Good Morning, Mrs. President

Dear Lucas,

As I write this the casket bearing former President Cory Aquino is being loaded into a flower laden flatbed truck at Lasalle Greenhills. Your Mama is sad because Cory is one of the few people she wanted you to see and learn about – or perhaps even meet – once you’re old enough. But that will never be. You will just have content yourself with the lessons your school will be telling you of this great person. One advantage you’ll have is that your parents had direct memories of her and her greatness.

In any case, allow me to reproduce here a short essay I wrote at the request of Tita Letty Magsanoc, Editor in Chief of the Philippine Daily Inquirer – another great Filipino we want you to meet really soon. This was published last Sunday, August 2, in a special section of the Inquirer.

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I GREW up in West Avenue Homes in Quezon City, a few steps away from Cory’s Times Street house. I remember my mother saying Cory went to the same salon (back then they called it “beauty parlor”), Priscilla’s on West Avenue, across the Philam Homes gate.

It was the 1970s, Martial Law had just been declared, and Ninoy Aquino was in jail. There was uneasiness in the way my mother told the otherwise inconsequential story – small talk really – but in hindsight it was just like the uneasiness of the neighborhood where homes of the Marcos administration’s officials and critics and political oppositionists he had jailed stood side by side.

In the mid 1980s I joined the Mr&Ms Special Edition staff straight out of college. While paid as fulltime staff (you wouldn’t believe the rate) we found that we could make extra bucks contributing to the company’s sister publications like the glossy Mr&Ms Magazine.

Kris Aquino was turning 15 so I took the opportunity to take on the assignment because it paid extra and it meant just taking a few steps to Times Street to do the interview.

The interview took all afternoon and straight into the evening. Cory arrived with eldest daughter Ballsy from Hacienda Luisita and found that nobody had prepared dinner yet. In typical Filipino fashion, she had the maid whip up some pork tocino and rice – always the emergency provision.

I was done with the interview and was about to leave, but Cory would have none of it. She insisted I stay for the meal. I imagined: just like my mother who would not have a guest leave the house with a horror story that the host did not bother to feed him.

Cory asked how my interview with Kris went. I told her that Kris was seriously into singing and may probably have a career in showbiz one day. Kris smiled while Cory sighed: “Oh, please, JP. Don’t encourage her!”

Apparently, Kris had been keeping the household up all night with her karaoke.

Much later, as the political winds blew stronger and the streets glimmered with yellow ribbons, I visited Cory at her Makati office. Ballsy showed me to the office.I saw Cory behind her desk I greeted her: “Good afternoon, Mrs. President!”

“That’s not funny, JP!” Cory told me in mock anger.

I moved on to be a reporter for the Inquirer, covering President Ferdinand Marcos and his snap election bid.

History whizzed by, and before I knew it, the subject of my Malacañang coverage shifted from the main palace to the Guest House.

And I was now saying: “Good morning, Mrs. President.”

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I pray that someday, when your time comes, you are blessed with your own great leaders. I pray we, your elders, are able to pave the way for that.

Love,

Papa