Speech of Corazon Aquino before the Joint Session of the U.

S. Congress, September 18, 1986

Jamaica P. Elopre
Ester Mae L. Boligao
Joshua Lester H. Arellano
Mary Kris P. Rudas
Bachelor of Science in Accountancy-I
Jose Rizal Memorial State University, Main Campus
Corazon “Cory” Cojuanco Aquino

-functioned as the symbol of the restoration of democracy and the overthrow of the
Marcos dictatorship in 1956

-installed in the presidency by EDSA People Power and put the Philippines into an
international spotlight for overthrowing a dictator through a peaceful mean

- delivered a speech before the joint session of the U.S. Congress at Washington, D.C., on
September 18, 1986, seven months after residing as the newly elected president

She told of Ninoy’s character, conviction, and resolve in opposing the authoritarianism of
Marcos. She talked of the three times that they lost Ninoy including his demise on August 23,
1983. The first time was when the dictatorship detained Ninoy with other dissenters. Cory
related:

“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 the
threat of sudden midnight execution over his head. Ninoy held up manfully- all of it. I barely did
as well. For forty-three 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.”

Cory continued that when 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. She said:

“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 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 has
destroyed his brain. And so, with barely any life in his body, he called off the fast on the fortieth
day.”

Ninoy’s death was the third and the last time that Cory and their children lost Ninoy. She
continued:

“And then we lost him, irrevocably and more painfully than in the past. The news came
to us in Boston. It had to be after the three happiest years of our lives together. But his death
was my country’s resurrection in the courage and faith by which alone they could be free again.
The dictator had called him a nobody. Yet, two million people threw aside their passivity and
escorted him into his grave.”

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 also acquired from Ninoy. She argued:

“I held fast to Ninoy’s conviction that it must be by the ways of democracy. I held out for
participation in the 1984 election the dictatorship called, even if I knew it would be rigged. I was
warned by the lawyers of my opposition that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the foregone
results of the elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent. But I was not fighting for
lawyers but for the people in whose intelligence I had implicit faith. By the exercise of
democracy, even in the 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, even if they ended up, thanks to the corrupt Commission on Elections, with barely a
third of the seats in parliament. Now, I knew our power.”

Cory talked about her miraculous victory 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 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. She
reported to the U.S. Congress:

“Again, as we restored democracy by the ways of democracy, so are we completing the

Cory then proceeded on her peace agenda with the existing communist insurgency, aggravated
by the dictatorial and authorization measure of Ferdinand Marcos. She asserted:

“My predecessor set aside democracy to save it from a communist insurgency that
numbered less than 500. Unhampered by respect for human rights, he went at it hammer and
tongs. By the time he fled, that insurgency had grown to more than 16,000. I think there is a
lesson here to be learned about trying to stifle a thing with the means by which it grows.”
 Cory’s peace agenda involves political initiatives and re-integration 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. 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.”

Cory then turned to the controversial topic of the Philippine 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 lamented:

“Finally, may I turn to that other slavery: our $26 billion foreign debt. I have said that
we shall honor it. Yet must the means by which we shall be able to do so be kept from us? Many
conditions imposed on the previous government that stole this debt continue to be imposed on us
who never benefited from it.”

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 People Power
Revolution, “ours must have been the 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.”

Cory related to the U.S. legislators that wherever she we

“Wherever I went in the campaign, slum area or impoverished village, they came to me
with one cry: 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 work that will put dignity in their
lives. But I feel the pressing obligation to respond quickly as the leader of a people so deserving
of all these things.”

Cory proposed in enumerating the challenge of the Filipino people as they tried building
the new democracy. These were the persisting communist insurgency and the economic
deterioration. Cory further lamented that these problems worsened by the crippling debt because
half of the country’s export earnings amounting to $2 billion would “go to pay just the interest
on a debt whose benefit thee Filipino people never received” Cory then asked a rather
compelling question to the U.S. 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 treasure to bring freedom to many
lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here you have a people who won it by themselves and
need only the help to preserve it.”

Cory ended her speech by thanking America for serving a home to her family for what he
referred to as the “three happiest years of our lives together.” She enjoined America in building
the Philippines as a new home for democracy and in turning the country as a “shining testament
of our two nations’ commitment to freedom.”

ANALYSIS OF CORY AQUINO’S SPEECH

President Aquino's Address to the U.S. Congress

When Former President of the Philippines Corazon C. Aquino gave a speech to the United States
Congress on September 1986, a little more than half a year after assuming the presidency, she
called on America to help the Philippines in preserving the freedom which the Filipinos have
won for themselves. Calling to, “restore democracy by the ways of democracy,” she aggrandized
the role of America in the world as the promoter of a righteous system of governance and further
strengthened the reputation of said country as a model for greatness.

Anti-Marcos Movements and the Martial Law Era

Cory’s speech was adorned by countless references to her husband—Former Senator Ninoy
Aquino—whom the Filipino nation had assigned as the poster boy for anti-Marcos movements.
Her speech even went so far as to connect Ninoy’s struggle with that of the whole nation, all the
while entwining their family’s history with the fate of the entire country. She justified her
presence in front of the U.S. Congress using figurative words and metaphorical language,
alluding to her connection with the late Ninoy on one hand and fulfilling her mandate to the
Filipino people on the other.

She succeeded in her analysis of the Martial Law era regarding its origin and outcome. Marcos’
attempt to stop a 500-strong communist insurgency by imposing a restrictive policy only
furthered the Red Army’s reach; in fact, it has been said that the Communist Party had 16,000
members by the end of Martial Law, making Marcos the Party’s biggest recruiter. President Cory
said that the Martial Law was like, “trying to stifle a thing with the means by which it grows,”
acknowledging the fact that the communist insurgency existed because of widespread economic
inequality.

Philippines Foreign Debt and Preserving Democracy

She seems to have made a similar mistake, however, when she decided that the Philippines
would keep the $26 billion foreign debt it incurred during Marcos’ presidency. The reasoning
was that since we fought for honor, we should also honor the huge foreign debt, although its
benefit never really reached us as a nation. What is more questionable is that, after declaring that
we will pay the debt, she immediately asked for help in achieving that.

Cory Aquino appears to have the utmost confidence and trust in America that she invited the
country to help the Philippines in practicing and preserving its democracy. Looking at it from
today’s perspective, it seems like an open invitation for the former to aid the latter and
subsequently use it for its own strategic interests. We remember that the U.S. bases were evicted
by a historic vote in 1991, during Cory’s term, but such was the work of many nationalist
senators who carried the lessons of Martial Law into their of service.

The Results of Her Speech

Not much has changed since the speech of Cory Aquino to the U.S. Congress in 1986. There is
still no genuine economic and social transformation agenda which was mentioned in her speech.
Thirty years on, we still owe a huge amount of money to various lending institutions, and in fact,
our debt has grown ever larger and now includes not only foreign banks but also local ones.
Furthermore, the communist insurgency which Martial Law sought to terminate is continually
spreading and deepening its roots. This is no wonder since inequality is increasing at a steady
rate; President Cory was right when she said that the communist insurgency feeds on economic
deterioration. The most important lesson we can learn from the speech, I think, is that we cannot
entrust our redemption to another sovereign state, and the only real solution to any type of
rebellion is to address the causes. Solving the root problem will encourage everything else to
inevitably fall into place.