THE IRONY is that it was Ninoy Aquino, rather than Cory, who believed he was destined to be president. Aquino recalls she was perfectly content to be his wife and mother to five children. She regrets now that she never read all the books that her husband had told her to. She would perhaps been better prepared to be president if she had. Other than that, she has few regrets.

	CORAZON C. AQUINO Photo by Lilen Uy

Today Cory Aquino still lives in the modest, one-story Quezon City house she and Ninoy moved into in 1961. She spends her time painting (her living room is abloom with the flowers on her canvases), enjoying her grandchildren, and being involved with microfinance projects. She is a woman at peace with herself, content in semi-retirement, and happy that she is no longer in government.

She says she was never really cut out for public life, anyway. The presidency was thrust upon her by circumstances beyond her control. "I decided that I would accept the draft for the presidency because it was impressed upon me by Senator Tañada, Senator Salonga and all the others that, 'You are the only one who can unite the opposition.'" The only way to defeat Marcos, she says, was for her to run. Otherwise, there would be more than one opposition candidate "and we might as well just hand over [the election] to him on a silver platter."

"I believed," she says, enumerating the Cory Aquino articles of faith, "that it was important for us to restore democracy. I believed it was important for us to oust the dictator in a peaceful manner."

To this day, Aquino repeats this like a mantra. It was what she was destined to do, and it was what she did. Nothing more. Nothing less. Cory knew she was unprepared to be president, but having "restored democracy," she is confident she had done her part.

After all, she is not a social reformer, much less a revolutionary. She is not even a hands-on executive. Maybe things would have been different if she were. But she is not. She is an icon who became president, a devout Catholic housewife swept, like the rest of her countrymen, by the tide of history.

Ultimately, all of us will judge Cory Aquino according to whether she has measured up to our hopes and expectations. But Cory herself does not worry much about what we think; neither does she fret about the judgment of history. She wants to be remembered only as "somebody who really tried to do her best and who believed in prayer and who believed that prayer would direct her to what God intended for her."

How can anyone argue with that? — Sheila S. Coronel