President Cory Aquino

Death ends a life but our memory of Cory Aquino lives on. Watching the confetti rained on Ayala Avenue, Makati, the Philippine financial district, with the sea of people saying goodbye to Cory feels like the mid eighties again.

My city, Davao, was also very much into the Cory campaign for President back in 1985. Davao City had its own yellow Fridays under the auspices of many Davao civic leaders and foremost to mind is Jesus V Ayala (JVA), who is one of the Cory staunchest supporters in Davao. JVA donated massive funding for our campaign for Cory and was the source of those yellow ribbons in Davao.

And so, the first city visited by Cory very soon after she became President in 1986 through people power was Davao City. It was at the then new Ecoland bus terminal. With umbrellas, we ignored the noon heat to listen to the new President of a free people. Cory was in blue dress and her presidential aura, which felt like divinely ordained, radiated through the crowd.

EDSA happened twenty three years (23) ago and so our children and especially the new voters need to be introduced to that era when the Filipino did the world proud by acting as a nation to reclaim our freedom and democracy.

One of those Cory events that is very well etched in my mind is the Cory speech before the joint session of the US Congress in Washington D.C. in September 18, 1986. The world watched as President Cory announced with so much pride how we regained freedom through the ways of democracy. Cory said in that famous speech before the US Congress “ In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored him by that brave and selfless act of giving honor to a nation in shame recovered its own. A country that had lost faith in its future, founded in a faithless and brazen act of murder. So, in giving we receive, in losing we find, and out of defeat we snatched our victory. For the nation, Ninoy became the pleasing sacrifice that answered their prayers for freedom.”

This is like déjà vu because we are again uniting to honor and celebrate Cory who is our icon for democracy. Of course, there were problems in our country that Cory could not solve during her presidency like her failure or omission to make their own family landholding, the Hacienda Luisita a model for an agrarian reform arrangement. But, Cory did her best, as she said in her LAST State of the Nation Address before Congress in July 1991. Cory graciously dismounted from the center of power in 1991, yet she continues to inspire power and influence for the Filipino as a nation up to now.

Cory was the first woman president of Asia. In our trainings, in order to highlight what women can become, our great example is to say that a housewife can become president. The campaign then against her was to say she did not have experience in governance but the response was to say that Cory, the housewife, did not have experience in corruption and cheating. The gender equality provision enshrined in our 1987 Constitution happened during the Cory term which paved the way for the many succeeding laws implementing this charter provision such as the Women in Nation Building & Development Law, the law on Sexual Harassment, etc.

One particular law that I like to highlight ( on the occasion of the World Breastfeeding Week 2009 • 1-7 August 2009) which also happened during Cory’s term using her initial revolutionary powers is the law on milk and the marketing of breast milk substitutes. The lobby of the milk companies is, up to now, so powerful and so women’s groups promoting breastfeeding must monitor and protect mothers from the onslaught of television lies about milk nutrition that undermines breastfeeding. To highlight the impact of that signature of Cory, this executive order on milk that President Cory signed using her legislative revolutionary powers at that time made possible the writing of the promotion of breastfeeding in our Davao City Women Development Code which, in turn, is now instrumental for the breastfeeding centers in our malls, hospitals and conscientious workplaces. As we continue to protect our mothers from the unsubstantiated nutrition claims of milk companies that undermine breastfeeding, we remember that our tools for promotion of our continuing advocacy were made possible by the woman president in Cory Aquino. So, I will always remember Cory Aquino in every mother.

There is a memorial for Cory here in Davao City on August 5, Wednesday, at noon at the Ateneo de Davao Jacinto chapel. Wear yellow and please pass this message. ( email isabelita_solamo@yahoo.com )