Alone with Cory

Alone with Cory
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:30:00 08/05/2009

Filed Under: Cory Aquino
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Marcel Proust’s seven volume novel “In Search of Lost Time” (“A la Recherche du Temps Perdu”), which is better known under the old translation as “Remembrance of Things Past,” has been described as a story of a man eating a cake. The narrator takes a bite from a madeleine dipped in warm tea and when this touches the tip of his tongue, a flood of memories is unleashed.

Like Proust, we are in the midst of a flood of memories too. We remember a housewife in yellow who made history. There are enough memories being recorded in media these days to fill more than Proust’s seven volumes. People who knew Cory, people who worked with Cory, even people who rose in failed coups against her, have been interviewed, their reminiscences recorded and shared. People in the street have nothing but good words for the woman who effected change in Philippine history simply by being there and playing her part.

I did not know Cory Aquino well. I met her only thrice. The total word count of these brief encounters was less than 50 words, not enough to fill this column space. But the first and last encounter is worth narrating here.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 1986, I came face to face with Cory Aquino, then president of the Philippines, and it was a very awkward meeting indeed. Evelyn Forbes had asked me to cover the Malacañang visit of students from P. Gomez Elementary School Manila as part of the Manila-San Francisco Sister City Agreement. Clueless, I obliged and was ushered into Cory’s office in the Malacañang Guest House while the rest of the reporters were made to wait in a holding area for the photo opportunity. All the children were in their best uniforms and at the principal’s signal, they sang a sorry version of “Bayan Ko.” Cory endured this with a smile and afterwards rewarded each of the children with a loot bag of candy and a personalized official photograph.

I was surprised to find Manila Mayor Mel Lopez and other officials who I thought had joined the line for candy. Everyone told me to line up because it was not every day that the President was in the mood to sign pictures.

I don’t know how or why it happened, but when the last person in that long line stepped out of the office with an autographed photo I found myself alone with Cory. Everyone, including staff and security personnel, were outside. There was an uneasy silence because I didn’t know what to say. Cory didn’t know why I was there and broke the ice with the question, “Would you like a signed photograph too?”

I nodded nervously. She broke another uneasy silence by asking, “What size do you want?”

Taken aback I replied, “What do you have?”

Cory opened a desk drawer and said, “well, we have: passport size, calendar size, 5 x 7, and 8 x 10.”

I blurted out that I wanted 8 x 10 and she took up the pentel pen and signed her name, date, dedication, and waited for me to give my name, which she added last. She handed over the photograph (no more candy unfortunately), and I should have taken that as a signal that the audience was over.

She did not stand up. Neither did I. We had another uneasy silence that was broken by a secretary who entered to remind her that a delegation from Birch Tree was waiting in another room to explain that their powdered milk was not contaminated by radiation from Chernobyl.

So went that historic and uneventful meeting with Corazon C. Aquino. The signed photograph is one of my prized possessions.

Leaving the President alone in a room with a complete stranger was a security lapse. My friends, who were lying in wait for an “ambush interview” downstairs, wanted to kick me for wasting a precious encounter with silence. Nobody checked who I was and why I was there. Nobody even bothered to keep the President company.

This reminds me of another security lapse narrated by Aquilino Pimentel Jr. who brought a rebel returnee to Malacañang so that the President could personally accept his surrender. When the press corps was called in for photos, somebody exclaimed, “Sayang! The photo would be better if the rebel handed over a gun or ammunition to the president.”

Then the rebel discreetly reached deep into his pants and said, “Hey! I have a gun here!”

How an armed rebel got that close to Cory without being frisked still amazes everyone.

The last time I spoke to Cory Aquino, she commented that her grandsons were unable to enroll in my over-booked history class at the Ateneo. Surprised, I replied, “Why didn’t you ask?”

In her characteristic humility she said, “I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

I then promised that I would take any of her grandchildren who would come my way, including Baby James. It is the least I can do for someone who made Philippine history and tried to guide people into becoming the nation we always fail to be.

However, the biggest regret of my life was passing up on her invitation to visit the Aquino Museum in Tarlac. She invited me when we last met and followed it up with two text messages. Now that she is gone, I realize that history waits for no one, time continues to fly and we often pass up on the opportunities of the present. Sometimes we are too busy, or like to think we are too busy, to rearrange our lives and schedules for what is truly important. A tour of the Aquino museum would have made up for all those silent encounters. Missing Cory’s invitation to talk history is something I will regret for the rest of my life.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu