sa kanyang asawang si Ninoy Aquino, hinarap niya ang panibagong pagsubok: Ang pangunahan ang

sambayanan sa paglaban sa malupit na diktador na nanungkulan ng hanggang dalawang dekada," De

Lima said. 

(Despite the tragedy that befell her family after the gristly killing of her husband, she faced a new
challenge: leading the country in the fight against a cruel dictator that served for 2 decades.) 

"Buong mundo ang humanga at patuloy na nagpupugay sa tapang, tatag ng loob at paninindigan ni
Pangulong Cory," she added.

(The whole world was amazed and continues to laud the bravery, perseverance and determination of
President Cory

When former President Corazon Aquino spoke before a joint session of the United
States Congress in September of 1986, the dust was only beginning to settle. It was
her first visit to America since the dictator Ferdinand Marcos had been deposed in
February of the same year, and the Philippines was reckoning with everything his
administration had inflicted. That included $26 billion in total foreign debt, and a
communist insurgency that grew, throughout the Marcos era, from 500 armed
guerillas to 16,000. We were just at the start of a long road to recovery.
So Aquino lodged an appeal for help. Addressing the House, she delivered a
historic speech that managed to sway in our favor the vote for an emergency
$200-million aid appropriation. In the moving speech penned by her
speechwriter (and our current ambassador to the United Nations) Teddy
Locsin, Jr., Aquino defended her reconciliatory stand on the communist
insurgency—a sensitive issue in the U.S., given that this was 1986—and asked
for financial aid towards rebuilding the Philippine economy.
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"We fought for honor, and, if only for honor, we shall pay," she said, agreeing
to pay the debt that was stolen by Marcos. "And yet, should we have to wring
the payments from the sweat of our men’s faces and sink all the wealth piled
up by the bondsman’s two hundred fifty years of unrequited toil?"