Tita Cory's faith

I join the nation and the world in mourning the death of former President Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino.

In her death she has once again united our nation divided by so much politics and strife.

The bishop, who celebrated the mass at noontime yesterday, whose homily I caught over the nationwide broadcast of dzBB (dySS here) while attending to my daughter during her lunch break.

The priest said that what made Tita Cory different was the fact that she wasn’t embarrassed to show her faith in public. What was good is that it wasn’t overacting when she showed how faithful she was.

I truly agree with the priest.

This also leads us to those people who seem to try to have a religious side only for show as their deeds do not match their ring antics and their pronouncements.

For Tita Cory, it was different. Her six-year term may not have been the heydays of the Philippines, but it was during her presidency that many more doors were opened for us Filipinos.

Up to this day, I can still feel the hair on my nape rise when I hear the songs of the People Power revolution now known as EDSA I.

I was too young to vote then, but not too young to be proud that I am a Filipino.

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I received email yesterday from my classmate Alwin Orcullo, who is now based in Italy.

Alwin asked me about the Filipino swimmers, who took part in the Swimming World Championships in Rome.

He said that the Filipino bets (Fil-Ams) were last in their heats and he asked what could be done about this.

The real problem really is that we continue to look for palliative measures to solve our problems about winning in international events.

Our sports officials have gone around in search of children of Filipinos, who are now based abroad and are doing well in their sport. What have these officials done at home?

We can continue searching the world for the best of those with Pinoy blood, but unless we also develop those who are at home, we’re never moving forward.

Grassroots development programs must be taken seriously if we want to be among the world’s best. To do that, the first step is for the sports leaders to unite.

The biggest issue however is that unity has never been something our so-called sports leaders have included in their agenda. They claim that they want unity, but that is only in words.

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MILESTONES: Belated birthday greetings to sports editor Manny Villaruel, who turned a year older yesterday. Manny was a skinny 17-year-old college student when he joined the sports staff back in 1997 while I was sports editor. The years surely have been good to him.

Belated greetings also go to my mistahs Luth Cuenco (August 3) and Supt. Tony Yarra (August 4) as well as Stanley Yap (August 3).

More power to all of you! -  THE FREEMAN