YELLOW confetti again rained in profusion over Ayala Avenue in Makati this noon as the truck bearing the body of former President Corazon Aquino traversed the busy street in the country’s financial district that led the fight against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the twilight years of his presidency.
About 25,000 people (according to police estimates) clad mostly in yellow chanted “Cory, Cory,” waved yellow banners and flags, flashed Aquino’s “Laban” (fight in Filipino) sign and sang the patriotic song “Bayan Ko” as the convoy of vehicles transporting her remains from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral wended through Ayala Avenue. The body had lain in wake at La Salle Greenhills since Saturday.
The cortege left Greenhills at 11 a.m. and was originally scheduled to arrive at the Manila Cathedral at 1 p.m. for arrival honors by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
But the 10-wheeler flatbed truck carrying the flag-draped casket lying amid a bed of yellow flowers, and followed by buses and cars bearing Aquino’s friends and family, navigated past Ayala Avenue at snail’s pace, coming to a halt several times to accommodate the mammoth throng of Filipinos that turned out to to pay their last respects to the former housewife who toppled Marcos and restored democracy in 1986.
Several members of the Cojuangco family got off their vehicles to join the march on Ayala Avenue led by members of the August Twenty One Movement (ATOM). The group was founded to continue the pro-democracy campaign of Mrs. Aquino’s husband, former Beningo S. Aquino Jr., after his assassination on Aug. 21, 1983.
A short program led by Makati Mayor Jejomar C. Binay was held at Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas near the monument of the slain former senator.
In all, it took the cortege more than 90 minutes to cover the whole stretch of Ayala Avenue. It was nearly 2 p.m. by then.
The cortege finally reached the Manila Cathedral at 3:50 p.m. after passing through the streets of Manila, including Roxas Boulevard, that were also jammed with people, many of them students and office workers.
Mrs. Aquino will be buried on Wednesday.
