CORAZON AQUINO’S SPEECH

BEFORE THE US CONGRESS

CORY AQUINO

 Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino became the symbol of the

redemocratization of the Philippines as we overthrew Marcos
Dictatorship in 1986. EDSA People Power installed Cory
Aquino in the presidency and put the Philippines in the
international spotlight for overthrowing a dictator through
peaceful means.
 She was easily the figure of the said revolution as the widow of
the slain staunch oppositionist of Marcos, former Senator
Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.
CORY AQUINO
 A widowed housewife who shadowed her husband and
relatives – without direct experience in politics – posed
against Marcos’s statesmanship, eloquence, charisma, and
cunning political skills, she was able to capture the
imagination of the people whose rights and freedom had long
been compromised during Marcos Dictatorship.
 Cory came from a rich haciendero family in Tarlac and owned
vast estates of sugar plantation and whose relatives occupy
local and national government positions.
  18 September 1986, seven months since Cory became president,
she went to the US and spoke before the joint session of the US
WHEN? Congress. She took the podium and addressed the US about her
presidency and the challenges faced by the new republic.
THE SPEECH  Her speech began with the story of her leaving the
US three years prior as a newly widowed wife of
Ninoy Aquino. She then told of Ninoy’s character,
conviction, and resolve in opposing the
authoritarian regime of Marcos. She talked about
the three times that they lost Ninoy, including his
demise on the tarmac on 23 August 1983. The first
time was when the dictatorship detained Ninoy
together with other dissenters:
FIRST TIME OF “The government sought to break him by indignities
and terror. They locked him up in a tiny, nearly
LOSING NINOY 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. For 43
days, the authorities would not tell me what had
happened to him. This was the first time my children
and I felt we had lost him.”
THE SPEECH  Cory said that when Ninoy survived that first
detention, he was charged of subversion, murder,
and other crimes.
 Tried by a military court whose legitimacy was
questioned by Ninoy, he decided to do a hunger
strike and fasted for 40 days.
 Cory treated this event as the second time that
their family lost Ninoy:
 “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.
SECOND TIME For nothing would hold him back from his
determination to see his fast through to the end. He
OF LOSING stopped only when it dawned on him that the
government would keep his body alive after the fast
NINOY had destroyed his brain. And so, with barely any life in
his body, he called off the fast on the 40th day.”

Ninoy’s death was the third and the last time that
Cory and their children lost Ninoy.
EDSA REVOLUTION
 Cory attributed the peaceful EDSA Revolution to the
martyrdom of Ninoy.
 She stated that the death of Ninoy sparked the revolution and
the responsibility of “offering the democratic alternative” had
“fallen on (her) shoulders.”
 Cory’s address introduced us to her democratic philosophy,
which she claimed she acquired from Ninoy.
VICTORY OF RIGHTS

 Cory talked about her victory, which she considers a miracle, through the people’s
struggle and continued talking about her earliest initiatives as the president of a
restored democracy. She stated that she intended to forge and draw
reconciliation after a bloody and polarizing dictatorship. Cory emphasized the
importance of the EDSA Revolution in terms of being a “limited revolution that
respected the life and freedom of every Filipino.” She also boasted of the
restoration of a fully constitutional government whose constitution gave utmost
respect to the Bill of Rights.
  Cory mentioned her peace agenda with the existing communist
insurgency, aggravated by the dictatorial and authoritarian
measure of Ferdinand Marcos. This involves political initiatives
COMMUNIST and re-integration program to persuade insurgents to leave the
INSURGENCY countryside and return to the mainstream society to participate in
the restoration of democracy. Even though peace is the priority of
her presidency, she “will not waiver” when freedom and
democracy are threatened.
  Cory then turned to the controversial topic of the
Philippine foreign debt amounting to $26 billion at the
FOREIGN time of her speech. This debt had ballooned during the
DEBT Marcos regime. Cory expressed her intention to honor
those debts despite mentioning that the people did not
benefit from such debts.
MARCOS’ CORRUPTION

 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. “Ours must have been the cheapest
revolution ever” said Cory, talking about the peaceful
character of the EDSA Revolution. She demonstrated that
Filipino people fulfilled the “most difficult condition of the debt
negotiation” which was the “restoration of democracy and
responsible government.”
  Cory related to the US legislators that wherever she went, she met
MAIN poor and unemployed Filipinos willing to offer their lives for
democracy. She then proceeded in enumerating the challenges of
CHALLENGES the Filipino people as they tried building the new democracy:
communist insurgency and economic deterioration.
 Cory then asked a compelling question before the US
Congress:

“Has there been a greater test of national commitment to the

ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through?
You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom
to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here, you
have a people who want it by themselves and need only the
help to preserve it.”
  Cory then thanked America for serving as home to her family,
noting it as the “three happiest years of our lives together.”
Enjoining America in building the Philippines as a new home for
GRATITUDE democracy, she then tells that she envisions the country to turn as
a “shining testament of our two nations’ commitment to
freedom.”
ANALYSIS
 Cory’s speech was an important event in the political and
diplomatic history of the country because it cemented the
legitimacy of the EDSA government in the international
arena. The speech talks of her family background, especially
her relationship with her late husband, Ninoy Aquino. Ninoy
served as the real leading figure of the opposition at the time.
Her attribution of the revolution to Ninoy’s death
demonstrates Cory’s personal perception on the revolution
and the dominant discourse of that point in our history.
ANALYSIS
 The ideology or principles of the new democratic government
can 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. She
claimed that such constitution upholds and adheres to the
rights and liberty of the Filipinos.
ANALYSIS
 Despite Cory’s efforts to present herself as the exact opposite
of Marcos, her speech revealed certain parallelisms between
her and the previous government: continuing alliances
between the Philippines and US despite the known affinity of
US and Marcos and effectively implement a foreign policy
similar to the dictatorship’s.
 Cory also expressed her intention to pay the large sum of foreign debts that never
benefitted the Filipino people. Unknown to many, there was a choice of waiving
the said debt because those were the debt 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.
 This lets us understand that her speech encapsulates her individual ideas and
aspirations, together with the guiding principles and framework of the
government she represented.

ANALYSIS