The outpouring of prayers and support for former President Cory Aquino goes beyond human sympathy and shows that we have finally turned the corner in passing judgment over her presidency and, with the benefit of hindsight, can now appreciate the full measure of her place in Philippine history.
This comes just when editorial commentaries lament the redemption of Imelda Marcos, and many explanations have been offered for this revisionist turn in the nation’s verdict. The first is generational, rooted in the forgetfulness of the old who felt the full whip of the dictatorship between 1972 and 1986, and the cluelessness of those who are too young to remember. This was the same explanation for the anti-Americanism that blossomed among the youth in the 1960s—the first generation to come of age after the American liberation of the Philippines at the end of World War II.
The second is historical: The successor governments, the argument goes, have shown themselves just as corrupt and abusive, and in comparison, martial rule at least had the saving grace of being more efficient and less inept.
The third I consider to be more psychological. Filipinos have always loved a good show—and who can match the Imeldific herself when it comes to showmanship? The 21st-century Pinoy especially is susceptible to the Oprahfication of Philippine politics, the tendency to translate the great issues of the time into touchy-feely sentiment—in the words of a legal philosopher, “as if a moment of personal presence were worth a thousand promises and as if any exercise of power could be tolerated so long as the veil of sentiment covered it.”
Though Cory is surely not in the same box as Imelda, her presidency had at best mixed reviews from the pundits. Today, 23 years after Edsa 1, we should realize that many problems of her presidency sprang from historical circumstance not of her own making, while its crowning achievements inhered in her as Cory the person.
The orthodox view of the years 1986-92 is that it was a period of erratic policy, indecisive leadership, the restoration of the pre-martial law elite and, at its worst, a betrayal of the ideals of the Edsa Revolution. Recall the imagery: the seven coup attempts, the scandalous exposés, the tragedy of the farmers’ march at Mendiola Bridge, and the perennial power blackouts that bedeviled Manila during her later years.
Today the revisionist view should see these problems as but the natural consequence, on one hand, of the liberal ideology adopted by the elite and middle-class components of the anti-Marcos movement, and on the other, of the confused “united front” strategy of the organized Left. Ironically enough, it was exactly as Ninoy himself predicted in a TV interview recorded in the United States: the president who will succeed Marcos will be beset by too many problems. He concluded (imagine Ninoy shaking his head), “I pity the guy who would take over after Marcos,” little knowing that that “guy” would be his wife Cory.
What Ninoy may not have realized was that the anti-Marcos movement would unwittingly adopt a guiding ideology that would disable Cory from addressing the inherited ills of state. The aboveground anti-Marcos movement—hitherto Left-inspired and based on stragglers from the youth movement, the Catholic clergy and the labor unions—mainstreamed after Ninoy’s assassination in August 1983. But in order to reach out to the professionals, the business sector and the erstwhile unorganized middle classes, it softened its leftwing slogans into a more inclusive agenda. Remember the call: Justice for Aquino, Justice for All. Along the way, the ideology that took shape was that of classic liberalism. The opposition began to talk the language of the law and of parliaments, and the Maoists morphed into Jeffersonian democrats.
If the problem was the abuse of human rights, the solution was the constitutional separation of powers. If the problem was corruption, the solution was checks-and-balances and independent watchdog agencies. If the problem was the lack of political accountability, the solution was fair and free elections. After Edsa 1, we adopted precisely those prescriptions, and we all know where we stand today. In other words, the first post-Marcos administration went strictly by the playbook of the anti-Marcos movement.
It was a formula for weak government, because we feared and suspected the exercise of government power. It was a formula for policy paralysis, because we feared the unelected technocrats and subordinated them to our elected deputies in Congress. It was a formula for pandering to the shallowness and fickleness of the public pulse, because we wouldn’t entrust to any person the power to define the common good. It was a formula for agency capture, when government becomes hostage to the very elite it was supposed to tame and domesticate. Sure Cory could have made better choices at several junctures then—like rejecting the most odious of our foreign debts—but she was bound by the limits imposed by law, by history and by the most deeply held ideological impulses of that age.
On the other hand, today we realize that People Power wouldn’t have been possible without a Cory Aquino to unify the nation and provide the rallying point for its democracy movement. The transition wouldn’t have been possible without a Cory who ensured a peaceful handover of power at the end of her term and who didn’t ambition to lift term limits. She was headstrong and single-minded in one goal, and that was to remove all vestiges of an entrenched dictatorship. We all owe her in a big way, and providentially get to show it today while she’s still around to hear “Thank you” from a grateful nation.
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