Saturday, September 26, 2009

In Tribute to the "Plain Housewife"



Corazon Aquino, who led the bloodless coup.


From a Time Magazine article:

Though hampered by the government's near monopoly of the media, the Aquino campaign attracted millions of fervent supporters, all decked out in yellow, the reluctant candidate's favorite color. And when Marcos cheated her of victory in the February 1986 vote, the outcry was tremendous — and his doom was sealed. Bearing witness to their political allegiance, the millions who crammed the streets to protect reformist soldiers who had mutinied against Marcos chanted the now familiar mantra: "Cory, Cory, Cory." Nuns armed only with rosaries knelt in front of tanks, stopping them in their tracks.

(snip)

Aquino was convinced that her presidency was divinely inspired, even as her political foes mocked her piety. "If the country needs me," she said, "God will spare me." And miracle of miracles, she proved God right and her critics wrong.

And this is what she inspired:



Tomorrow will be part II of the tribute to the plain housewife.

3 comments:

bill bannon said...

But can you see from this (the nuns and Cardinal Sin at the time going on radio so as to protect the anti Marcos leaders) how Pope Benedict's early letter to China which stated that the Church does not seek to overthrow governments seemed to not even take this participation into account. In other words China had seen the Church figures active in the overthrow of Marcos and then the Pope tells them that the Church does not seek to overthrow governments. Likewise in Weigel's
"Witness of Hope", Weigel calls it the revolution of several people including John Paul II.
Again Benedict in his early letter to China seemed free of the responsibility to read what Chinese intelligence was certainly reading...that the Church was involved in overthrows right off their coast and in the case of Poland (Weigel/ibid), John Paul was seen to have been active in the overthrow of communism.

But Benedict's letter seemed to be fantasizing about a fictional Church that has nothing to do with overthrows. Popes in a dire way need critical feedback when they write something and they need it from people who are not constant flatterers who want to keep moving on up. Augustine said we each need rebuke and grace to grow....Peter got rebuke from Paul in Galatians. Where are the men in the Vatican who will point out what I just did above to a Pope when he writes that the Church does not overthrow.

Anonymous said...

You are right about Mr Melanson...he does hide behind pennames

Zaks wife

M. Alexander said...

The Church did not need to overthrow-the election was in favor of Mrs. Aquino.