Sorry Cory Reaction

When I was working on the original





http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/474/Sorry_Aquino

I could not find too much editorial stuff to add along and now it comes in heaps. Very single one of them more eloquent than my take on it could hope to be. Then again I want my version to be the way it is because I have no advertisers or editors to kowtow to. Yes, all my reactions come from the Inquirer. The Philippine Star will only be a source for ridicule since they insist on hiring coke heads.

Ed








http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20081229-180415/The-joke-of-the-year

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20081229-180407/Cory-has-nothing-to-regret

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20081230-180552/Bad-president-deserves-no-apology

Bad president deserves no apology




This is a reaction to the news item titled “Aquino ‘sorry’ sparks outrage.” (12/24/08)

Nobody should apologize to a very incompetent president who did nothing but play mahjong and drink up to the wee hours of the morning, neglecting his duties, responsibilities and obligations to the Filipino people whom he promised under oath to serve.

RENE CATALASAN (via email)

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20081229-180412/Postscript-to-an-apology

heres The Rub
Postscript to an apology

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:59:00 12/29/2008



OVER Christmas, friends kept asking me what I thought of Cory Aquino’s by-now famous, or infamous, “I am sorry” spiel.

What can I say? Those who took part in Edsa I and II have every reason to be dismayed by it. One such friend called me up last Monday to say he felt the world had just fallen down on him.

It probably had.

Several things are wrong with that apology.

The first is that it took place in the most horrendous setting. That was the book launching of Jose de Venecia’s biography. What on earth was Cory doing there? What in hell were any of the believers of People Power doing there? I know De Venecia has been defended by some letter-writers as someone who, like Paul, was struck by light on the way to Damascus. Well, people who are struck by light go on to repent for his sins and ask forgiveness. De Venecia hasn’t just forgotten to ask forgiveness for his sins, he presumes to guide the people he has wronged to virtue. Not unlike some former GMA officials who have yet to fall on their knees before us for pitching tent around GMA in her hour of judgment and singing “If we hold on together,” but who now feel qualified—no, godsend—to deliver us from evil.

But for De Venecia—and Fidel Ramos—GMA won’t be there anymore. Cory did say at the launching that it was a good thing De Venecia was back in the fold. But why should someone whose capacity to stray every which way any which time be welcome to it? What if he were to go out of the fold again tomorrow, which is more than likely?

Cory’s apology of course has since been passed off as levity, in keeping with Erap’s spirit of telling De Venecia he has forgiven him for his part in Edsa II. That brings me to the second and third things that are wrong with it. Which are, one, some things you do not joke about. You do not joke, for example, about rape. And Erap’s rule qualifies every inch as that, politically, economically, morally. And, two, if you are going to tell a joke, make sure people know it is a joke. Virtually all the newspapers and TV stations took Cory’s apology at face value, which is probably its real face.

I can imagine Cory’s epic disgust at the way her and Jaime Cardinal Sin’s protégé turned out, at what capacity for infinite deceitfulness lay at the heart of that person who struck a pose of humility, snuck between them on a pew, hands clasped in ardent prayer, while they tried mightily to pry Erap loose from his undeserved lofty perch. It doesn’t justify the apology, whether said in jest or not. The world is disgusted with that person as well—and not a little with them for propping her up when her graspingness was patent from the start—but feels no regret for having embarked on something that was true and good and beautiful.

We are not divine beings, we are not prescient. We do not know the future. We can only act according to the demands of the here-and-now as our consciences dictate. And conscience cannot be more dictatorial than when it orders us to act to end a tyranny. Whether that raises in its wake a new tyranny or not doesn’t matter. We may no more rue ousting Erap for a rule that betrayed public trust because of Gloria than we can rue ousting Marcos for a rule that screwed public trust because of Cory’s kamaganaks. Those are moral imperatives. And in any case, who says we may rest on our laurels after the first explosion of People Power, spending the rest of our lives telling stories in bar rooms like veterans, imagining that after we’ve done our bit for God and country, our task is over?

What makes Cory’s apology a little hard to pass off as jest is that she already said something to that effect in the past perfectly seriously. A couple of years ago, looking at the wreckage her protégé had made of the country, she said she regretted having helped mount Edsa II. The plea for forgiveness from Erap, an attempt at humor or not, is merely a recent addition.

I remember it well because I wrote a column on it. And what I had to say then, I still say now. Cory does have something to deeply regret, but that is not Edsa II, notwithstanding its spawn. Edsa II was righteous, Edsa II was resplendent, Edsa II had the moral backing of a people—which made it a true expression of People Power. The last having been made possible by the morality play or political telenovela that unfolded before their eyes, which was the impeachment trial.

What Cory has to regret, and regret deeply mournfully, is not the People Power of January 2001 but the elections of May 2004.

We are not gifted with prescience, we do not know the future. But we are gifted with (in)sight, we know the present. And knowing it, we can always direct our energies to make the future better. Cory has nothing to regret about birthing Gloria, she was the legitimate successor of Erap after Edsa II. But she has everything to regret about nurturing Gloria, she was the undeserving beneficiary of Edsa II, and as it would turn out, the illegitimate successor of herself.

Why should you continue to support someone whom you have seen grind the country under her heel? Why should you prop up someone who managed to piss off practically everyone, she became more intensely disliked than the villainesses of soaps after only two years of rule? In fact, why should you go on to campaign for someone who lied about not running, predicting (rightly) that if she did she would wreak never-ending divisiveness upon the country? That is the thing to be sorry about. That is the thing to ask forgiveness for.

Cory’s plea to Erap, serious or not, is addressed to the wrong person. It is better addressed to Juan de la Cruz—and not for Edsa II either, only for Gloria II.

She does that, and maybe all the other former GMA officials will follow, chorusing, “We…are…sorry.”