You ask too much from me.

Remember when I look at you with quizzical eyes? Or when I ask you what are you doing with the dreams you built before? 

You do something in my life. You make it seem easier to make the tougher decisions. You do not have big fears but dwell in petty little uncertainties. You jump and run and shout for life. And you always make it look so fun.

I love the many colours of you. The way you cowardly aim for banter than depth. The way you strut and poke fun at simple everyday things. The sweetness that never leaves your eyes. The youth you display beneath the old soul you possess. I think you have actually seen it all and decided that it's all funny.

I know that I do not need to look closer to see that you belong to each other. She is strong and brave and caring and wise. She shows her love for you in the most conventional ways too. She brings light in your eyes and makes sure that you are kept with your feet on the ground. 

She is the rudder to your sail. I know that you are bound to toss and drift without her. I am just not sure how it seemed possible that you decided that you have found this in somebody else.

She completes you in the best definition of that cliché.

It pains me to see what love has done here. I know that we do not always get what we deserve in the matters of love. And we cannot always afford to do something about it. 

But you belong to France.

in less than a year, it would be ten years since i was in high school...

i don't really know how to sum up what my entire high school experience was but, at that time, it seemed like the most important time of my life.

i was eventually forced to transfer from a private Catholic school into a public high school. looking back, i believe that i should have been warned. although i spent most of my growing years in a private school setting, it's my experiences in the public school which defined me - it made somehow better and a little bit worse. 

i learned how to lie without batting an eyelash. i learned how to smoke effectively that by my third day i was already a chain smoker. i learned how to drink alcohol, and not just those girly screwdriver mixes. i learned hard, liver-smashing drinking. i remembered how we mix Red Horse (one of the stronger local beers) and gin bilog (a cheap but wicked variety sold for about twelve pesos per bottle at that time) and drink to our hearts content - or as our allowances would be able to afford.

i much rather not go into the dirty details as it may be taken against me.

but i lived a high school life devoid of self control. i could even say that i lived on the edge. even the day before our graduation was a testament to how much we've pushed the definition of problem teens. one of my closest pals nearly got shot.

i realized then (or sometime after that) that the life i want to live is nowhere near where i was. i was a loud, rebellious, and ignorant drunkard. and it was too bad because i really did well on my NSATs. i realized that i wanted to go to college. i wanted to finish my schooling and i wanted to do a better job in living my life. 

i got into a good college, finished a degree, took a post-graduate course and passed the board exams - i think i've done so much better now. 

so i guess high school is really just a time in one's life. whether you were called a brainiac, a dork, a slut, a clown, a rebel, or an idiot - it's okay. it's just high school. it's what you do after it that really counts. 

Throughout thirteen years of martial law, until I laid eyes on her again, I never thought that I would ever see the end of it. Least of all that my father would survive it. I am not much given to prayer or pious reflection but when I could set aside my anger, I prayed my father would see democracy again. 

Late one afternoon, in San Francisco, I got a call. It was from Cory Aquino, for whom I had written one speech after her husband’s assassination. She said she had accepted Marcos’s challenge in a Snap Presidential Election. I put down the phone, and packed my bags, and reported to her at the Cojuangco Building. 

I knew then she was the answer to my prayers. What I did not notice was that the closer we came to victory, which is to say the farther the prospect receded that the Marcos regime would survive, the less I felt the anger inside me. As each day passed, bringing me closer to the day I could get even, the less I felt the need for it as I spent more time with the woman who alone could make it possible. 

I did not notice, but I was no longer looking back in anger, or looking forward even, to victory and vindication. Only now do I see. I had lived with my anger so long, only for the day to come when it no longer mattered to me. The only thing that counted was that I was living every day to the fullest, bringing out the best in me—for someone else. A dream I hadn’t had since I was a boy, feeding on stories of chivalry, had been achieved. I was serving a woman who was every inch a sovereign, all the more for scorning the slightest pretension to the role. 

I did not realize it, even when I was already in the Palace, by the side of the President—among all her advisers, I like to think, the one who loved her most. 

It never again occurred to me that I had scores to settle. And not until today, that I had passed up every chance to get even. 

From the moment I came in from the airport and reported for duty, and she gave me in return the same smile she gave me on her deathbed, I never noticed… Not when I was with her in the campaign when she corrected me for not looking at the people I was waving at… Nor when I was with her in the presidential limousine looking intently, for her benefit, at the crowds at whom I waved… I never noticed anything. Except that I was with the only person that I would ever want to be with. 

I certainly never noticed that I had left my anger behind. I don’t know how it happened. Except that Cory Aquino ennobled everyone who came near her. I have tried to say it publicly but never could finish. If you saw me as I felt myself to be, anyone would fall in love with me. I saw myself in that hospital room, a knight at the bedside of his dying sovereign, on the eve of a new Crusade, oblivious to the weight of the armor on his shoulders for the weight of the grief in his heart. 

And because she always doubted my ability to be good for very long… Indeed, when my wife told Ballsy that I prayed the rosary at Lourdes for her mother’s recovery, Cory said, “Teddy Boy prayed the rosary? A miracle! I feel better already.” Because she doubted my capacity for self-reformation, she made it effortless for me by being herself. I did not notice that I was doing right by serving a woman who never did wrong. I am not sure how to take this moral self-discovery. It is so unlike myself. But if it will bring me before her again, I am happy.

********************

This speech was given as eulogy for the late President Corazon "Tita Cory" Aquino by Makati Representative and former speechwriter, Teddy Boy Locsin. As of presstime, thousands of people swarm the streets leading to Manila Memorial Park to join the Aquino family in bidding her farewell. 

about six years ago, i declared that i'm not the marrying kind.

i saw a parade of failed marriages and broken families. in fact, mine was one for a while. i saw marriage as work - too much work for a piece of paper. and even more so - having children. 

scared out of my wits, i realized i wouldn't be willing to go through all that. i wouldn't be willing to compromise my individuality. i wouldn't be willing to put my career on hold or on the line for it. i wouldn't be one of those girls in the next table talking about the best way to cook their adobo. i would always be free. 

i would be available for nights out with the gang 24/7. i would be the chick who would always know what's the latest because my life would not be interrupted by the girls' ballet classes and my husband's company dinners. 

a few months ago, something changed. someone changed. and it felt strange, scary, wierd and wonderful.

you did this to me. you looked at me like i was the only one who mattered in the room. you held me like i was made of crystal. you made me believe that i could do anything and be good at it. 

and i knew that you're all that i would ever want and need.

i like the way you smile at me for no reason. i like that i make you smile just by being there. i've always had to say something smart or wear something nice to get one.

i like that i always win our arguments, or at least you let me. i like that you like me thinking too. i've always had to compromise and listen more than talk. 

i like that you've always been a gentleman. i like that you ask before you give and give whenever i asked. i've always had to give something up before getting anything in return.

i wish i could tell you how lucky i feel to have had you in my life. 

i wish i could make you feel that you're very important and loved - something that you definitely deserve.

i wish i could hold you and tell you that i love you and nobody else - but he came here first and he never really left.

so my every smile, kiss, hug and love will belong to him as though he's always been the better man.