On August 5th a great lady, Maria Corazon “Cory” Aquino, was buried in Manila. Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club, has a beautiful post on Mrs. Aquino titled “And Last”.
In August of 1983, Cory’s husband, Senator Benigno Aquino, the leader of the opposition to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was murdered on Marcos’s orders as he stepped off the plane upon his return to the Philippines under safe conduct from exile in the United States. Cory Aquino, a simple housewife, became the rallying force against Marcos. In the presidential election of 1986 she ran against Marcos, and although Marcos was declared the winner in a fraudulent election, Cory Aquino was installed as the 11th president of the Philippines by the peaceful 1986 People Power revolution. A tiny lady in a yellow dress had toppled one of the world’s most oppressive dictators. During her term as President, 1986 to 1992, she gave to her country a new Constitution that guaranteed liberty and human rights for all. She died August 1st, 2009, of cancer, and is buried in a simple grave next to her husband. Three hundred thousand people lined the twelve mile funeral procession, many in yellow shirts or dresses.
The woman who in yellow dressed
Confounded those who would attest
That might makes right and force will rule the day
She had no ships, no guns no tanks
And yet the world owes her its thanks
For showing us that courage is the way
And now she joins the chosen few
The ones who stood for what they knew
Was right and just, with light that lit the world
That shone in every darkened place
Where diktat dared to show its face
And gave her country freedom’s flag unfurled