Remembering Cory Aquino

Tomorrow, Aug. 1, is the 16th death anniversary of President Cory Aquino.

- ELFREN S. CRUZ

In these troubled times when the Filipino people hunger for leaders who are honest and charismatic, we remember with gratitude that there was such a person in the history of our country.

For nearly three decades, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino exercised power — for a few years as the legally elected president, but for a much longer period, before and after her presidency — using solely her "charismatic" leadership.

"Charisma" has been defined as the quality of an individual by virtue of which he or she is set apart from ordinary men and women and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional qualities.

The ancient Greeks often thought of charisma as a gift from the gods. But modern definition more frequently alludes to charisma as a personal leadership involving personal magnetism that permits leaders to arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm.

Leaders come in varying types of personality. Most of them use identifiable personality tricks and props. Winston Churchill and Fidel V. Ramos both used the cigar as props. But Churchill had the V (for victory) sign while Ramos had the thumbs-up sign. Roosevelt used the "fireside chats" while Martin Luther King used biblical phrases in his civil rights speeches.