Half-full church for Cory
MOST BELOVED, albeit adopted, daughter of Pampanga. Once.
So flushed with the Cory Aquino fever was the province in the post-EDSA Uno period that whichever hand the President raised in the 1987 congressional elections and in the 1988 local elections automatically won.
So blessed was Pampanga under the administration of President Aquino – by no small measure owing to the closeness of Governor Bren Z. Guiao to her and to her martyred husband – that the province for a time even overtook pace-setting Cebu in industrial growth.
And how the Kapampangans loved Cory, showering her with respect and affection every time she came over, mobilizing human barricades to block the routes of renegade military forces at each of the six or seven coup d’etats mounted against her.
Beloved adopted daughter of Pampanga. Not for the nonce, it seems.
At Monday’s healing Mass for the colon cancer-stricken Cory, the City of San Fernando’s Metropolitan Cathedral was only half-full. Even to the supreme optimist, that is no indication of any lasting love of the Kapampangan for a beloved daughter.
The good Apu Ceto, archbishop of San Fernando, who celebrated the Mass paid a most fitting tribute to Cory for her role in regaining freedom for the country, calling her a “woman of democracy” and reminded the Kapampangan faithful of the progress and development to the province the Aquino administration brought about.
Even as he prayed for the recovery of Cory and appealed to all Kapampangans to bombard heavens with their prayers, one could not but be saddened by the rows upon rows of unoccupied pews.
Indeed, the half-empty church resonated with the emptiness of the statement of the Reverend Governor Eddie T. Panlilio that "the Kapampangans love Cory very much and will support and pray for her."
He could have said – more rightly—that the Kapampangans loved Cory very much, and hopefully, would support and pray for her.
One wonders now, did local politics rear its ugly head even in that apolitical and purely spiritual exercise?
But for San Fernando’s Oscar S. Rodriguez, not one of Pampanga’s 22 mayors was there. Cong Oca’s hand Cory raised in 1987. That blazed his spectacular political career that suffered but one drawback, in 1992.
Yet another hand among the Mass attendees that Cory raised then was Mars Pineda’s. He won, of course, and sat as congressman before being unseated near the close of his first – and only – term by the now departed Egmidio Bondoc.
The presence of both the governor and Vice Governor Yeng Guiao at the Mass did not manifest a reconciliation of sorts but rather masked, only for the duration of the ecclesiastical celebration, the rift between them. Yeng, it must be pointed out, is a godson of Cory.
"The Mass was open to all, it is up to the people to come." So was Yeng quoted, rationalizing that mere attendance did not diminish any the love of Kapampangans for Cory. Another “notable” present was Ping de Jesus, Cory’s public works and highways secretary.
So where were the others who benefitted from the Cory magic of yore? The OIC-mayors that took over local governance after EDSA Uno, most especially?
The dead among them – Porac’s Roy David, Minalin’s Jimmy Lopez, Mexico’s Javier Hizon, Guagua’s Manoling Santiago, Bacolor’s Gem Balingit – are excused. But those that still live make the rogues’ gallery of ingrates.
How about the current crop of political leaders who, unwittingly perhaps, made the loudest statement with their absence? So what really gives here?
Could it be that the Kapampangans have become so enamored with their current favorite daughter that they have to dispense with their adopted one?
We all know that the Glorious One and the Widowed One stand on polar grounds. The latter unceasingly asking for the ouster of the former.
So, between the glory that the province – despite its governor – has been getting from the current Palace occupant and the “truth” that Cory has been banding about, which would you think the Kapampangan would choose?
Sic transit gloria mundi. Thereby passes the glory of the world. A lesson to us all.
So flushed with the Cory Aquino fever was the province in the post-EDSA Uno period that whichever hand the President raised in the 1987 congressional elections and in the 1988 local elections automatically won.
So blessed was Pampanga under the administration of President Aquino – by no small measure owing to the closeness of Governor Bren Z. Guiao to her and to her martyred husband – that the province for a time even overtook pace-setting Cebu in industrial growth.
And how the Kapampangans loved Cory, showering her with respect and affection every time she came over, mobilizing human barricades to block the routes of renegade military forces at each of the six or seven coup d’etats mounted against her.
Beloved adopted daughter of Pampanga. Not for the nonce, it seems.
At Monday’s healing Mass for the colon cancer-stricken Cory, the City of San Fernando’s Metropolitan Cathedral was only half-full. Even to the supreme optimist, that is no indication of any lasting love of the Kapampangan for a beloved daughter.
The good Apu Ceto, archbishop of San Fernando, who celebrated the Mass paid a most fitting tribute to Cory for her role in regaining freedom for the country, calling her a “woman of democracy” and reminded the Kapampangan faithful of the progress and development to the province the Aquino administration brought about.
Even as he prayed for the recovery of Cory and appealed to all Kapampangans to bombard heavens with their prayers, one could not but be saddened by the rows upon rows of unoccupied pews.
Indeed, the half-empty church resonated with the emptiness of the statement of the Reverend Governor Eddie T. Panlilio that "the Kapampangans love Cory very much and will support and pray for her."
He could have said – more rightly—that the Kapampangans loved Cory very much, and hopefully, would support and pray for her.
One wonders now, did local politics rear its ugly head even in that apolitical and purely spiritual exercise?
But for San Fernando’s Oscar S. Rodriguez, not one of Pampanga’s 22 mayors was there. Cong Oca’s hand Cory raised in 1987. That blazed his spectacular political career that suffered but one drawback, in 1992.
Yet another hand among the Mass attendees that Cory raised then was Mars Pineda’s. He won, of course, and sat as congressman before being unseated near the close of his first – and only – term by the now departed Egmidio Bondoc.
The presence of both the governor and Vice Governor Yeng Guiao at the Mass did not manifest a reconciliation of sorts but rather masked, only for the duration of the ecclesiastical celebration, the rift between them. Yeng, it must be pointed out, is a godson of Cory.
"The Mass was open to all, it is up to the people to come." So was Yeng quoted, rationalizing that mere attendance did not diminish any the love of Kapampangans for Cory. Another “notable” present was Ping de Jesus, Cory’s public works and highways secretary.
So where were the others who benefitted from the Cory magic of yore? The OIC-mayors that took over local governance after EDSA Uno, most especially?
The dead among them – Porac’s Roy David, Minalin’s Jimmy Lopez, Mexico’s Javier Hizon, Guagua’s Manoling Santiago, Bacolor’s Gem Balingit – are excused. But those that still live make the rogues’ gallery of ingrates.
How about the current crop of political leaders who, unwittingly perhaps, made the loudest statement with their absence? So what really gives here?
Could it be that the Kapampangans have become so enamored with their current favorite daughter that they have to dispense with their adopted one?
We all know that the Glorious One and the Widowed One stand on polar grounds. The latter unceasingly asking for the ouster of the former.
So, between the glory that the province – despite its governor – has been getting from the current Palace occupant and the “truth” that Cory has been banding about, which would you think the Kapampangan would choose?
Sic transit gloria mundi. Thereby passes the glory of the world. A lesson to us all.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 12:18 PM
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