Kris explains rejection of Palace offer

The family of former President Corazon Aquino had decided against a state funeral for her because of their differences with the Arroyo administration, her youngest daughter said Sunday.

Television host Kris Aquino said Malacañang had offered to give her mother a state funeral befitting the former President, but her siblings turned it down.

In an interview on national television Sunday, Kris said the differences stemmed from an administration decision to recall two soldiers serving as her mother’s security detail after the former President called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down in 2005.

“From what I understand, the unit taking care of former Presidents was being dissolved. We were requested to write a letter justifying why my mom should keep her bodyguards, Mel and Cris,” she explained on “The Buzz,” the show biz-oriented program that Kris co-hosts with Boy Abunda on Sundays.

“But it’s my mom’s right to have security. We just wanted the respect due my mom, a former President. Don’t take away my mom’s security blanket. [My brother] Noy was the one who took care of [this],” she said in English and Filipino.

Aquino died on Saturday after a long battle against colon cancer. She was 76. Her body lies in state at the La Salle Green Hills gymnasium in Mandaluyong City.

Why now?

So when the emissary from the Arroyo administration approached the family and asked if they wanted a state funeral, Kris became emotional.

“So I said, ‘Now you want to honor my mom? When you had taken away what was due her as a former President,’” she said in Filipino.

“This matter was already carefully explained to me. I’m just sharing this so that Noy would never have to be asked about this. Mel and Cris are like family to us. [They cried] at my mom’s bedside with us. They accompanied my mom in all her medical checkups and operation. My mom told Ate (Ballsy Aquino-Cruz) to make sure that they are taken care of,” she added.

“Malacañang doesn’t have to give honor to my mom because the honor comes from the country,” Kris said of her family’s decision to turn down the government’s offer.

During the two-hour program, Kris also expressed her gratitude to the people who helped her family through the ordeal, including former President Joseph Estrada, who had visited Aquino on July 29 at Makati Medical Center but had kept quiet about it.

“Quietly, [Estrada] had been so good to mom … When mom needed a friend, he was a friend to her,” she said.

Aquino was at the forefront of Estrada’s ouster in 2001. She was among those who led the people during the four-day revolt that peacefully overthrew Estrada on Jan. 20 that year.

“Despite this, he reached out to her. My respect for him grew because of this,” Kris said.

She also expressed gratitude to the family of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, who was unseated by an Aquino-led nonviolent Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986, for offering prayers for her mother.

“I never thought the time would come [that I would say this], but thank you to the Marcoses for really praying for mom,” she said.

Imelda’s call

Former first lady Imelda Marcos Sunday expressed sadness at the passing of Aquino, who led the 1986 uprising that overthrew her husband Ferdinand.

“Let us now unite in prayers for Cory, the Filipino people and for our country,” she told reporters in a church in Tondo, Manila.

Marcos also publicly sought prayers for Aquino when she was ill. Weeks earlier, however, she called Aquino a “usurper” and a “dictator.”

Cory, a simple woman

Aquino’s only son, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, told reporters that there would not be a state funeral because his mother was “a simple woman who shunned pomp and pageantry.”

“She wouldn’t have liked it,” the senator said Sunday in an interview at La Salle Green Hills. “My mother has certain traits and attitudes about how things should be done … Knowing her, she wouldn’t have liked a funeral with all its formalities and protocol.”

He noted that his mother hardly wore any jewelry.

“Her wedding ring and a wristwatch. She changed her eyeglasses, but the ring, the watch remained the same,” Noynoy said.

No luxuries

The former President also stayed in the same house on Times Street in Quezon City.

“She was asked to move to their ancestral house in Forbes Park, but she refused,” he said.

Noynoy said his mother used the same car for years and only recently replaced it with a Toyota SUV, a gift from Kris.

“She didn’t care for any luxury,” he said in Filipino.

Still wrapped in plastic

Some years ago, Aquino was gifted with a massage chair. Years later, she was given a new massage chair to replace the old one. “The new one is still there wrapped [in plastic],” her son said.

Aquino lived on Times until last year when she moved to the Green Meadows house of her eldest daughter Maria Elena “Ballsy” Cruz while undergoing treatment for colorectal cancer.

On Sunday, Nonoy said he went home to the Times house to rest. “I felt compelled to check her room. It was locked,” he said.