Blast from the past

By Conrado de Quiros, Philippine Daily Inquirer

CORY never wanted to become President.

She never wanted to be the presidential candidate. When the idea was first broached to her after Ferdinand Marcos challenged his enemies to a snap election, she balked at it. She pointed to everybody else as the best man for the job. And Doy Laurel was more than ready—indeed eager—to do it. But at the end of the day, or after a long convention to decide it, the vote was unanimous. The best man for the job was a woman.

She had no choice but to accept it. After she did, however, she plunged into it heart and soul.

Still, Cory never campaigned to become president.

From the start she knew she was not a “presidentiable,” she knew she was a symbol. Marcos tried to capitalize on it by saying she was “walang alam.” She responded by saying that true enough she had no experience oppressing the nation. She had no experience lying, cheating and stealing. And she had no experience killing. It was not a question of competence, though heaven knows just doing the opposite of lying, cheating and stealing, not to speak of murdering, which was to tell the truth, to do the right thing and to respect other people’s property, not to speak of life, was competence of epic proportions. But more than that, it was a question of trust. Would you trust someone who promised heaven and gave hell, or someone who promised only by her existence, by her life, by very story that you were not alone, hindi ka nag-iisa, she too knew what it meant to be oppressed? Continue reading