The Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino

Corazon Cojoangco Aquino (born 1933) was the first woman to run for the office of the president of the Republic of the Philippines. The results of the 1986 election were so fraudulent that both Aquino and her opponent, the incumbent, Ferdinand Marcos declared victory. As a result of the election, the Filipino people rose in protest and Marcos was forced to flee the country and Aquino assumed the office of president.

Corazon Cojoangco Aquino was born on January 25, 1933, the sixth of eight children born to Jose Cojoangco of Tarlac, a prosperous province 65 miles northwest of Manila, the Philippines capital. The Cojoangcos were members of a wealthy landowning family prominent in politics.
Aquino attended an exclusive Catholic school for girls in Manila before travelling to America to attend Philadelphia's Raven Hill Academy. After earning a degree in French and mathematics from New York's Mount Saint Vincent College in 1953, she returned to the Philippines and enrolled in a Manila law school. While at law school she met her future husband, Benigno Aquino and married him in 1954. The marriage united two of Tarlac's most prominent families.

The Politician's Wife

Aquino's husband belonged to a family whose involvement in politics went as far back as the last century. One year after they were married, Aquino's husband was elected mayor of the city of Concepcion at the age of 22. Her husband was considered one of the Philippines' brightest political hopes.

Moving up in politics, Aquino's husband became the youngest territorial governor and later the youngest senator in the Philippines. Through out all her husband's political successes, Aquino stayed in the background, preferring to concentrate her energies on raising their four daughters and a son.

As her husband rose in prominence, he became an outspoken critic of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, Aquino's husband was one of the first persons arrested and put in jail. During the long years of her husband's incarceration from 1972 to 1980, Aquino's role as a quiet wife slowly changed. Becoming her husband's main link to the outside world, she was instrumental in having his statements passed along to the press and to activists outside the prison walls. From inside his cell, Aquino's husband even ran for a seat in Parliament, with his wife conducting a large portion of the campaign.
In 1980, Aquino's husband was released from jail in order to undergo heart surgery in the United States. Aquino's husband worked as a research fellow at Harvard University for the next three years. His family lived with him in the Boston area and his wife described the time as the best years of her life.

In 1983 supporters of the anti-Marcos factions persuaded Aquino's husband to return to the Philippines and to lead their cause. When his plane landed on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, Aquino's husband was assassinated. A commission formed to investigate the murder indicted the military men assigned to escort him as well as their military superiors. However, the court which eventually tried them for the murder acquitted all 26 defendants.

Homemaker Turns Politician
Her husband's assassination served as the turning point of Aquino's life. As her dead husband became the rallying focus of anti-Marcos groups she, as his widow, became the unifying figure for the different factions of the opposition. Aquino was catapulted into the role of keeping the unity alive. On October 15, 1985, the Aquino presidential campaign was launched at the National Press Club in Manila by 250 founding members, many of whom were businesspeople and professionals.

Aquino agreed to run if one million supporters signed an endorsement of her candidacy and if President Marcos called for a snap election. The supporters collected more than one million signatures, and her candidacy was endorsed by six opposition political parties as the common candidate for president in the election called for February 7, 1986. The political support she amassed, and the exoneration of the military men tried for her husband's murder, made Aquino accept the mandate to run for the presidency, "not in vengeance but in search of justice."
She picked Salvador Laurel, leader of the opposition's largest faction, as her running mate. Initial negotiations fell through in a disagreement about which party's name to carry--her husband's LABAN (Fight) Party or Laurel's UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization). Before the deadline for filing candidacy she and Laurel agreed to run under the UNIDO banner.
Countering Marcos's charges of her political inexperience, Aquino counted as her main asset her diametrical opposition to the president. Her supporters considered her a fresh new face with a reputation for moral integrity. Her main assets in the campaign were her reputation for moral integrity along with her avowal of her slain husband's ideals. To these were added the quiet support of the influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, whose prelate Jamie Cardinal Sin was instrumental in the Aquino-Laurel reconciliation.

The homemaker-turned-politician responded to the challenge with enthusiasm and a singular commitment to the cause of justice. Her opponent, Marcos, had extended his term of office for more than 20 years through a declaration of martial law and constitutional changes that increased his powers. The true results of the election may never be known as the incumbent forces used intimidation, scattered violence, and overt fraud to declare Marcos the winner. The people took to the streets in protest; some army leaders revolted; the United States expressed its indignation. Less than three weeks after his alleged election victory in February 1986, Marcos fled the Philippines. Aquino became the acknowledged president of the republic.

The Presidency and Beyond
Aquino admitted that she faced numerous challenges as the new Filipino president. The release of 441 political prisoners and the forced retirement of 22 pro-Marcos generals were among her first actions as president. She also reinstated the writ of habeas corpus, the right of a prisoner to appear before a judge, and abolished the government's ability to imprison people at will, which had been in effect since 1981. Aquino promised to promote the right to assemble peaceably, and free speech along with prosecuting corruption and abusers of human rights.
Protecting the countryside was another of Aquino's goals. She planned to accomplish this by disarming the private armies that roamed the rural areas and establish industries there. Aquino said she would revitalize the sugar industry by breaking the monopoly. She acknowledged the special relationship with the United States but emphasized that her concern was with the

Filipinos, not the Americans.

Aquino knew her popularity would wane and that her leadership would be harshly criticized. At least seven coups were directed at her government during her tenure as president, many times by former allies who had helped her come to power. Besides dealing with factious parties both within her cabinet and in the nation, Aquino had to contend with natural disasters and frequent power failures.

In 1991, a constitutional amendment was passed by referendum which enabled Aquino to remain president until June 30, 1992. Her successor was Fidel Ramos, her former secretary of defense and Marcos' former deputy chief of staff of the armed forces. Ramos, who assisted Aquino in fending off the coup attempts, has continued to support Aquino's democratic ideals. Aquino has still retained her popularity with the Filipino people and works for reform by participating in cooperatives and non-governmental organizations in the Philippines.

Cory Aquino -- the mother of Democracy in the Philippines -- dies and is buried:

Do you remember the People Power revolution in the Philippines in 1985?
There has never been anything like it, either before or since.

An uprising of the Filipino people resulted in the overthrow and exile of a "strong-man" dictator -- Ferdiinand Marcos -- without a single person being killed or harmed. With martial law in place, with the full support of the military, with control of most of the media and the support of the United States, he still lost. And the resulting government was a Constitutional Democracy modeled on the United States form of government.

This revolution started with an exercise in brutal power. Ninoy Aquino -- Cory's husband -- was shot and killed as he got off the airplane in Manila after coming home from the United States, planning political opposition to the Marcos regime.
His wife, Cory, vowed to keep the battle going. She called for an open election for President. President Marcos called for a snap election as a way of shutting down the unrest raised by the murder of Ninoy Aquino.

Cory had everything going against her. She was a woman, Filipino's were macho, and did not believe a woman should be in power. She was in shock from the death of her husband, and continued to wear the yellow dress she had on when her husband was shot. The government was corrupt, and Marcos' minions openly went out offering money in exchange for votes, and were quite willing to "fix" the vote count. Another political figure -- Salvador Laurel -- was ready to throw his own hat in the ring, which would further split the vote, making it impossible to overthrow Marcos. President Ronald Reagan was a great fan of Marcos, and there was a large US military presence there, so there was even the possibility that the US military would step in and help keep Marcos in power.

But suddenly everything changed. Salvador Laurel, who had been adamant about wanting to be President himself, suddenly agreed to run in the Vice Presidential position with Cory Aquino. Cory's message that she was running to complete Ninoy Aquino's dream resonated with Filipino men, who could relate to the idea that if something happened to them, their own wives would want to continue going forward in their memory. The yellow of Aquino's dress became a symbol for the People Power revolution. Supporters wore yellow or yellow armbands to show their support. People responsible for counting the votes openly opposed a false recount and worked to preserve the paper ballots.

The military was mobilized. This could have easily been a real slaughter. Mobs of disorganized rioting people could have been gunned down and the revolution repressed. But instead of being met by angry mobs, they met something they could not handle. Young women came forth and draped the soldier's necks with garlands of flowers. An old woman in a wheelchair stopped in front of a tank to keep it from moving forward. In a time of heavy media coverage, all this was televised for the world to see.

And the people marched on Malacanan Palace. Adult children of powerful politicians were throwing their hat in the ring, supporting the people power revolution. Marcos and his military strong men were ready for a final confrontation, and again there was danger of a mass slaughter, because the crowds could not stand up to those weapons.
But even that was defused. A plane was offered to Marcos, and he and his family was allowed to leave in peace with anything they could carry with them. They took that option rather than staying to fight and face a revolution.

So Marcos, and martial law, was overthrown. A new Constitution was crafted, based on the US Constitution, but tailored for the unique differences of the Philippines.
The Philippines had real Democracy. It still is not perfect, there is still government corruption, there are still people wanting ultimate power, but it is still designed to be responsive to the will of the people. Cory Aquino was the new President, and the symbol for the victory of the people over the power of an entrenched dictatorship.

Cory Aquino has now died. Corazon Aquino, the former President of the Philippines, died on August 1st, aged 76. This is an emotional time for the Philippines. It is the emotional equivalent of the death of John F. Kennedy in the United States, because more than anything else the death of this person is the death of a symbol for the best in everyone.

Cory's story is a story which should never be forgotten. It is a bigger than life story, a legend which is hard to believe, an example which shows that it IS possible for people to make a difference in their lives, and in their government. It is a legend which shows that sometimes the good guys win. It is Don Quixote tilting at the windmill -- and winning! It is an unbelievable fantasy made real.

The memory and the legend of Cory Aquino should live on. Generations from now people should still remember her name.

- the masoria papers