Was Cory so well-loved because she never wanted, never aspired to be president of the Republic?

When circumstances conspired to push her to the top of a revolutionary government, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino’s fate would be written in the stars. No one expected her to be the perfect president, but everyone knew they could trust her, like trusting your mother.

By shirking the presidency, the “plain and simple housewife” that Marcos had mocked would show the world that “the Filipino is worth living for” (in contrast to Senator Aquino’s “the Filipino is worth dying for”). She may not have been the best available leader at the time, but certainly the most appropriate for our time. With a classy simplicity and dignity, a glow about her that shielded her from the usually vulgar comments that commentators vulgarly and regularly make against those in power.

Even as she picked up the pieces to unify the nation and give hope its best shot, her very presence in Malacañang was as reassuring as a security blanket. Ironically, for one so able to reassure others, she had to turn to God for protection from several attacks on her presidency.

Cory's ultimate weapon was prayer. Although no one has come close to suggesting that she was a living saint, the last weeks of her life looked eerily like a pilgrimage. The prayer vigil for a former head of state was unprecedented in size, frequency, duration, and, might one dare add, in efficacy. An outpouring of prayers and masses said in government offices, malls, and schools bombarded heaven, sparing neither saints nor angels. Friends and strangers found a way to send to the hospital their healing rosaries and miracle-working medals by the dozen. For a time, it seemed God was about to answer in the affirmative.

Healing priests, contemplative nuns, even public figures not typically regarded for their religious convictions joined the throng to pray as one. Two days before God took Cory to endow her with the gift of eternity, a devout Catholic friend worriedly whispered to me, “Our prayers are so powerful, God doesn’t want to disappoint us, but maybe it’s time to free Cory from her suffering?”

Cory was not the best president we will ever have, but there will be no president like her. That, too, is written in the stars.