GLOBAL BALITA

Theres The Rub
by Conrado de Quiros
from Philippine Daily Inquirer

Manny Villar’s camp proposed the idea, and Noynoy Aquino’s camp entertained it. That was after Villar narrowed the gap between him and Noynoy in the Pulse Asia survey to just two percentage points. The Liberal Party’s assessment showed so. Maybe, they said, Noynoy should start exploring another tack. Maybe, they said, the Cory magic has lost its magic.

Not at all.

The Cory magic hasn’t lost its magic, it has simply not been used. Or the Cory magic hasn’t lost its magic, it has simply been lost on the people who held it in their hands but never knew what they had. The Cory magic is Edsa. The Cory magic is People Power. The Cory magic is the glimmer of hope piercing through the dark of despair.

I said last year that the Noynoy camp had a tremendous advantage in that the opening of the year presented two Edsas, January being Edsa II and February being Edsa I. Both resonated with good triumphing over evil, a concept GMA has been at pains to make people forget, which is why she has tried to hide the very thing—and people, who were Cory and Jaime Cardinal Sin—that brought her to power. Both stood to unleash the Cory magic in all its glory.

January came and went, and not a single statement on Edsa, or about Edsa, issued from the lips of the Aquino camp. We’re on the second week of February, and not a single statement on Edsa, or about Edsa, has issued from the lips of the Aquino camp. We’re on the fifth month after Noynoy declared his intention to run, and not much, if not not a single statement, has issued from the lips of the Aquino camp about their cries of anguish and anger from the pit of the land, about the glimmer of hope piercing through the dark of despair, about the people and their power.

The Cory magic is not something that works by itself, it works only by being used. The Cory magic is Edsa, the Cory magic is People Power, the Cory magic is people drawing the line, demanding change, commanding change, shouting at the top of their lungs, “tama na, sobra na, palitan na.” You do not invoke these things, you do not conjure these things, you do not say the magic words that unleash these things—there is no Cory magic.

The Cory magic is not something that just hovers there like air, or hums in the background like an operating system, affecting everything from the background. It wasn’t there for a long time after the first Edsa, during the days of the vigilantes and paramilitary groups, during the days of the US bases, during the days of the debt debates. Showing that the Cory magic doesn’t work even for Cory when she doesn’t use it. It certainly wasn’t there during these last few years when it was everything the concerned and decent-minded could do to rouse this country from its drunken stupor.

The Cory magic reappeared only last Aug. 5, resurrected by her death, stoked to living fire by her being laid to rest. It did so because the situation was there, because the story line was there, because the magic words were there. Those magic words being love and hate, a love for someone who, whatever her imperfections, was the best president this country ever had and a hatred for someone who rivals Marcos as the worst ruler (neither was/is legitimate) this country has ever had. Those magic words being rottenness and grace, a rejection of an order that represented living death, the embrace of a future that glowed with resurrected life. Those magic words being the choice between more of the same, the continuation of the same, the extension of the same, and the one chance born miraculously, wrought magically, to renew and heal and get stronger.

The Cory magic reappeared because we were back to a situation where the fundamental choice was not between the relative merits of candidates but between life and death. Where the fundamental choice was not between Noynoy and Manny and Gibo and Erap, and everybody else who subsequently appeared on the scene, but between the GMA curse and the Cory legacy. Where the fundamental choice was not between economic platforms, which like diplomas could be bought in Quiapo a dime a dozen, but between right and wrong, in the same way that the 1986 snap elections were a choice between right and wrong, in the same way that the 2008 American elections were a choice between right and wrong.

The situation was sublime, the response paralytic. The times called for reconstituting the shattered dreams of a nation and making them whole again, the response was to appraise the world about Noynoy’s plans for housing. It was an Edsa masquerading as an election, the Aquino campaign turned it into an election masquerading as an Edsa.

But it’s not the end of things it’s just the beginning of things. The preface has just ended, the real chapter begins. I can only hope the Aquino camp has learned from the experience. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. The Aquino campaign can come back roaring, armed with new resolve and wisdom born of pain. Though pain does not always guarantee wisdom, to go by what the Liberal Party is saying, which is that maybe Noynoy should try a new tack. When the very tack of trying a new tack, of turning Noynoy into “just another candidate,” another would-be president wooing the voters, was what caused the disaster to begin with. Truly, as Rizal said, “Those who do not see where they came from will not get to where they’re going.”

The Cory magic is Edsa, the Cory magic is People Power, the Cory magic is Moral Ascendancy. Noynoy goes back to those roots, making the people see again, as they saw last August with the power of tongues of fire, that the choice is an epic one, the choice is a moral one, the choice is a life-and-death one, and the numbers will come tumbling back again. Like a flood.

Like magic.