Contribution and relevance of the speech
(On 18th of September 1986, seven months since
 The speech starts out with the
narrative of the assassination of
Ninoy on August 21, 1986.
 “The government sought to
break him by indignities and
terror.They locked him up in a
tiny, nearly airless cell in a
military camp in the north.They
stripped him naked and held a
threat of a sudden midnight
execution over his head. Ninoy
held up manfully under all of it. I
barely did as well.”
 Cory continued “When that
didn’t work, they put him on
trial for subversion, murder and
a host of other crimes before a
military commission. Ninoy
challenged its authority and
went on a fast.If he survived it,
then he felt God intended him
for another fate.We had lost him
again. For nothing would hold
him back from his determination
to see his fast through to the
end.He stopped only when it
dawned on him that the
government would keep his
body alive after the fast had
destroyed his brain.
 “And then, we lost we lost him
irrevocably and more painfully
than in the past.The news came
Explanation
Cory became president, she went to the United
States and spoke before the joint session of the
U.S. Congress. Cory was welcomed with long
applause as she took the podium and addressed
the United States about her presidency and the
challenges faced by the new republic.)
(She then told of Ninoy’s character, conviction,
and resolve in opposing the authoritarianism of
Marcos. She talked of three times that they lost
Ninoy including his demise on 23 August 1983.
The first time was when the dictatorship
detained Ninoy with other dissenters.)
(Aquino and Sen. Diokno was one of the first to
be arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up
charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms
and subversion. He was tried before Military
Commission No. 2, headed by Major-General
Jose Syjuco and brought to Fort Magsaysay in
Laur, Nueva Ecija.)
(Ninoy survived that first detention, he was then
charged of subversion, murder, and other
crimes. He was tried by a military court, whose
legitimacy Ninoy adamantly questioned. To
solidify his protest, Ninoy decided to do a
hunger strike and fasted for 40 days. Cory
treated this event as the second time that their
family lost Ninoy. Ninoy’s death was the third
and the last time that Cory and their children
lost Ninoy. She continued)
Cory attributed the peaceful EDSA Revolution to
the martyrdom of Ninoy. She stated that the
death of Ninoy sparked the revolution and the
 to us in Boston. It had to be after responsibility of “offering the democratic
the three happiest years of our alternative” and “fallen on (her) shoulders.”
lives together.But his death was Cory’s address introduced us to her democratic
my country’s resurrection and philosophy, which she climed she also acquired
the courage and faith by which from Ninoy.
alone they could be free
again.The dictator had called
him a nobody. Yet, two million
people threw aside their
passivity and fear and escorted
Him to his grave.”

 “I held fast to Ninoy’s conviction (Cory talked about her miraculous victory
that it must be by the ways of through the people’s people struggle and
democracy. I held out for continued talking about her earliest initiatives as
participation in the 1984 the president of a restored democracy. She
election the dictatorship called, stated that she intended to forge and draw
even if I knew it would be reconciliation after a bloody and polarizing
rigged.I was warned by the dictatorship. Cory emphasized the importance of
lawyers of the opposition, that I the EDSA Revolution in terms of being a “limited
ran the grave risk of legitimizing revolution that respected the life and freedom
the foregone results of elections of every Filipino.” She also boasted of the
that were clearly going to be restoration of a fully constitutional government
fraudulent.But I was not fighting whose constitution gave utmost respect to the
for lawyers but for the people in Bill or Rights.
whose intelligence, I had implicit
faith.By the exercise of
democracy even in a
dictatorship, they would be
prepared for democracy when it
came.And then also, it was the
only way I knew by which we
could measure our power even
in the terms dictated by the
dictatorship.The people
vindicated me in an election
shamefully marked by
government thuggery and
fraud.The opposition swept the
elections, garnering a clear
majority of the votes

 She asserted:“ My predecessor
set aside democracy to save it
from a communist insurgency
that numbered less than five
hundred.Unhampered by
(Cory then proceeded on her peace agenda with
the existing communist insurgency, aggravated
by the dictatorship and authoritarian measure of
Ferdinand Marcos.)
 respect for human rights he
went at it with hammer and
tongs.By the time he fled, that
insurgency had grown to more
than sixteen thousand.I think
there is a lesson here to learned
about trying to stifle a thing with
a means by which it grows.”

 Nevertheless, Cory took a step
back when she said that while
peace is the priority of her
presidency, she “will not waiver”
when freedom and democracy
are threatened. She said that,
similar to Abraham Lincoln, she
understands that “force may be
necessary before mercy” and
while she did not relish the idea,
she “will do whatever it takes to
defend the integrity and
freedom of (her) country.”
 Finally may turn to that other
slavery, our twenty-six billion
dollar foreign debt.I have said
that we shall honor it. Yet, the
means by which we shall be able
to do so are kept from us.Many
of the conditions imposed on
the previous government that
stole this debt, continue to be
imposed on Us who never
benefited from it.”
 People Revolution, “our must
have been cheapest revolution
ever.” She demonstrated that
Filipino people fulfilled the
“most difficult condition of the
debt negotiation,” which was
the “restoration of democracy
and responsible government.”
 She stated:“Wherever I went in
the campaign, slum area or
impoverished village. They came
to me with one cry,
(Cory’s peace agenda involves political initiatives
and reintegration program to persuade
insurgents to leave the countryside and return
to the mainstream society to participate in the
restoration of democracy. She invoked the path
of peace because she believed that it was the
moral path that a moral government must take. )
(Cory then turned to the controversial topic of
the Philippines foreign debt amounting to $26
billion at the time of her speech. This debt had
ballooned during the Marcos regime. Cory
expressed her intention to honor those debts
despite mentioning that the people did not
benefit from such debts. Thus, she mentioned
her protestations about the way the Philippines
was deprived of choices to pay those debts
within the capacity of the Filipino people. )
(She continued that while the country had
experienced the calamities brought about by the
corrupt dictatorship of Marcos, no
commensurate assistance was yet to be
extended to the Philippines.)(She even remarked
that given the peaceful character of EDSA )
( Cory related to the U.S. Legislators that
wherever she went, she met poor and
unemployed Filipinos willing to offer their lives
for democracy. )
 democracy.Not food, although
they clearly needed it but
democracy. Not work, although
they surely wanted it but
democracy.Not money, for they
gave what little they had to my
campaign.They didn’t expect me
to work a miracle that would
instantly put food into their
mouths, clothes on their back,
education in their Children and
give them work that will put
dignity in their lives. But I feel
the pressing obligation to
respond quickly as the leader of
the people so deserving of all
these things.”
 Cory then asked a rather
compelling question to the U.S.
Congress:“Has there been a
greater test of national (Cory proceeded in enumerating the challenges
commitment to the ideals you of the Filipino people as they tried building the
hold dear than that my people new democracy. These were the persisting
have gone through?You have communist insurgency and the economic
many lives and much treasure to deterioration. Cory further lamented that these
bring freedom to many lands problems worsened by the crippling debt
that were reluctant to receive because half of the country’s export earnings
it.And here, you have a people amounting to 2 billion would “go to pay just the
who want it by themselves and interest on a debt whose benefit the Filipino
need only the help to preserve people never received.”)
it.


Analysis of the document

PPT explanation
 Cory Aquino’s speech was an
important event in the political
and diplomatic history of the
country because it has arguably
cemented the legitimacy of the
EDSA government in the
international arena. The speech
talks of her background,
especially her relationship with
her late husband, Ninoy
Aquino.
 In her speech, Cory talked at
length about Ninoy’s toil and
suffering at the hands of the
dictatorship that he resisted.
Even when she proceeded
talking about her new
government, she still went back
to Ninoy’s legacies and lessons.
 The ideology or the principles
of the new democratic
government can also be seen in
the same speech. Aquino was
able to draw the sharp contrast
between her government and
of her predecessor by
expressing her commitment to
a democratic constitution
drafted by an independent
commission.
 Cory claimed that her main
approach to this problem was
through peace and not through
the sword of war.
 Despite Cory’s efforts to hoist
It is well known that it was Ninoy who served as
the real leading figure of the opposition at that
time. Indeed, Ninoy’s eloquence and charisma
could very well compete with that of Marcos.)
(Moreover, her attribution of
the revolution to Ninoy’s death
demonstrates not only Cory’s
personal perception on the
revolution, but since she was
the president, it also represents
what the dominant discourse
was at that point in our
history.)
(She claimed that such
constitution upholds and
adheres to the rights and liberty
of the Filipino people. Cory also
hoisted herself as the
reconciliatory agent more than
two decades of a polarizing
authoritarian politics. For
example, Cory saw the blown-
up communist insurgency as a
product of a repressive and
corrupt government. Her
response to this insurgency
rooted from her diametric
opposition of the dictator (i.e.,
initiating reintegration of
communist rebels to the
mainstream Philippine
society).)
(This is seen in terms of continuing the alliance
between the Philippines and the United States
despite the known affinity between the said
world super power and Marcos. The Aquino
regime, as seen in Cory’s acceptance of the
 herself as the exact opposite of
Marcos, her speech still
revealed certain parallelisms
between her and the Marcos’s
government.
invitation to address the U.S. Congress and to
the content of the speech, decided to build and
continue with the alliance between the
Philippines and the United States and effectivity
implemented an essentially similar foreign
policy to that of the dictatorship. For example,
Cory recognized that the large sum of foreign
debt incurred by the Marcos regime never
benefitted the Filipino people. )

 Cory expressed her intention to

pay off those debts. Unknown
to many Filipinos was the fact
that there was a choice of
waiving the said debt because
those were the of the dictator
and not of the country. Cory’s
decision is an indicator of her
government’s intention to carry
on a debt-driven economy.
 Reading through Aquino’s
speech, we can already take
cues, not just on Cory’s
individual ideas and aspirations,
but also the guiding principles
and framework of the
government that she
represented.