Tita Cory's dreams live on despite death - Roxas

Liberal President Senator Mar Roxas expressed deep, personal sadness over the death early Saturday morning of former President Corazon Aquino as he relayed his and his family’s condolences to Mrs. Aquino’s children and family.

"Tita Cory, personally and through her husband Ninoy, underwent so much pain and abuse but she never surrendered. Today, even in death, her dreams live on and they will never be defeated," Roxas said in a statement released after learning of the former President’s death.

To honor the former President, Roxas called on Filipinos to "pray as one nation" and on political leaders to tone down partisan and political statements and activities.

"Tita Cory stood for the unity and reconciliation of our people. The least that we can do today is to set aside our partisan interests, tone down our partisan voices and pray as one nation for her peace and the peace that she dreamt for all of us," he said.

Roxas and his family are close personal friends of the Aquino family. The senator’s late father, former Senator Gerry Roxas, was also a close friend and political ally of President Aquino’s assassinated husband, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who with Gerry Roxas and former Senator Jovito Salonga formed the Liberal Party’s triumvirate especially during the martial law years.

Mar Roxas returned to the Philippines in 1985 after nine years of working in the United States to help in the presidential campaign of Mrs. Aquino.

His full statement is as follows:

"Tita Cory, personally and through her husband Ninoy, underwent so much pain and abuse but she never surrendered. Today, even in death, her dreams live on and they will never be defeated."

"At no time did an ordinary housewife like her exert an extraordinary influence in the course of our recent history. As she cared for Ninoy and her family during the days of his brave struggle against the dictatorship, she nurtured the nation in its brave journey from darkness to freedom.

"Her leadership was a bridge between the long era of rebellion and strife in the seventies and eighties, and the restoration of democracy towards the nineties. It was a leadership steeped in pure selflessness. For Tita Cory fought dictatorship with the same fervor that she loved our nation. Through her, we were able to live out and show to the world, our own patriotism.

"We saw how the EDSA revolution that was sparked by Tita Cory reverberated globally. It inspired peoples all over Eastern Europe and Latin America to bring down authoritarian rule without violence, to the extent that even the Berlin wall was torn down three years later. The whole world owes much to her shining example.

"Tita Cory joins the ranks of the greatest freedom fighters of the last and current century— Ghandi, Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, among several others who have devoted their life and being to principle that there is nothing more precious than the liberty and dignity of human beings.

"Tita Cory stood for the unity and reconciliation of our people. The least that we can do today is to set aside our partisan interests, tone down our partisan voices and pray as one nation for her peace and the peace that she dreamt for all of us.