CARMELITE nuns who sheltered her in Cebu in February 1986 will offer special prayers, while Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal will sponsor a mass to mark the first death anniversary of the former president Corazon Aquino.
“What she stood and fought for, at least she maintained it to the end,” said the cardinal.
He said he admired the late president for her sincerity and her faithfulness to public service during her term of office, from 1986 to 1992.
“She didn’t even want to extend her term. So in everything that she stood for, she has given an example to us all on how to serve democracy, and we pray that the Lord will give her rest,” said the archbishop.
He revealed he has written Aquino’s son, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, to offer a mass in Cebu in honor of his mother. Aquino won a landslide victory nine months after his mother’s death.
While both mother and son now share the honor and challenge of serving as president, people should give the son a chance to be seen on his own terms.
“Let us give him his chance to be his own man, but never forgetting the ideals that his mother had stood for,” said Cardinal Vidal.
The former president passed away at 3:18 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2009 at the Makati Medical Center, after a long bout of colon cancer.
The Carmelite nuns in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City will offer intentions for the eternal repose of her soul in today’s masses.
The contemplative nuns acted as Cory’s protectors during a brief stay at their convent at the height of a civilian uprising in 1986.
It was on Feb. 22, 1986 that Cory spent 14 hours at the monastery located along San Jose dela Montaña Ave. (now Juan Luna Ave.). At that time, she had been advised to stay with the nuns because of a threat to her life. Cory was with her teenage daughter Kris, brother Peping Cojuangco and close friends Antonio and Nancy Cuenco.
Aquino became the country’s first woman president three years after the assassination of her husband, Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., as he came home after exile in the United States.
Her funeral last year was one of the most attended events in the country’s recent history. There were long queues to view her remains and the funeral procession took over eight hours because of the hordes who waited along the streets in Manila. (JKV/BAP)