Former Philippine president Corazon Aquino’s body made its final journey through Manila yesterday to be buried next to her assassinated husband in a culmination of grieving for the icon hailed as the example of moral leadership.
Over the last five days, hundreds of thousands of mourners have filed past her open casket. Family, friends and former aides crowded into the Manila Cathedral late on Tuesday to eulogize the accidental opposition leader who led the 1986 “people power” uprising and drove away the 20-year repressive rule of Ferdinand Marcos.
Aquino, the 11th Philippine president, died on Saturday at age 76 after a yearlong battle with colon cancer.
PHOTO: AFP
Her successors Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, the latter deposed in a second popular uprising in 2001 on corruption allegations, together with East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, attended yesterday’s requiem Mass.
Aquino inspired East Timor’s struggle for independence from Indonesia a decade ago, Ramos-Horta said.
“I think the greatest tribute that Filipinos can pay to Corazon Aquino and so many others who gave their lives for democracy is ... there should be no more dictatorships again,” he said.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was at odds with Aquino after she called on Arroyo to resign because of vote-rigging allegations, paid a quick visit to the wake yesterday morning upon her return from the US and left before the church ceremonies and procession.
Hundreds of thousands chanting “Cory” lined Manila’s rainy streets and walked behind the flatbed truck carrying Aquino’s flag-draped coffin as the procession, lashed by winds, inched its way to her final resting place beside her husband, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, at Manila Memorial Park. Yellow confetti showered the roads.
“We never saw any wrongdoing on her part,” housekeeper Edith Sabas said.
Fire trucks blasted their cannons, forming arcs of water above the procession in a salute to the former president. Yellow ribbons and balloons flapped from lamp posts, trees and vehicles — a tribute to Aquino’s signature color, which became a symbol of her movement.
Hundreds of bikers and cyclists in yellow shirts led the convoy.
At the simple white-painted tomb at the family mausoleum, interior designer Merly Querubin, wearing a baseball cap adorned with a yellow ribbon, said her country had two kinds of leaders.
“One who we follow out of fear and one who we follow out of respect. We have lost a leader so respected,” she said.
In a highly symbolic gesture, the late Marcos’ two children paid their last respects on Tuesday to the woman who toppled their father.
It was unlikely, however, to reconcile the families’ bitter rivalry.
Aquino’s brother-in-law, former senator Agapito “Butz” Aquino, welcomed them at the wake, saying the family had “no fight with the children” of Marcos.
Aquino rose to prominence after her husband was assassinated in 1983 as he returned from US exile to oppose Marcos. Hesitant, she inherited his mantle and agreed to run against the strongman in 1986.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS