Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah they were all yellow.
I was born in September 1983; a month after Ninoy Aquino was assassinated at the Manila Airport, now named after him. I was barely 3 years old when People Power happened and not matter how much I tried to rack my brain for whatever anything significant memories at the time, all I could remember was my Iya (my maternal grandmother) telling me that it was chaotic outside and save for those photos captured during the 1986 People Power and kept by my Tito’s (Mom’s side), almost everything back then was a blur and yellowish.
During my elementary years when Corazon Aquino was president, I was not that too keen about her, her causes and how important she was at that time. To my naïve mind, her name was solely part of those questions for our current events examinations – another name to memorize. I was one of those who never liked History at all. I have always been the kind of student who loved to solve and not memorize dates and names.
It was only in high school when I started to take the Philippine government seriously having met no less than FVR himself in one of those school functions. And with my Lolo Oeng’s (my maternal grandfather) influence on me, my pre-teenage years were mostly about being in the know of the current events – here and abroad.
In 2001, I was one of those university students who went out and became part of another Edsa Revolution – calling for the ouster of Erap. We went there on a Friday and the next day, Erap left Malacañang.
It was during that rally where I saw Cory Aquino in the flesh. She was a strong force yet so gentle. That was also a turning point for me – that woman in yellow, who faced all those triumphs with a prayerful heart, did not fail to amaze me. Soon, she was no longer the Mom of Kris Aquino for me. She has become someone great and noble for me.
My Sibika and Kultura teacher once said that we “owe much of our freedom to her” – having toppled an iron clad dictator. And she was just a housewife. I did not take those words sincerely until I started writing very seriously in high school. I loved (and still is) how I bathed in such a freedom to express myself through my writings.
Since the time her children announced that their mother, former President Cory Aquino was battling with Colon Cancer, I was a bit saddened. My worrywart self started to throw some huge questions like – what will happen to us if God decides that it is time for her to go home?
And then the inevitable happened. She went back home to where she will no longer feel any tinge of pain. And most of us, who were left behind, mourned.
I know that I may not have personally known Tita Cory, as what she was fondly called, but I did feel the loss. I may not be that socially aware at the time she was proclaimed as the 11th President of the country but I am also very aware of how she has sacrificed for this country. I may not have experienced Martial Law, may not have seen many of our natives feel ashamed of being a Filipino but I know what its like to be discriminated in and outside of the country. I may not be part of Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986 but I was raised to love this country and value the freedom that caused some lives of those who came before my generation.
We owe much of our freedom to this woman in yellow and to that, as we bid her goodbye – I am going to thrive to be a better Filipino, always.
