Theres The Rub
Implications
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:39:00 03/31/2008
MANILA, Philippines - What are the implications of Corazon Aquino having cancer of the colon?
Well, before anything else its personal implications. It’s a sad day for everyone. I know that from the fact that even the laundrywoman who comes to wash our clothes and the maintenance people who come to collect my monthly dues at BLISS are tearful at the news. I join them in praying, such as my heathen soul still knows how, for Cory to recover, or for a miracle to happen, whichever comes first or is needed. Indeed, I join the world in importuning heaven to throw compassion her way. Heaven knows she’s earned it.
I take comfort at least from two things here.
One is that, contrary to rumor, not all of our best doctors have left for Canada or have become so by cheating at exams. Look how they helped the First Gentleman cheat death last year. What the theological ramifications of that are though―it seems to supply an argument for atheism―I leave the reader to fathom.
Two is that Cory is a fighter, rising to her greatest height in moments of greatest adversity. She turned grief into courage then, the loss of her husband in 1983 into a gain for the nation in 1986. She will turn grief into courage now. Quite incidentally, it’s one of the sublime ironies of this magic-realist country that she also turned the color yellow, associated in the Western world with cowardice, into the color of heart. It’s one of the even more sublime ironies of this magic-realist country that the Other Woman has turned the color red (she wears it when she wants to appear palaban), associated in most parts of the world with heart, into the color of gall.
But specifically what are the implications of Cory being sick for the campaign against the current squatter?
The immediate one of course, as was pointed out by Aquilino Pimentel last week, is that it would rob that campaign of her presence. She will no longer be able to join the rallies, she will no longer be able to deliver speeches in forums, she will no longer be able to grace gatherings of a social or political nature. At least not for a while, not while she undergoes her medical regimen. Cory herself has said so, as relayed by Kris and Noynoy.
Will that be a blow to the campaign to evict the squatter?
In part, yes. Cory’s presence has been a source of strength and comfort for many groups and individuals waging it. Not the least of those individuals being Jun Lozada, whose life has been overturned by his heroic decision to stand by the truth and who now lives the life of an exile in his own country, quite apart from the precarious one of the life of a moving target of the thugs in government. Cory’s presence has been earnestly solicited by various groups on various occasions. With reason: Particularly when dressed in radiant yellow, she resonates with reminders of a mighty struggle that brought out the best in Filipinos and with intimations of the possibility that what once was could be again. Her not being there could be a gaping hole in a familiar tapestry.
But here’s the curious part, which if you believe in Providence you could always attribute to heaven working in mysterious ways. For this is an absence that threatens to be more palpable than a presence, this a gaping hole that proposes to be more filling than abundance. Cory’s physical presence will decrease, if not entirely disappear, from the political strife, but her spiritual presence will increase in, and possibly even dominate, the political scene.
In the end, her impact will be much, much more than if she were actually there. Cory wasn’t physically there either during the fateful days of Edsa, but she became its guiding force. It is one of the sublime ironies of this magic-realist country that she now stands to repeat the feat.
Culture is the reason for this. In most cultures, the perception of an air of mortality hanging over people confers upon them an importance they have not had before. Every utterance they make takes on the aspect of a bilin, or a last wish to which the children are completely bound. Again, heaven forbid that is so on the part of Cory: I’m not knocking prayer or faith, it has been known to move mountains, or seemingly improvident Providence.
What is true for most cultures is doubly true of us, and what is true of just anyone is true tenfold of someone deeply loved. Ours is an extremely person-oriented culture, where the parting words of a patriarch or matriarch are more binding than marriage vows, and Cory has always been seen as the spiritual leader of this nation. Now more than ever. Whether her plight is desperate or not, the public perception it’s so gives her words today the weight of the world. People who are looking beyond this life are seen to be purer, nobler and more selfless. People who are looking beyond this world are seen to not just think of what is but what could be. Cory says anything today, it will have the force of bequeathing a legacy.
That cannot be very comforting to this regime. I can imagine that Malacańang will be living in absolute terror of it in the coming months. Cory has already called for GMA to leave, and it has been taken as just one of many calls for her to do so. She repeats that now, asking GMA in the name of all that is sacred, like life itself, to do the decent thing for once in her life and give this nation a chance at life, and it will have a different effect. It will have the force of Joshua’s trumpets sending the walls of Jericho crashing down.
That of course rests on Cory herself. We can only heed her request for us to respect her privacy and not intrude too violently on her current struggle to find peace with herself and the world. But wouldn’t it be something if she wrought an Edsa again, if of quite another kind?
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