It is a chant that reverberates in the souls of every freedom-loving Filipino/Filipina, drawing power from within and consolidating in the rhythm of the pulsating heartbeats of the millions caged in martial rule,  injustice, poverty and oppression. The chant is liberating. It is enchanting.

Cory is an expression of an ideal and yet common to many of us. Cory is a sound reminiscent of a classic accepted and well loved. An ordinariness exemplifying an extraordinary will in extraordinary times. An extraordinariness in the midst of ordinary and basic value of a loving mother and wife. Cory is a resolute vibration sending quivers and tremors to powers that-be. Cory echoes the sincere human desire of a better future. Cory reciprocates our energies to demand accountability and transparency in the face of threatened democracy.

And Cory is a name of a person, a woman.

Since mid-1980s, when I was too young to remember, Cory has symbolized the struggle against the strongman and threats to democracy. The assassination of her husband left a vacuum in the struggle to solidify voices subduedly shouting their aspirations for freedom and participation in governance. Cory filled that space like a bass sound that shakes and penetrates the foundations and walls of the dictatorship. That was in the mid-1980s.

From then on, Cory has been a steady cry for good governance and democracy. Rallying for and with Filipinos/Filipinas, Cory has woken up the lethargic spirits of a country slowly slipping to submission to the ill will of a strong family occupying the Palace in the 1980s, early 2000s, and now.

The deadening chant has reached the peak of volume. It is fading. And gone.

Soon or sooner enough… Those who have witnessed and experienced the magic and power of the chant, we will undauntingly start to chant again..  Because we believe..  because we are with her… because she will forever be with us… Of all the good things that happened to us, Cory was one of them. We are blessed to have been part of the generation when the chant has the most compelling and chilling effect, in us, to them – positively.

Cory! Cory! Cory!

My future son/daughter will learn to chant things. I’ll make sure this is one of them. Because I am grateful, I believe, remember.