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“Lean was like Gandalf …”

My nephew, Ruben “Benc” Canlas, is a member of the Tolkien society. He was also an activist in the ’80s, in Diliman, a blogger, and an admirer of the martyred political leader Lean Alejandro.

Writing about his world the first time he read “The Hobbit,” Benc identified the year 1983 as “pivotal.” Sometime in December 2006, I commented on this by email and he posted it in his blog “The Couch Kamote”, for me to stumble upon only a couple of months ago. I’m reclaiming it and posting it here, in my space.

-o0o-

Alright then, Benc, I’ll bite. Lean and Tokien is it?

I was with Lean in the 1981 University Student Council (USC); he was our Vice Chairman. One of his “gifts” to me was this new appreciation for things British. First were Dunhills (nabibili ng medyo mura sa Shopping Center, doon sa stall na meron pang maliit na mezzanine). Next were Chariots of Fire and Galipoli, both in lousy betamax format. Then came Tolkien in yellowed pages and ripped but lovingly scotchtaped paperbacks.

(There was actually a Tolkien book in the house in Quezon City and I remember it gathering dust on the shelf there, lying unopened since the long night before Iluvitar wove his music. But I found the shorter Reader’s Digest articles more readable then.)
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I was never terribly impressed with the presidency of Cory Aquino. I wanted her to go one way and never quite forgave her when she went down another path. My thoughts on her presidency – at least those I bothered to write down during the first half of her term – chronicle the growing disappointment shared by many Filipinos, the frustration over Cory’s seeming inability to break through the entrenched forces of elitism and privilege, the sense that Cory was betraying the great reform agenda that defined her relationship with the Filipino nation.

Nothing has changed in the way I understood the Aquino regime and I dust off these decades-old words and phrases, reproduce them below and once more present them for the public record. After all, if we should remember Cory’s presidency, we should do so first by firmly situating it in its time in history.

But I call attention to something that may not be apparent from the writings below. Through this estrangement with the Aquino presidency, I never doubted the sincerity of Cory Aquino herself. Even when regard for her regime was at its lowest and indignation over its policies at its peak, I never ceased to be awed by her personal courage and heroism, and her remarkable capacity for sacrifice. Having long ago put away the spectacles of the armchair revolutionary, I have grown to realize that it was precisely these personal qualities of Cory Aquino that the people instinctively responded and related to. It was there all the time: Cory made history precisely because she was, above all and beyond doubt, a kind and decent human being.
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