COTANGENT - Articles by Daphne Cardillo |
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COTANGENT
By Daphne Cardillo
Cory, the restorer
After taking her sufferings with dignity
and grace, the most prominent victim of extra-judicial killing, 11th
president of the Republic of the
Back in the martial law years, President
Ferdinand Marcos practically reorganized Philippine society; creating
new enemies from within, dividing people into new warring factions,
alienating others, setting aside more others, and redistributing the
resources of the land.
Democracy turned into autocracy.
The judiciary was made into a rubber stamp
and at the dispensation of Malacañang.
The bicameral Congress was dissolved into a
unicameral body but only subordinate to Pres. Marcos’ issuance of
presidential decrees. Corruption was excessive while foreign debt
increased and the peso was several times devalued.
After Marcos’ fall in the February 1986
Uprising, no smart thinking politician or cynical military leader would
have done what Cory did, especially after having lived in that era of
fear and
distrust, accompanied with political and
economic opportunism.
It would take an innocent but brave soul to
see goodness and hope in a beleaguered land.
It has to take Cory to do the work of
retrieval and reconciliation to put order into the house again.
It has to take Cory, not compromised by
politics but exposed to its intricacies to ascertain how men work.
It has to take Cory, to gather lost sons
and daughters, sweep the broken pieces of a shattered nation, and sow
trust among men again.
Three days after Pres. Aquino took the oath
of the presidency in February 1986, she announced that she will “free
all political detainees” including the top leaders of the CPP/NPA/NDF.
Thus in the first week of her ascendancy,
Pres. Aquino released a total of 517 prisoners including Jose Maria
Sison, CPP chairman and Bernabe Buscayno, NPA commander-in-chief.
After releasing the political detainees,
Pres. Aquino restored the writ of habeas corpus and started peace
negotiations with the armed groups.
By April, the government started
negotiations with the Moro National Liberation Front.
By June, it held initial talks with
Condrado Balweg of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army.
By August, it started formal negotiations
with representatives of the National Democratic Front.
Side by side with this gathering act, Pres.
Aquino faced the tremendous task of house cleaning by creating the
Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the Presidential
Commission on Human Rights (PCHR).
PCGG undertook the long retrieval of the
stolen national treasury while PCHR accounted for the human rights
violations of the previous regime.
Even the military establishment started to
“regain moral footing” in its slow process of renewal.
The year that followed, a new constitution
was drafted with the aim to return to the democratic system of
governance, and the laying of the foundation for a more equitable social
order.
Congress was restored with its two
chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The three branches of government were from
then on to function independently and with equal powers.
Other features of the 1987 Constitution
simply provided for the restructuring of the bureaucracy and Philippine
society like the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and the Party
List system.
What Cory did was an act of faith,
determination, and courage; from the time she challenged Marcos in a
snap election, the “People Power” revolution, to the time she turned
over the presidency to Fidel Ramos as her successor.
She even withstood several coup attempts
during her volatile term of office.
She merely persevered to keep the nation
intact and preserve the Filipino people’s new found freedom.
And like an indomitable and unfazed mother,
she kept her smiles and her prayers.
Cory, the restorer, the unifier, with all
her inherent grace declared: “I thank God for being a Filipino” and “I
thank you for making me one of your own.”
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