ABS-CBN News Online Beta

Cory: Not just a story to me - Pia Hontiveros-Pagkalinawan

---

By Pia Hontiveros-Pagkalinawan, ABS-CBN News | 08/20/2009 12:34 AM

Printer-friendly version | Send to friend | Share your views

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

The yellow ribbon I tied to my SUV’s antenna the morning Cory died is still there. But it is a little worn now, limp, and almost faded. It is more than two weeks to the day a dakilang pangulo passed, and I still had not written what I wanted to write. And I realized why it took me forever. Grief has its time and place. More so if it is grief on a national scale. Grief played out on the streets, expressed on the worldwide web, in status updates on Facebook.

I was in high school when Ninoy was killed. So, my political awakening, the best years of my high school and college life were spent demonstrating and marching on the streets. Marching from Sto Domingo Church to Liwasan Bonifacio, the noise barrages, the rallies. The parliament of the streets was the best education. By the time of the 1986 People Power Revolution, I was a college Sophomore at the Ateneo. I was honored to be part of history. So was the rest of my generation. That is why we grieve for Cory.

I was at Ninoy’s wake in Times Street in August 1983. There was no way I would miss out on paying tribute to Cory by doing the same for her. I told myself I would have to line up, too. I would have to do for her exactly what I, my sisters, and Dad did for Ninoy. And I had front row tickets. As a journalist, your seat is reserved.

I had opted for early retirement in mid-2005, and thus hung up my reporter’s vest, so to speak. That meant I would be out in the field only on rare, big occasions. I was fully expecting – and was expected - to be part of the coverage. It was funny though seeing my name on the coverage list for the funeral procession, and a note beside it that I had said I had covered Ninoy’s funeral (I was in high school then).

But I was faced with a dilemma. I had my brother’s wedding preparations to attend to. His wedding was August 8, and in the week before that, there was just too much that needed to be done.

So, I made the painful choice.

Yes, I wanted to be part of history, as I had always been throughout my years as a journalist. But I couldn’t be in two places at one time. So, I decided that, no, I didn’t have to cover the story to be a part of and witness to it.

More than my career, it was my soul that needed a lift. Cory’s death was not just a story to me. And if I couldn’t be part of the team that would cover that big story, I needed to do something on a most personal level. I needed to make that pilgrimage to Manila Cathedral. I asked my husband, R’win, who is a Superintendent in the Philippine National Police, if we could bring our kids that night after my talk show, “Strictly Politics.”

By the time I finished the show, he texted saying: “We’re ready.” They were ready when I got home, alright. Naka-yellow tshirt pa si R’win, so were 17-year-old Zach and 8-year- old Zed. Zach was wearing a Ninoy t-shirt. The Monday after Cory died he asked me for a piece of yellow cloth to tie onto his backpack. Our 15-year-old Zoe was apologetic for not having worn a yellow shirt; she said she didn’t have one. So, I gave her the yellow ribbon I had tied onto my bag. She was so glad she had something yellow to wear. I was in black, and I was wearing my vintage 1986 “Cory Aquino for President” campaign pin. It is one of my most prized memorabilia, along with the black “Hindi Ka Nag-iisa” pin mass-produced in 1983 when Ninoy was killed.

Yes, our kids know what Cory – and Ninoy before her – mean to our country.

The Cathedral was beautiful. Cory Vidanes and ABS-CBN Production and Entertainment people deserve all the praise. The cathedral was full, full, full of people—old friends, people I went to college with, people in politics, business and media. We greeted Senator Noynoy and Kris. And I went up to Ballsy and Pinky, never ever having known them, telling all of them that I had been to their Dad’s wake in 1983, and that I just had to be there at their Mom’s wake, too. Senator Frank Drilon walked past us with flowers in hand. He told me a little boy had asked him to bring the flowers in and to “please give this to President Cory. Baka kasi hindi ako makapasok…” the little boy told Senator Drilon. We stayed for more than two hours. And as R’win and I and the kids walked past Cory’s bier, I knew we had gone full circle. August 1983. August 2009.

At midnight as we left the Cathedral, Zach and Zoe announced they wanted to join the funeral march the following morning. When I asked them why, worrying of course that Rwin and I wouldn’t be able to go with them, their answer was: “Ma, it’s history.” They overslept though and were disappointed when they woke up too late.

August 5, Wednesday. The day of the funeral, the angst and pull and dilemma of watching a big coverage unfold before your eyes, and not being part of it…hurt. But did it really matter in the end?

That whole morning, from the mass at the Cathedral until the early hours of the procession, all I could do was cry. The tears might not have flowed so freely if I had been covering. It was a GIFT, even just to watching it all from the sidelines. I could reflect on, digest, think deeply about what Cory’s life and death meant. And yes, cry like I had never cried before. All - while I and my brother, Marine Major David Hontiveros, his fiancé-and-now-wife Luh Fabelinia-Hontiveros, and one of Luh’s maids of honor, Joy Jaranilla, and one of her bridesmaids, Aby Vidal, worked on the wedding preparations.

I checked with myself, stopping for a moment. I asked myself: “Am I okay with this?” And, yes. it was okay. I was at peace with the choice I made. It was my sisterly duty to be there for David and Luh; but I also fulfilled my duty to show Cory that hindi siya nag-iisa.

For me, it was a most personal experience. It wasn’t just a coverage. Cory wasn’t just a story. It was still full circle. August 1983. August 2009.

A friend of ours from our (mine and R’win’s) Discovery Weekend apostolate, Verne Quiazon, had coined a phrase and posted it on his Facebook update, and I had borrowed it – posting it on my Facebook, and using it as the title of “Strictly Politics’” August 4 tribute to Cory…

“Cory Aquino, Dakilang Pangulo.”

POSTSCRIPT

In February 1988, as a college senior at the Ateneo, I joined a PMA Cadets-Civilian Students Interaction, a project that Cory began in the aftermath of the August 1987 coup attempt. An effort to bring soldier and civilian closer together. I had written a letter to Father Bernas, who was Ateneo President at the time. On March 3, I received an envelope with the Malacañang emblem on the upper left portion on it. It turns out Father Bernas had sent my letter to Malacanang. Inside was a two-page letter expressing the “gladness of heart” that the Interaction and the letter I wrote about it had brought to the letter-writer, Corazon C. Aquino.