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Cory's final wish: To go home
By Joanne Rae Ramirez (The Philippine Star) Updated January 25, 2011 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Corazon Aquino’s last birthday wish was not for herself.
Today would have been the 78th birthday of the former President. In an interview with The STAR, her eldest daughter Elena “Ballsy” Cruz said Cory did not wish for a longer life during her last birthday celebration on Jan. 25, 2009, some six months before she died of colon cancer.
The family and a few close friends heard Mass celebrated by Fr. Catalino Arevalo in a small chapel in Makati, after which the small group had lunch in Rockwell prepared by chef Jessie Sincioco.
“In fact she kept saying, I have outlived dad (Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.) for more than 25 years,” Ballsy said. “And then people were saying those who are nearing death are torn because the family here say, ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t leave us.’ Those who went before us are (reportedly) telling the person, ‘let’s go, let’s go’.”
After Cory died on Aug. 1, 2009 after 18 months of battling cancer, her children went through her things, hoping they would find letters with her personal instructions to them. Filipinos call this “bilin.” Their father Ninoy, before his death, had written them all letters. But they found no such letters from Cory.
Millions believe Corazon Aquino’s life was her legacy, and that she no longer had to put her instructions down on paper.
According to Ballsy, Cory had always told her children, “When you’re a public servant, especially when you’re president, you’ve got to be totally self-giving.”
In the weeks before her death, Cory had one express wish: to go home.
“She was telling Noynoy (then Sen. Benigno Aquino III), ‘I want to go home. I just want to go home’,” Ballsy recounts in the same sunny yellow conference room in the late president’s Makati office. Asked whether “home” meant the family home on Times St., or Ballsy’s home, where Cory lived in the months prior to her confinement in June 2009 at the Makati Medical Center, Ballsy says they weren’t always sure. One of their spiritual advisers, Bishop Socrates Villegas, told them that “home” to the deeply spiritual Cory could have meant, “home to the Father.”
Going home wasn’t a fleeting wish for Cory, even if she was told she had to bring home with her some medical equipment to make her more comfortable. But Cory had difficulty breathing, so she had to stay longer in the hospital. The family thought Cory had given up on going home, till one day she said again, “I really want to go home already.”
“And then the following morning she kept waking up and asking if her driver Norie had already arrived,” Ballsy continues, “I said, ‘Mom it’s only 3 a.m. Norie will come later, he’s still asleep’.”
But Cory kept on telling her eldest daughter, “‘But don’t forget ha, don’t forget.’ She was just so excited. She also asked me to remind Norie to bring the van, for all her things.”
Ballsy said yes to all her mother’s requests, but Cory felt dizzy on the very day she was supposed to check out of the hospital. It was then, believes Ballsy, that her mother stopped asking to be discharged from the hospital. In her delicate condition, she didn’t want to be a burden to her children at home, even if she had a private nurse.
“She was always thinking of us,” Ballsy says.
When they were told that the end was near for Cory and that she may be just valiantly holding on for the sake of her children, the youngest Aquino sibling Kris volunteered to assure her mother that the family would be okay even after she was gone.
“That night, I think Kris was trying to say, ‘Mom we’re really all okay, we’ll help one another. All of us will help one another. Even if you’re no longer here, we will make things easier for each other.’ And then it was as if Mom was calling Dad, ‘O, Ninoy!’”
Cory Aquino died about a week after that, assured that her loved ones on earth were going to be alright, assured that her loved one in heaven was waiting for her and certain that it was her time “to go home to the Father.”
Those who love her, and know her well, believe that Cory’s last birthday wish was for her country, and for her children.
It's been a year. If I may paraphrase some lines I got from Manila Boy, a year ago we bade farewell and said prayers of gratitude, and blessings for our beloved President CORY: thanks for taking care of us... it never crossed my mind then that your son would take up the torch, and light the way. God Bless!
It's the Cory Aquino fan in me again. I bought a Christmas gift for myself. It's the book entitled "Cory Magic: Her Peoples stories".
Her death not only brought sorrow to a nation of ninety million, it also brought grief to the world. In TIME Magazine’s yearend round-up of people who mattered in 2009, former President Corazon Aquino, Philippine democracy icon, topped the list of 45 people whose deaths created a global impact, ensuring that they would be remembered fondly.
"She (Aquino) patiently restored constitutional democracy to her country, where she died a revered figure. But her legacy was global…and she helped inspire peaceful upheavals around the world," TIME quoted US Senator Richard Lugar as saying. “She showed that one person of modest demeanor can change history."
The "Fond Farewells" list also includes CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite (No. 6), the King of Pop, Michael Jackson (No. 18), and US Senator Ted Kennedy (No. 22).
The 76-year-old Aquino passed away last Aug. 1, 2009 after months of battling colon cancer. The transfer of her casket from the La Salle Greenhills campus in Quezon City to the Manila Cathedral – a route that traversed major points in the Philippine capital – took five hours.
Hundreds of thousands supporters and well-wishers also lined the streets, braving the intense noonday heat and intermittent rains, during Cory Aquino’s funeral cortege, which took more than eight hours.
The scenes were reminiscent of the protests that culminated in the 1986 EDSA people power revolt that ended the dictatorial rule of Ferdinand Marcos and installed Mrs. Aquino to the presidency.
The outpouring of grief and affection also took place online, through the Cory Aquino tribute page set up by GMANews.TV.
The page combined live streaming video of the wake and funeral cortege with Twitter feeds and Facebook Connect, creating a "virtual wake" where Filipinos overseas were able to pay tribute to democracy icon.
'The Woman Who Changed Asia'
Only days after her she was laid to rest on August 5, Mrs. Aquino graced TIME’s cover again. The international publication’s August 17, 2009 Asian edition devoted three special reports chronicling Mrs. Aquino’s ascent to power, how she ran the Philippine government as “a miracle worker," and how people-backed, nonviolent protests across the world drew inspiration from the historic 1986 EDSA Revolution.
In 1986, Aquino was named Woman of the Year, making her the first female to receive TIME’s annual distinction after Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.
She was also recognized in 2006 as among the 60 Asian Heroes, along with Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Mohandas Gandhi, and fellow democracy icon, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi.
People who mattered
Filipino boxing champ Manny Pacquiao (No. 13) was also among TIME’s the people who mattered, ranking next to US President Barack Obama (No. 12). US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke was named Person of the Year for helping rein in the effects of the global economic crisis.
Pacquiao made it TIME’s Asia Edition cover last November, but his five-page feature story was published in all editions.Pacquiao and Mrs. Aquino are among the Filipino personalities – from former Presidents Manuel L. Quezon, Ramon Magsaysay, and Ferdinand Marcos, to actress Chin-Chin Gutierrez – to be featured on the cover of TIME. - GMANews.TV
It has been 40 days since Cory Aquino received the gift of eternal life. Let me honor her again by featuring the Cory Aquino stamps.
January 25, 1933 - August 1, 2009