Filipinos must now take stock,” Time magazine said on President Cory Aquino’s death. “Whom will they march with now that their saint has gone to meet her God?

You wondered. Thousands, meanwhile. wept, thrust the “Laban” sign, tossed flowers and rained yellow confetti on Cory’s coffin. They did so in the streets, in queues and at the wakes. “Cory Aquino’s magic is back,” read Inquirer’s headline. “In death, she revives People Power.”

At the Memorial Park burial, people wept when the Church recited, over Cory’s dust, the ancient prayer it says, whether one is statesman, in gilded coffin or indigent squatter swaddled in buri-mat shroud. “May angels lead you to paradise. May the martyrs and the saints lead you to the holy city….”

Ayala Avenue in Makati, where Aquino marched to defy a dictator in 1983, and EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue), where the People Power Revolution she inspired was born, turned into seas of yellow” the paper reported.

The “sovereign people simply took over the streets to pay tribute” to Cory, columnist Amando Doronila pointed out. “The Yellow Army’s….silent tribute to Cory manifests a strong public clamor for political leadership that exemplifies decency and honesty…”

At Manila Cathedral rites, people close to Cory recalled days when she “tred the winepress” alone. When Cory finally met Ninoy, after weeks where he had been half-starved in Laur detention, “a meter of barbed wire separated them,” recalled Ninoy’s sister. “They could not even hold hands.”

Fr. Catalino Arevalo SJ spoke of simple people who waited hours just to bid goodbye to Cory. “It’s the only thing we can give,” a woman explained. “And she gave her all for us.” Her selflessness, faith and courage interlocked into a strength that others could lean on. Dozens of official scoundrels, clustered in front pews, listened with blank faces.

Cory chose a grave next to her husband, national hero Benigno Aquino murdered 26 years ago. The masterminds lurk unpunished in the shadows. She declined state honors that, by right, were hers from burial at Libingnan Ng Mga Bayani to traditional gun-and-carriage hearse.

For over two decades, the Marcoses wheedled for such honors for their father. So fierce was people opposition, that a badly singed President Joseph Estrada hastily backtracked. In hands of the crass, state funerals can turn into, “the tawdry privilege of the despot.”

Departing from condolence formulas, governments spoke glowingly of her integrity, restoration of constitutional rule and peaceful transfer of power.“So, you’re the son of Senator Aquino and President Cory,” South Afriica’s Nelson Mandela told Sen. Benigno Aquino III. “You chose your parents well.”

Straits Times of Malaysia, New York Times to Honlulu Star Bulletin, Jakarta Post to Gulf News saluted her unblemished integrity and efforts to rebuild from a corrupt dictatorship without soft-peddling her failures.

“Midnight always threatened Aquino but never struck,” wrote Time.“She was a good woman whose goodness alone, at the very end, was what proved enough, if only by an iota, to save her country.”

Despite coups, natural disasters, dogged opposition by corrupt officials, she survived and ensured “continuation of democracy in her homeland.” In crises, “Cory Aquino rose above the bureaucratic procrastination, reminding her people they once astonished the world with their bravery — and that they could do it again.”

But only three back the question seemed different. A bejeweled Imelda Marcos strode into a 80th birthday bash as little girls tossed roses, violinists played, and cronies clapped.

The “fluffy, cooing” front-page story “was devoid of reproach,” observed Manuel Quezon III. So was (former Press Secretary) Kit Tatad’s paean to Madame as a victim of the uneven application of justice. Wasn’t the glowing coverage a sign of complete political restoration? he asked. “The battle for history has been won—by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.”

Now, the death of an officially powerless woman throws that judgement into question. Here is a leader who, by sheer force of example, compelled even rebels like Rex Robles and Danny Lim to admit that all power does not necessarily grow from the barrel of a gun.

The road-less-travelled by Cory is sketched out in the “Austere are the Laurels of the Republic” homily. The late Fr Horacio de la Costa, SJ, delivered it on the death of Manuel Roxas in April 1948. It bears rereading today:

“Authority belongs to the people who may entrust it to whomsoever they freely choose. Neither does it endow the (person) to whom it is entrusted with any special of impeccability or infallibility. He may not claim thereby the divinity that doth hedge a king.

“He must spend himself in the public interest as though they were his own. Yet he may not derive any personal profit from his position. He is held accountable for the authority he holds in trust.

“And when his mandate is revoked, he must be willing to relinquish that authority and return, a private citizen, to the ranks from which he came. Let him not expect any reward, but the consciousness of having done his duty and served his people and his God.

For often, he will get no reward but this. Nay. He may find in the end his name vilified, his motives misrepresented, his deeds misjudged.”

Cory worked by those standards. And people accorded her the "austere laurels of the republic:," their love and gratitude.

“Now cracks a noble heart./ Good night (sweet lady)/ May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”