Change

Like millions in Asia who did not want to miss “the Moment” — the inauguration of the US’ first black President — I stayed up till the early morning hours of Wednesday (Manila time) just to be able to claim my part in history.

For that special moment, a replay just wouldn’t have been the same. I watched Sen. Ted Kennedy walk steadily down the steps of the grandstand, only to learn that he would collapse in fatigue a few hours later. I screamed like a gawky teenager as the handsome Barack Obama, with just a hint of a smile on his face, stepped onto the grandstand to take his place in history. I squirmed at his oath-taking flub (next time, if there is a next time in 2013, please rehearse, so both the chief justice and president-elect pause after the same words).

I wondered if the rhinestones on the collar of Michelle Obama (dubbed by Time as the America’s Next Top Model) were appropriate on an already elaborately embroidered day-time suit. But, hey, this was her moment, too.

I marveled at the civility of political rivals, how they could sit side by side at the Moment of the victor, when in the Philippines, the first runner-up in UAAP games cannot even bear to receive its trophy beside its victorious arch-rival.

Watching Obama’s inauguration was almost like being on EDSA on Feb. 25, 1986. You were participating in history, not just reading about it. You were part of a change that was moving the tectonic plates of history and you knew that the political and social landscape was never going to be the same again.

In a way, we Filipinos did an Obama 23 years before the Americans did — ousting the all-powerful dictator Ferdinand Marcos when no one thought it was possible and installing a woman president in his place. After all, many Americans also didn’t think electing a black president was possible in their lifetime.

That is perhaps why, at a black-tie inaugural ball held at the Charles Parsons Ballroom at the US Embassy Tuesday night, just a few hours before Obama took his oath, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney told a gathering of Filipinos and Americans, “This is a moment to be shared.”

Since she is a self-described “geographic bachelorette,” her husband being the US Ambassador to Colombia, Kenney danced her first dance with a Filipino, Vince Perez.

Perez, a former energy secretary, had the permission of his wife, an American like Kenney, to be the ambassador’s first dance.

We bumped into former President Fidel Ramos, who commented on last week’s column about the peaceful transfer of power from Corazon Aquino to himself.

He pointed out that after Marcos, he is the only president who took over the presidency without violence and handed power to his successor without violence as well. Go figure.

Quoting Mt. Everest team leader Art Valdez, his cousin, Ramos told us, “Climbing to the top is optional. But once you’ve reached the top, going down is mandatory.”

For a mountain climber as well as for a leader.

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But not all the changes that Obama will usher in are changes we can believe in.

Though he believes in abortion rights, 54 percent of American Catholics voted for Obama. And one of his first acts as president was to overturn a ban by George W. Bush on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.

This saddens me, although it was a stand Obama never hid from the world or the American people. The Vatican slammed the Obama executive order, as “the arrogance of someone who believes they are right, in signing a decree which will open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life.”

Archbishop Rino Fisichella was quoted by the Agence France Presse (AFP) as saying, “What is important is to know how to listen... without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death.”

Another Vatican heavyweight, Elio Sgreccia, told the ANSA news agency, “Instead of all the good things that he might have done, Barack Obama has chosen the worst,” allowing, “the massacre of innocents.”

“The right to life is the first of all rights that must be defended,” he added, claiming that 80 percent of Americans were against abortion.

Obama signed the executive order cancelling the eight-year-old restrictions imposed by his predecessor George W. Bush on Friday, the third full day of his presidency. (So, pro-lifers, think kindly of Bush.)

But the AFP reported that the order won Obama praise from Democratic lawmakers, family planning and women’s rights groups but drew angry condemnation from pro-life organizations and Republicans.

This bold but obviously decisive move of Obama makes me look at his presidency with caution, and reminds me to include him in my prayers.

Without passing judgment on those who were in turmoil when they decided on an abortion, I find it sad that the world’s newest knight in shining armor would make abortion rights a priority in his presidency. He signed the decree on his third day in office, after all.

Change has truly come to America.

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