The day the country stood still

It's 3:20pm on my watch and my kids and I just got home after standing in the rain two blocks away from our house at the corner of Osmena and Vito Cruz Streets to pay our respects for President Cory Aquino.  

We left the house when it was shown on television that the funeral cortege was about to cross San Andres, which is probably 500 kms away from Vito Cruz.  It took more than 30 minutes for the procession to reach Vito Cruz.  It was raining hard when we got to the corner but miraculously, the rain stopped when the truck bearing President Cory's remains passed by.  

We were able to get a glimpse of the casket aboard the truck because the throng of people who were there ahead of us folded their umbrellas.  It didn't feel like a funeral procession - more like a celebration of life as people chanted, howled, applauded, cheered.

And then it was over.  When the truck carrying the casket and the red van used by the immediate family had passed, people started to disperse.  It was heartwarming to note that practically all houses in our neighborhood had "representatives" who went to the corner to pay their last respects to the former president.  There was a mini procession along the streets of San Andres composed of people walking back to their respective houses.  Most of us were wearing yellow.  Among us was a neighbor who I know to be a rabid Marcos loyalist.  

One of the things that media has been harping about was the visit of the Marcos siblings at the wake, the presence of too many politicians who allegedly are working the crowd at the funeral procession, etc.  There are people who choose to see only partisan politics in the whole thing.  I know that there are people who choose to spew bitterness and vitriol at this time when the whole country has come together to honor a former President.  

Instead of letting hatred, vindictiveness and other negative feelings get the better of us, I think we should as a nation bask in this rare moment of unity.  
 

Comments

Anonymous said…
how does it feel to have written than infamous Dear Tita Cory letter? http://bongaustero.blogspot.com/2006/02/open-letter-to-our-leaders.html
4:50 PM
THE DARK POET said…
And may we all remember and be inspired by what she fought for.

How they are desecrating her legacy with abuse and injustice...

Your fight continues madam Cory!
12:32 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Letter To Our Leaders

Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media people, Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There: I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my freedom and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. You tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many others have made. In other words, your concept of democracy is limited to having your rights and your freedoms respected, at the expense of ours. I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we already responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear - we chose not to heed your calls to go t
Read more

Farewell, Victor

Image
This is my column today. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was at the prime of his life; barely 27 years old and just starting to build his career in human resource management. At the time of his death, he was recruitment manager of the Hotel Peninsula Manila. To say that he still had the whole world ahead of him sounds like a cliché but those among us who actually knew him, those among us who were aware of the kind of passion he had for life and for his work, people like me who had the privilege of having been consulted by him on many professional matters, know this with a certain degree of certainty. I was Victor’s professor in three major subjects when he was in college. In each one of them, he sat at the first row, which said a lot about the kind of person he was. Professors know this for a fact: Bullies don’t sit in front of the class where they cannot annoy anyone. I was his thesis adviser and he and his team spent a whole academic school year trying to break new grounds on the question o
Read more

How That Letter Came To Be...

I had some time in my hands last night. I bloghopped. For the very first time I got to read in detail what people are saying about that letter and about me in other blogs. I have already responded to most of the comments in this blog. However, I cannot possibly answer all comments given that I have only ten fingers and there are only 24 hours in a day. It is very tempting, but this blog is not my life and contrary to the overactive imagination of some people, I do not have the resources to do that. I cannot possibly monitor the thousands of blogs out there. Besides, the comments in this and other blogs (and even in the newspapers) do tend to answer each other, and I do not fancy myself as an ultimate arbiter or judge with the final and definitive opinion (I do not think anyone is qualified to do that unless that person died on a cross and resurrected in three days), so there is really not much to say after reading the various pros and cons. Some people do a better job at it anyway. I d
Read more