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Another historic death and rebirth
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star 2010-08-01
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Your Chair Wrecker has been conditioned by personal experience to be ever sensitive to intuition. People can rationalize and deceive themselves but intuition is spontaneous and honest. There are those who will even say that intuition is a message from one’s soul. You could encounter problems with intuition though if you mistake it for wishful thinking.
When Democracy Icon President Cory C. Aquino lived her final moments, the country became focused on the drama unfolding at the Makati Medical Center during the last week of July 2009. It was then that the intuition struck me that if she passes away on the month of August — expect a major historical event to unfold. As it turned out, President Cory passed away on August 1, 2009.
You may ask: “What is so special about the month of August?” You see, the month of August is the one month of the year when major historical events tend to unfold. Many of the most important historical events which directed the course of national destinies did occur on the month of August.
It was during the month of August when the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. That marked mankind’s entry into the scary nuclear age in warfare. In a nuclear war, there will hardly be any winners.
It was during the month of August when the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) was passed in 1972. That offered humanity hope that a nuclear war will be less likely to happen or will likely be confined to a smaller area.
It was during the month of August when the US entered the Vietnam War following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. That Indochina engagement of American forces marked the very first US defeat in the many wars the American nation had fought.
It was in the month of August when Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 B. C. and when the Roman Empire ended in 476 A. D. Thus, it can be considered that it was in the month of August when the expansion and the end of the Pax Romana happened.
It was in the month of August when the War of the Roses ended in England with the death of King Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth. That marked the rise to the English throne of the Tudor monarchs which culminated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I laid the foundations for the future British Empire.
It was in the month of August when Adolf Hitler became German Fuehrer in 1934. That marked the rise to power of the man who will ignite World War II — a conflict where millions perished and where there were more civilian casualties than killed combatants. It was one of the ugliest chapters of world history and Filipinos were among those who suffered.
It was in the month of August when the Battle of Britain was fought in 1940. That was the crucial battle that effectively stopped Nazi Germany’s winning momentum in Europe. Securing victory in the Battle of Britain allowed the Allied Forces to have a stable base from which to retake and liberate the captured Nazi territories in Continental Europe.
It was in the month of August in 1914 when Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire found themselves sucked into World War I. World War I has been long over but its repercussions still continue to shape world events.
To someone who believes that the Divine Hand that guides the destinies of nations intervenes at crucial periods in history — it is easy to also believe that there are traces to remind us of these interventions. The staging of these major historical events in the month of August is one of them.
Who can forget the event of August 21, 1983 — the day when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated upon his arrival from the US? That assassination triggered the series of historical events here which culminated in the rebirth of Philippine democracy and the Cory Aquino ascendancy.
Over the last 12 months, we witnessed the same historical pattern of death triggering rebirth when President Cory passed away and paved the way for the ascendancy of her only son, Noynoy, to the presidency. The national deep cynicism of 13 months ago was transformed into the high hopes for a better future which the majority of Filipinos feel these days, following Noynoy Aquino’s assumption of the Presidency.
Another Democracy Icon, the late Jaime Cardinal Sin would always say that “Cory Aquino is God’s gift to the Filipino people.” Cory’s historical saga — the pain, the suffering, the persecution, the occasional humiliation during visits to Ninoy in prison — can be somewhat compared to a personal embrace of Golgotha.
The verisimilitude of the Cory and Noynoy political sagas is something legends are made of except that in their cases — their stories constituted factual history and not the fiction that is commonly peddled by cheap propagandists. Both mother and son never aspired for the presidency.
The mother and son Aquino presidencies were the products of social, economic, political and public psychological conditions. Two separate tyrannies created the conditions that made Cory and Noynoy the proverbial powerful ideas whose times had come.
The tyrannical reign of Ferdinand E. Marcos created the conditions that made Filipinos look for another alternative, one that is so untypical of the offered leaders. This was Cory Aquino. The climate of impunity which characterized the reign of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) made Filipinos look again for the non-conventional alternative leader. This time it was Noynoy Aquino.
From those who simply offered themselves as “new, improved leaders” — Filipinos sought another national helmsman whom they considered as a cut above the rest. Noynoy Aquino offered a brand of leadership that was simply positively different from the rest of the presidential products available on the shelves.
The product of a major historical event that coincided with the month of August, Noynoy Aquino can be considered as the brainchild of what Germany’s Otto Von Bismarck described as God marching through history.
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