinos is to pay respects for the dead, no matter who they are, or how casual it may come across our consciousness. Respect for the dead transcends the most powerful of our passions.

If even drivers who meet funeral processions on the road even take time to slow down, turn down the volume of the car radio, honk their horns, or throw coins while passing, certainly we cannot begrudge one president paying her respects to another.

To criticize Arroyo for doing what she in her entirety as a person was required to do is to be unkind, unreasonable and unChristian and we can only hope the vileness of your mind and your tongue will not come back to haunt you later on.

Part of the vileness of our thoughts and words were probably stoked by Kris Aquino herself, whose personality and grief combined in a lethal mix that is quick and easy to exploit by those who have no qualms pursuing a political agenda even in the midst of mourning.

Just take a look at the coverage of Cory’s death by one television network. There is far more air time devoted to Kris Aquino than a real, honest-to-goodness obituary about her mother in the form of an in-depth autobiography and history.

To those pushing a political agenda, it is far more effective to pursue their interests by latching on to the passions of the moment, stoking up the emotions by way of dramatics, rather than affording the public a more sober and informative grip of what we truly lost.

We have lost Cory but who do we get? Kris Aquino? For God’s sake, the death of Cory afforded us a rare second shot at redeeming ourselves. Don’t tell me we are about to make the same mistake again? If we cannot be kind, at least let us not be stupid.