Tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree
It’s been three long years
Do you still want me?
If I don’t see a ribbon round the old oak tree
I’ll stay on the bus
Forget about us
Put the blame on me…

When that song so cherished in the EDSA generation’s memories was played during one of the Masses for former President Corazon Aquino at La Salle Green Hills, it raised lumps in everyone’s throats and there wasn’t a dry eye in the vast gymnasium. Yet there were young men and women who turned to their parents and grandparents in puzzlement, asking what song it was that was moving their elders so. And so by means of a song with all its poignant memories, the torch passed from old to young, as for the first time in many cases the story of Ninoy Aquino, of Cory, and of EDSA was told to those who take freedom for granted.

This has been a time of stories, and of songs, of remembrance and reflection. Today, there will be piety and great solemnity at the funeral Mass as the entire nation gives a final salute to the departed former head of state. But individually we are all called to pay our final respects and utter our last words to Cory, and for this, we choose one solitary word. In the manner that she bade the nation farewell as chief executive, we bid Cory Aquino farewell, with a simple and affectionate “Paalam.”

We can only hope that as it has been for five days now, so shall it be as Cory is laid to rest, in her stark tomb, beside that of her husband: that today will remain vivid in our minds as a day in which a society came together, not only in fond and grateful remembrance, but in consecration and in dedication.

For if these days have been a Great Recollection, with the reflection this undertaking requires of every Filipino—not just on the vagaries of life, but of what was and will always be truly imperishable about Cory—then we must be conscious of the motive power of faith, the faith that motivated Cory.

Ninoy expressed it in these words: faith in the Filipino and faith in God. We bid farewell to Cory, knowing full well that to the end of her days she never faltered in her faith, indeed finding sustenance in it, for at the core of that faith was an unshakeable belief in the possibility of redemption. And it was that redemption—the full flowering of freedom on the parched earth of a country looted and trampled by the Marcos dictatorship—that we have all paused to recall by means of the small sacrifices made by tens of thousands in the metropolis and by millions throughout the nation and the world so that they could bid her farewell.

The color that was once identified with cowardice once more became the color of a nation and a people that could stand tall before the world—and did. Our country was blanketed by a sea of yellow ribbons, flowers, streamers, shirts and banners. Even in cyberspace there was spread a carpet of yellow as in a meadow come to life after a long winter of dormancy.

As Cory carried forward Ninoy’s faith in the Filipino and faith in God, so too did the millions who walked, marched, and knelt by her side from 1983 to 1986. So too now does a new generation take on the task of continuing the consecration of our nation and its people to the principles Ninoy died for, and Cory lived for: that the only ones who should rule over us are ourselves, and that even in struggle, peace must reign in our hearts and in our deeds.

Serenity and peace from a life well lived, because devoted to finding meaning by doing one’s duty—how rare these are in our turbulent and suspicion-laden times. But we always saw that serenity and peace in Cory and in her smile. We have often heard her referred to as an “icon” these past days, and what was truly iconic of Cory was that combination of bashfulness and pride in us, the Filipino people.

The sea of yellow that became an unstoppable torrent from 1983 to 1986 and had dissipated, rarely to be seen again, came surging again, briefly, now, for lonely as Cory’s road became in the last years of her life, we all stand by her now, as much in expiation as solidarity. We must have faith that as we stand together today, we do so with the same confidence Ninoy had when he hoped to plead with Ferdinand Marcos to be like the prodigal son and return to democracy. As we say goodbye, let it be not in expectation that we will turn our backs on Cory tomorrow, but with the knowledge that redemption will be always within our grasp.