Cory Aquino’s Presidency

(1986-1992)

When Ferdinand E. Marcos unexpectedly called for presidential elections in February 1986,
Corazon Aquino became the unified opposition’s presidential candidate. Though she was
officially reported to have lost the election to Marcos, Aquino and her supporters challenged
the results, charging widespread voting fraud. High officials in the Philippine military soon
publicly renounced Marcos’s continued rule and proclaimed Aquino the Philippines’ rightful
president. On February 25, 1986, both Aquino and Marcos were inaugurated as president by
their respective supporters, but that same day Marcos fled the country.
In March 1986 Aquino proclaimed a provisional constitution and soon thereafter appointed a
commission to write a new constitution. The resulting document, which restored the bicameral
Congress abolished by Marcos in 1973, was ratified by a landslide popular vote in February
1987.
Aquino held elections for the new Congress and broke up Marcos' friends' monopolies over the
economy, which had been growing steadily for several years. However, she failed to implement
major economic and social changes, and her popularity dwindled as a result of public outcry
about economic inequity and political corruption. Persistent combat between the communist
insurgents and a military whose allegiance to Aquino was shaky exacerbated these issues. Her
economic initiatives were criticized for being inconsistent or shaky in the face of widespread
poverty. Fidel Ramos, Aquino's former defense secretary, took over as her successor.
As President, Aquino restored democracy by abolishing the legislature, declaring a
revolutionary government, and appointing a fifty-member commission to write a new
constitution, approved in 1987. In 1988, she oversaw the re-implementation of local elections
and, in 1992, the first presidential election.
Following her presidency, Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin were at the forefront of the 2001 drive
to remove President Joseph Estrada from the presidency. In 2005, Aquino also made a public
appeal asking President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign from office.
Reference
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Corazon-Aquino
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/corazon-aquino/