‘My admiration and prayers for a well-deserved rest beyond’

Queen Elizabeth II left her mark not only in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations where she reigned for over 70 years, but also in Asia.

Korean singer-songwriter and actor Choi Siwon of Super Junior fame posted a photo of the departed monarch with the caption: “My utmost respect to her 70 years of achievement to the world. May the Queen Rest in Peace.”

Photograph courtesy of ig/bella padilla
actor bella Padilla arrived in London on the day Queen Elizabeth II died.

British-Filipino actor Bela Padilla took a photo of a rainbow she chanced upon when she arrived in London on 8 September, the day Elizabeth died.

On Instagram, Padilla wrote: “Before landing in London earlier, I had a sense the city was moving but there was silence around us.”

Another Filipino actor, Lovi Poe, posted a photo of a book with Elizabeth on the cover, as well as a miniature model of Buckingham Palace.

“God save the Queen,” wrote Poe, who frequents the UK to see her British boyfriend Montgomery Blencowe.

Photograph courtesy of ig/siwon choi
SUPER Junior’s Siwon Choi.

Perhaps the most compelling commentary so far is a Facebook post from the esteemed author Jose “Butch” Dalisay, who let out his thoughts in contrast to views on “why we Pinoys should feel bereaved or even affected by the death of someone who represented a particularly comprehensive, rapacious, and often brutal kind of colonialism.”

Dalisay, who began his post saying he expected to get some “pushback” over his opinion, went on: “Will I be wrong to express my sympathies and respect for a woman who fulfilled a role she did not choose with grace and devotion, and who defied and survived generations of patronizing men

— both royals and politicians — who all thought they knew better than homeschooled Lilibet? What would you have done and how would you have performed in her situation — not just for a year or two but for seven tumultuous decades?”

“I’m not about to break into “God Save the Queen,” or call her anything close to saintly or heroic (I’ll leave that to her diehard fans and biographers) — many of us still can’t forget the cold shoulder she gave Diana — but anyone who comports herself so, well, regally over so long, in the face of both public and private turmoil, gets my admiration and prayers for a well-deserved rest beyond.”

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