Lessons from Cory

After battling with advanced colon cancer since March 2008 and being hospitalized for more than a month, former President Corazon C. Aquino has succumbed to her illness and passed away August 1. She leaves behind, not only a family grieving the loss of their mother, but also a nation mourning the death of a person whose moral leadership came to symbolize hope and change in Philippine politics. Cory's death leaves us, among others, lessons in public service as well as in nation building.

Self-effacing even when she had triumphed as the first woman president of the nation, Cory Aquino avoided the publicity-seeking and self-aggrandizement that often always characterized traditional politicians. Her unostentatious demeanor remains in sharp contrast with our traditional politicians whose faces and names are plastered in large billboards, tarpaulins, and streamers ubiquitously. In our own communities, in fact, we can observe that the three honorable congressmen of Camarines Sur, the governor of the province, and the mayor of Naga City have their much improved pictures decked out for public viewing, bearing the message that they are doing what they are supposedly doing as public servants: serving the public.

A Cory Aquino, sadly for us, they are not.

While her own administration had not been free from controversy and criticism, (among them, the failed Agrarian Reform Law which left the Cojuangco's Hacienda Luisita essentially untouched, the support for the US Bases' retention, her administration's less than effective social reforms, as well as her Total War policy against the communist insurgents which led to numerous human rights violations), President Aquino confronted the issues raised by critics without attacking the person of her critics. In contrast to most publicly elected officials, a criticism of their decisions or policies is often dismissed as being "politically-motivated" or "having an axe to grind." More than anyone else perhaps, Cory knew that one of the backbones of a truly democratic nation was the freedom of citizens to hold their leaders accountable.

Yet, what clearly stood out among her qualities as a public servant, however, was her faith.

In the very secular atmosphere of contemporary politics, the mention of "faith" even in a nation of predominantly Christian believers is often met with the objection resting on the so-called "separation of Church and State." Nonetheless, the public figure that is "President Corazon Aquino" found its bearings and was nourished by "Cory," the private individual who was deeply religious. Her faith in God and personal virtues had helped her in leading the nation from the darkness it was enveloped in, and in governing to the best of her ability a still fractious population struggling with the vestiges of a 20-year authoritarian rule.

In retrospect, even as the new government she helped establish floundered and at times committed the same mistakes as Marcos', Cory was able to step down from the presidency with her integrity intact, her personal morality unblemished.

In many respects, in spite of her privileged background, Cory was like most of us: someone who had been content to allow the politicians (including her own husband) to be in-charge of governing our communities. That is, until the demands of the times and the demands of her own conscience-her faith-led her to step into the political stage to oppose a tyranny and a regime of injustice. Together with a nation starved for change and hope, Cory fought and won.

With Cory's passing, we as a people are deeply grieved by her death. At the same time, however, we are reminded by her life of what it means to be citizens and leaders, and of what it entails to build a nation. We honor her memory by heeding the lessons she leaves us.