The year that was

by Conrado De Quiros, There’s the Rub, The Philippine Daily Inquirer

DEATH and resurrection. That’s the story of the year that was.

The death was literal enough. The year saw the deaths of many musicians in particular. Most of them in the prime of their lives, felled by disease, notably cancer, a scourge that has spread as fast as its social counterpart. Must be the diet, the pollution, and the stress, the three horsemen of the urban apocalypse. Some of them were very good friends of mine, not least Susan Fernandez, whose passing an impoverished musical community continues to mourn, and Odette Alcantara, though she played quite another kind of music, the music of the trees and the stars.

On a personal note, the year saw the death of my mother, who fortified her claim to her name, Julieta, by dying on Valentine’s Day. She was close to 96, a ripe old age, and went completely quietly and peacefully after a life of stormy vitality.

It was a year that saw the deadly flowering of the culture of impunity, the culture of death and mayhem. It reached its culmination in the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao, 30 of them journalists, who were waylaid on their way to the capitol to file the certificate of candidacy of Toto Mangudadatu. The Mangudadatus had invited the journalists to join the caravan to give it protection. Alas, who would protect the journalists? The Ampatuans descended on the caravan—or so witnesses swear—led by Andal Jr. who personally wreaked the mayhem in the most savage way imaginable.

It was the logical end of a culture that had seen the slaughter, if by installment, of hundreds of political activists and scores of journalists, that had seen the rise of cutthroats in uniform who could expect not only not to be prosecuted but to be rewarded for murder, that had seen the rise of warlords across the country who could expect protection whatever atrocity they did from someone they put in power by massacring her opponents at the polls.

It was the year that saw the death of Corazon Aquino.

At the time she did, everything else had pretty much died in the country. The national spirit had gotten comatose at least, if it hadn’t gone altogether, the public having gotten tired of opposing someone who was determined to stamp out all opposition. Justice had died, the public being treated daily to the spectacle of the decent being punished and the wicked being rewarded, chief of them Jun Lozada, who spoke out against theft of epic proportions and ended up being fingerprinted in a police precinct while his abductors, who made him disappear temporarily so that their pillage could disappear permanently, ended up “emborjered” for their pains. Democracy had died, the one person who had ruled the longest since Ferdinand Marcos without once having been elected having no plans of quitting, as she showed in a Sona that little disguised the fact.

It was the year Cory died; it was the year the nation resurrected.

Almost overnight, the nation’s anger came to life. Cory’s funeral ignited it, the dirge itself being the loudest protest heard in a long time. It was an act of defiance, defying as it did heaven and earth, the first sending unrelenting rain and the second unrelenting distraction, not least a Malacañang order giving schools and offices the day off. The schools and offices yielded their contents into the streets anyway, Filipinos from all walks of life turning out at the funeral procession despite, or because of, stormy weather.

It was bigger than any of the parades that accompanied Manny Pacquiao after his demolition of boxing greats. And deeper: The rumblings could be felt not only in the various corners of the land but in the vast spaces of the heart.

Almost overnight, the nation’s spirit came to life. Almost overnight, the public woke to find they were no longer willing to take abuse, they were no longer willing to slink away and mutter, “Life goes on.” They shouted, “Death may not go on, life must rekindle and burst into a raging fire!” Or so with their mind and heart, the first sign of it was the explosion that greeted the one person who had brought them to their miserable pass after word spread about her indulgence in Le Cirque. Even the cardinals and bishops and priests who had made it a habit, with or without their habits, to queue up in Malacañang, and who had led the muttering of “Life goes on” like an unholy prayer in the face of abuse, were swept by the reawakening and began railing at their former benefactor.

Almost overnight, the national mood turned from apathy to voluntarism. A thing that blazed to brilliance in the wake of the storms, specifically “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.” Without pay, without tribute, without recognition, everyone—the kids especially, the students from schools and the istambays from corner stores—rose as one to give relief. Christmas came early to this country, not just for those who got the relief goods but for those who gave them. Probably more the second than the first.

Almost overnight, the nation’s hope came to life. Cory didn’t just leave a legacy, she left a family to carry it out. The onus fell on Noynoy Aquino to bring it to fruition in the highest office of the land. The other political stalwarts were startled by his sudden blossoming, as indeed by his sudden rise to rarified heights, past even the ratings achieved by predecessors and even before he declared his intention to run. It was no surprise to a public that glimpsed it well before their leaders did. He was the embodiment of change. He was the opposite of GMA. He was the one person who would turn the culture of impunity into the culture of responsibility, the culture of oppression into the culture of fairness, the culture of death into the culture of life.

Death and resurrection: That was the year that was.