Friends

During Cory Aquino’s long hospital stay, Joseph Estrada frequently sent her food.

She might not have been able to enjoy them, given her dwindling appetite and frail condition. But she must have surely appreciated the gesture.

Among Filipinos, sending gifts of food is a most civilized gesture. It communicates warmth and caring. And profound friendship.

No one turns away food sent over — even when there is too much of it. Turning away food is simply not done. It is bad form to turn away gifts of food. Besides, the delicacies can always be shared with others.

Joseph Estrada loves food. We know that. He will eat anything with everyone, no matter how simple the fare or how downtrodden those who partake of it. When the stuff on the table is really good, he will eat with his hands.

But, more important, he understands the great cultural significance of sharing food. It is a ritual sharing of a meal or, in other cultures, the breaking of the bread. A bond grows among those who partake of a meal.

Cory is well in touch with cultural significances as well. She could not have missed the meaning of the gesture from the man she helped depose.

Once, Estrada went through the hospital basement for a quiet visit to the ailing Cory. We are not sure what they talked about and how lucid she was during that session. But it must have been an intimate, and solemn, encounter.

We might never know the details of this most understated of meetings between two former presidents. Contrary to usual perception, Erap is quite capable of discretion when that virtue is called for.

Friendship grows in strange places. Over the past few months, by all indications, Cory and Erap have become good friends. I mean, sincere friends, not just friends out of political exigency.

That might seem surprising.

When Cory became president in 1986, Erap was one of her first problems. The mayor of San Juan resisted the revolutionary government’s order for all sitting local executives to step down and yield to appointed replacements. The town hall of San Juan was barricaded by Erap supporters.

When Erap was senator, he voted to immediately terminate the Military Bases Agreement. Then President Aquino had led a march on her own Senate to convince the legislators that a phased removal of the bases was best for the national economy.

In 1992, when his own presidential bid ran out of steam, Erap ran in tandem with Danding Cojuangco. Although a cousin of Cory, the relationship between Danding and Cory was seriously strained after the assassination of Ninoy. Danding lost the election but Erap, in our strange system where the president and vice-president are elected separately, won and served under Cory’s anointed, Fidel Ramos.

In 1998, Erap was the hands-down favorite to win the presidency. Cory, who maintained a completely catholic attitude towards the front-runner’s controversial lifestyle, endorsed her own candidate for the presidency: Alfredo Lim. Lim, needless to say, fared horribly and Erap won handily.

When scandals plagued the Estrada administration, culminating in an impeachment trial, Cory lent her voice and her prestige to the call for him to step down. Cory figured prominently in the events leading up to a quasi-rebellion we now simply refer to as Edsa Dos.

In 2005, Cory again called on a sitting president — Gloria Macapagal Arroyo — to step down. She lent her presence to demonstrations echoing that call. After Erap was convicted of plunder and then pardoned by President Arroyo, he too joined the call for the incumbent to step down. Soon enough, Cory and Erap found themselves on the same stage during protest rallies — although, at least once, groups identified with the 1986 Revolution walked out of a rally as soon as Estrada rose to speak.

Last year, at the launching of Jose de Venecia’s book and before a predominantly anti-Gloria crowd, Cory spontaneously apologized to Erap for helping depose him from power. Erap was pleased by the apology and repeated it to all who would listen. But people from Cory’s inner circle tried hard to downplay the unguarded remark, claiming it was said in light-hearted circumstances.

Nonetheless, it was clear that Cory’s attitude towards Erap rapidly changed from disdain, to respect and then to genuine affection. Beyond the fact that they had both found themselves on the same side of the political fence, it seems that both were impressed by the other’s sincerity.

By his own words, Erap had always held great respect for Cory. A man who never holds back on his affections, he never missed an opportunity to demonstrate the esteem he held for the lady. He praised her generously and deferred to her when they appeared in public together.

When she had taken ill, he sent her food. When she was hospitalized, he visited her. When she died, he frequented her wake.

This was a unique friendship between two political titans. It was a friendship possible only between two incomparable persons who could honorably agree to disagree, who could look beyond the contingencies of politics and appreciate the other for what they were.

Unfortunately, it was a friendship shortened by mortality. We could only speculate about the political constraints that might have inhibited this friendship from becoming a full-blown political alliance. But it was a beautiful friendship nevertheless.