CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Pres. Arroyo’s only sister Cielo Macapagal-Salgado said yesterday she would support a move to petition Pope Benedict XVI to consider former Pres. Corazon Aquino as candidate for beatification, then sainthood.
“She was a living saint, after all,” Salgado, 68, told Punto in a telephone interview after she attended the funeral services for Mrs. Aquino at the Manila cathedral last Wednesday.
This, even as 3,798 persons as of yesterday morning have joined a Facebook “cause” in the internet calling for “the promotion of the sainthood of the Philippine’s former president, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and to petition the Roman Catholic Church to begin the investigation for the canonization process.” The Facebook cause was launched only last Aug. 2, a day after Mrs. Aquino died.
Salgado, whose mother was the first wife of former Pres. Diosdado Macapagal, said that during the funeral rites, she even expressed to a former cabinet official here confidence that Mrs. Aquino is already in heaven and that “therefore, we should be the one to ask her to pray for us.”
“We should pray to her to help us remove selfishness in our midst once and for all and for the unity of all Filipinos,” said Salgado who was the vice governor of this province during the Aquino administration.
Salgado is known to Kapampangans as very religious and, like Mrs. Aquino, a devotee of Our Lady of Fatima. She and her family, together with Fr. Jerry Orbos, had visited and prayed at Fatima in Portugal where the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared in 1918 to three children, including Sister Lucia dos Santos who later made a rosary which she gave Mrs. Aquino as a gift.
Mrs. Aquino had once joined the call for Salgado’s half-sister Pres. Arroyo to resign amid allegations of cheating in the 2004 presidential elections. The President is the late Pres. Macapagal’s daughter by his second wife former first lady Eva Macaraig-Macapagal.
“She (Cory) offered her sufferings for the country, she offered her pains to Jesus Christ for the intentions of the country. She modeled her life after that of Jesus,” Salgado said.
Asked whether she would accept heading a movement that would push for the official beatification and possibly canonization of Mrs. Aquino, she replied “of course I would.”
But then, she said there are others who are more deserving than she is in pushing for Mrs. Aquino’s sainthood and that she would rather yield to them.
“It will of course be a long process that will eventually require a miracle from Cory herself. One miracle we can pray for is the transformation of our country,” she said.
Salgado recalled that she first met Mrs. Aquino even before former Pres. Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
“It was at a party that I met her in 1971 and I was impressed with her. I decided she would be ninang for my youngest daughter Ma. Victoria,” she recalled.
In 1987 when Mrs. Aquino was already president launched by People Power the previous year, former Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, whom Cory had appointed officer-in-charge of the Pampanga provincial government, asked Salgado’s brother Arthur Macapagal to run as his vice governor.
“My brother declined the offer but he suggested me. I was also hesitant, but I prayed for a sign and thought that if Cory herself would ask me, then I would,” Salgado said.
Salgado recalled that days later, “there was a road inauguration in Magalang (Pampanga) and I was at the end of the long line of personalities. All of a sudden, she called for me and told me to run for vice governor.” Salgado recalled. She and Guiao won in the elections.
Meanwhile, the Facebook cause described Mrs. Aquino as “not only an icon of democracy but also a Servant of God who valued and promoted prayer.”
In pushing for Cory’s sainthood, the cause noted that Mrs. Aquino “exhibited heroically the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.”
“She lived a simple, modest, and prayerful life and remained vigilant and active in the promotion of life, truth, and social justice,” it added.
Belief in Cory’s spiritual heroism has been boosted by testimonites from Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. of the Loyola School of Theology, who delivered the homily in the Requiem Mass for Mrs. Aquino yesterday.
Arevalo had written, long before the illness of Mrs. Aquino, that the rosary given her by Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three visionaries of Fatima, was held by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself.
“Some of the Sisters (in Sister Lucia’s convent) believe that Our Lady, during one of her visits, held the rosary in her own hands and blessed it for Mrs. Aquino, promising her presence and strength to her in times specially of suffering and need. That is why Sr. Lucia reminded Tita Cory to take good care of the rosary. Our Lady had held it in her own hands,” Arevalo said.
He quoted Mrs. Aquino as later saying” “Sister Lucia sent me this rosary which she herself made, with the message that I would be supported and protected in my presidency. She added, however, that more suffering would come my way. I now know that it was a prophetic message, as I had to fight back seven coup attempts to save my administration from power-grabbers in uniform. With Our Lady’s protection, I stood my ground and never left Malacañang, even when it was being attacked.”
“She was a living saint, after all,” Salgado, 68, told Punto in a telephone interview after she attended the funeral services for Mrs. Aquino at the Manila cathedral last Wednesday.
This, even as 3,798 persons as of yesterday morning have joined a Facebook “cause” in the internet calling for “the promotion of the sainthood of the Philippine’s former president, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and to petition the Roman Catholic Church to begin the investigation for the canonization process.” The Facebook cause was launched only last Aug. 2, a day after Mrs. Aquino died.
Salgado, whose mother was the first wife of former Pres. Diosdado Macapagal, said that during the funeral rites, she even expressed to a former cabinet official here confidence that Mrs. Aquino is already in heaven and that “therefore, we should be the one to ask her to pray for us.”
“We should pray to her to help us remove selfishness in our midst once and for all and for the unity of all Filipinos,” said Salgado who was the vice governor of this province during the Aquino administration.
Salgado is known to Kapampangans as very religious and, like Mrs. Aquino, a devotee of Our Lady of Fatima. She and her family, together with Fr. Jerry Orbos, had visited and prayed at Fatima in Portugal where the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared in 1918 to three children, including Sister Lucia dos Santos who later made a rosary which she gave Mrs. Aquino as a gift.
Mrs. Aquino had once joined the call for Salgado’s half-sister Pres. Arroyo to resign amid allegations of cheating in the 2004 presidential elections. The President is the late Pres. Macapagal’s daughter by his second wife former first lady Eva Macaraig-Macapagal.
“She (Cory) offered her sufferings for the country, she offered her pains to Jesus Christ for the intentions of the country. She modeled her life after that of Jesus,” Salgado said.
Asked whether she would accept heading a movement that would push for the official beatification and possibly canonization of Mrs. Aquino, she replied “of course I would.”
But then, she said there are others who are more deserving than she is in pushing for Mrs. Aquino’s sainthood and that she would rather yield to them.
“It will of course be a long process that will eventually require a miracle from Cory herself. One miracle we can pray for is the transformation of our country,” she said.
Salgado recalled that she first met Mrs. Aquino even before former Pres. Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
“It was at a party that I met her in 1971 and I was impressed with her. I decided she would be ninang for my youngest daughter Ma. Victoria,” she recalled.
In 1987 when Mrs. Aquino was already president launched by People Power the previous year, former Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, whom Cory had appointed officer-in-charge of the Pampanga provincial government, asked Salgado’s brother Arthur Macapagal to run as his vice governor.
“My brother declined the offer but he suggested me. I was also hesitant, but I prayed for a sign and thought that if Cory herself would ask me, then I would,” Salgado said.
Salgado recalled that days later, “there was a road inauguration in Magalang (Pampanga) and I was at the end of the long line of personalities. All of a sudden, she called for me and told me to run for vice governor.” Salgado recalled. She and Guiao won in the elections.
Meanwhile, the Facebook cause described Mrs. Aquino as “not only an icon of democracy but also a Servant of God who valued and promoted prayer.”
In pushing for Cory’s sainthood, the cause noted that Mrs. Aquino “exhibited heroically the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.”
“She lived a simple, modest, and prayerful life and remained vigilant and active in the promotion of life, truth, and social justice,” it added.
Belief in Cory’s spiritual heroism has been boosted by testimonites from Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. of the Loyola School of Theology, who delivered the homily in the Requiem Mass for Mrs. Aquino yesterday.
Arevalo had written, long before the illness of Mrs. Aquino, that the rosary given her by Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three visionaries of Fatima, was held by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself.
“Some of the Sisters (in Sister Lucia’s convent) believe that Our Lady, during one of her visits, held the rosary in her own hands and blessed it for Mrs. Aquino, promising her presence and strength to her in times specially of suffering and need. That is why Sr. Lucia reminded Tita Cory to take good care of the rosary. Our Lady had held it in her own hands,” Arevalo said.
He quoted Mrs. Aquino as later saying” “Sister Lucia sent me this rosary which she herself made, with the message that I would be supported and protected in my presidency. She added, however, that more suffering would come my way. I now know that it was a prophetic message, as I had to fight back seven coup attempts to save my administration from power-grabbers in uniform. With Our Lady’s protection, I stood my ground and never left Malacañang, even when it was being attacked.”
