Readings in Philippine

History
Darwin S. Cama
Shannon Lyn L. Nombrado
 Content and Contextual Analysis for
Selected Primary Resources

Darwin S. Cama
Shannon Lyn L. Nombrado
 Revisiting Corazon
Aquino’s Speech before
the U.S. Congress
 Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino

• She was the symbol of the restoration of

democracy and the takeover of the Marcos
Dictatorship in 1956.
• EDSA People Power was the reason why
Cory Aquino was designated in presidency
that put the Philippines in the
international spotlight for dethroning a
dictator through peaceful means.
• On September 18, 1986, seven months as a president, she
went to the United States and spoke before joining the
session of the U.S. Congress.
• She faced the new challenges as a president of the new
republic.
• Began her speech and told everything what happened to
her and her husband and other circumstances happened
to their life. She quoted the following:
“Three years ago I left America in grief,
to bury my husband, Ninoy Aquino. I
thought I had left it also, to lay to rest
his restless dream of Philippine
freedom. Today, I have returned as the
President of a free people.
In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored
him by that brave and selfless act of
giving honor to a nation in shame
recovered its own. A country that had lost
faith in its future, founded in a faithless
and brazen act of murder. So, in giving we
receive, in losing we find, and out of
defeat we snatched our victory. For the
nation, Ninoy became the pleasing
sacrifice that answered their prayers for
freedom.
For myself and our children, Ninoy was a loving
husband and father. His loss, three times in our
lives was always a deep and painful one.
Fourteen years ago this month, was the first
time we lost him. A president-turned-dictator
and traitor to his oath, suspended the
constitution and shutdown the Congress that
was much like this one before which I'm honored
to speak. He detained my husband along with
thousands of others - Senators, publishers, and
anyone who had spoken up for the democracy
as its end drew near. But for Ninoy, a long and
cruel ordeal was reserved.
 The dictator already knew that
Ninoy was not a body merely to
be imprisoned but a spirit he
must break. For even as the
dictatorship demolished one-by-
one; the institutions of
democracy, the press, the
congress, the independence of a
judiciary, the protection of the
Bill of Rights, Ninoy kept their
spirit alive in himself.
 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. 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.
 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 so, with barely any life in his
body, he called off the fast on the 40th
day. God meant him for other things, he
felt. He did not know that an early death
would still be his fate, that only the timing
was wrong. At any time during his long
ordeal, Ninoy could have made a separate
peace with a dictatorship as so many of
his countrymen had done.
But the spirit of democracy that inheres
in our race and animates this chamber
could not be allowed to die. He held out
in the loneliness of his cell and the
frustration of exile, the democratic
alternative to the insatiable greed and
mindless cruelty of the right and the
purging holocaust of the left.
 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 and 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 fear and
escorted him to his grave.
 And so began the revolution that has
brought me to democracy's most famous
home, The Congress of the United States.
 The task had fallen on my shoulders, to
continue offering the democratic alternative to
our people. Archibald Macleish had said that
democracy must be defended by arms when it
is attacked by arms, and with truth when it is
attacked by lies. He failed to say how it shall be
won. 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 the
opposition, that I ran the grave risk of
legitimizing the foregone results of
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 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 even if they ended up (thanks to
a corrupt Commission on Elections)
with barely a third of the seats in
Parliament. Now, I knew our power.
 Last year, in an excess of arrogance,
the dictatorship called for its doom in
a snap election. The people obliged.
With over a million signatures they
drafted me to challenge the
dictatorship. And I, obliged.
 The rest is the history that
dramatically unfolded on your
television screens and across the front
pages of your newspapers. You saw a
nation armed with courage and
integrity, stand fast by democracy
against threats and corruption. You
saw women poll watchers break out
in tears as armed goons crashed the
polling places to steal the ballots.
 But just the same, they tied
themselves to the ballot boxes. You
saw a people so committed to the
ways of democracy that they were
prepared to give their lives for its pale
imitation. At the end of the day before
another wave of fraud could distort
the results, I announced the people's
victory.
Many of you here today played a part
in changing the policy of your country
towards ours. We, the Filipinos thank
each of you for what you did. For
balancing America's strategic interest
against human concerns illuminates
the American vision of the world.
The co-chairman of the United States
observer team, in his report to the
President said, "I was witness to an
extraordinary manifestation of
democracy on the part of the Filipino
people. The ultimate result was the
election of Mrs. Corazon Aquino as
President and Mr. Salvador Laurel as
Vice-President of the Philippines."
 When a subservient parliament
announced my opponent's victory, the
people then turned out in the streets
and proclaimed me the President of
all the people. And true to their word,
when a handful of military leaders
declared themselves against the
dictatorship, the people rallied to
their protection. Surely, the people
take care of their own. It is on that
faith and the obligation it entails that
I assumed the Presidency.
As I came to power peacefully, so shall
I keep it. That is my contract with my
people and my commitment to God.
He had willed that the blood drawn
with a lash shall not in my country be
paid by blood drawn by the sword but
by the tearful joy of reconciliation. We
have swept away absolute power by a
limited revolution that respected the
life and freedom of every Filipino.
 Now, we are restoring full
constitutional government. Again as
we restore democracy by the ways of
democracy, so are we completing the
constitutional structures of our new
democracy under a constitution that
already gives full respect to the Bill of
Rights. A jealously independent
constitutional commission is
completing its draft which will be
submitted later this year to a popular
referendum.
 When it is approved, there will be
elections for both national and local
positions. So, within about a year
from a peaceful but national
upheaval that overturned a
dictatorship, we shall have returned
to full constitutional government.
 Given the polarization and breakdown we
inherited, this is no small achievement. My
predecessor set aside democracy to save it
from a communist insurgency that numbered
less than five hundred. Unhampered by
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 be
learned about trying to stifle a thing with a
means by which it grows. I don't think
anybody in or outside our country, concerned
for a democratic and open Philippines doubts
what must be done.
 Through political initiatives and local re-
integration programs, we must seek to bring
the insurgents down from the hills and by
economic progress and justice, show them
that which the best-intentioned among them
fight. As president among my people, I will
not betray the cause of peace by which I
came to power. Yet, equally and again, no
friend of Filipino democracy will challenge
this. I will not stand by and allow an insurgent
leadership to spurn our offer of peace and kill
our young soldiers and threaten our new
freedom.
Yet, I must explore the path of peace
to the utmost. For at its end,
whatever disappointment I meet
there is the moral basis for laying
down the Olive branch of peace and
taking up the sword of war.
Still, should it come to that, I will not
waiver from the course laid down by
your great liberator.
 "With malice towards none, with
charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right,
let us finish the work we are in to bind
up the nation's wounds. To care for
him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow and for his orphans
to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all
nations."
Like Abraham Lincoln, I understand
that force may be necessary before
mercy. Like Lincoln, I don't relish it.
Yet, I will do whatever it takes to
defend the integrity and freedom of
my country.
 Finally may I 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.
And no assistance or liberality commensurate
with the calamity that was vested on us have
been extended. Yet ours must have been the
cheapest revolution ever. With little help from
others, we Filipinos fulfilled the first and most
difficult condition of the debt negotiation, the
full restoration of democracy and responsible
government. Elsewhere and in other times, a
more stringent world economic conditions,
marshal plans and their like were felt to be
necessary companions of returning
democracy.
When I met with President Reagan, we began
an important dialogue about cooperation and
the strengthening of friendship between our
two countries. That meeting was both a
confirmation and a new beginning. I am sure
it will lead to positive results in all areas of
common concern. Today, we face the
aspiration of a people who have known so
much poverty and massive unemployment for
the past 14 years. And yet offer their lives for
the abstraction of democracy.
 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
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.
 We face a communist insurgency that feeds
on economic deterioration even as we carry a
great share of the free world defenses in the
Pacific. These are only two of the many
burdens my people carry even as they try to
build a worthy and enduring house for their
new democracy. That may serve as well as a
redoubt for freedom in Asia. Yet, no sooner as
one stone laid than two are taken away. Half
our export earnings, two billion dollars out of
four billion dollars which is all we can earn in
the restrictive market of the world, must go
to pay just the interest on a debt whose
benefit the Filipino people never received.
Still we fought for honor and if only for honor,
we shall pay. And yet, should we have to ring
the payments from the sweat of our men's
faces and sink all the wealth piled by the
bondsman's two-hundred fifty years of
unrequited toil. Yet, to all Americans, as the
leader to a proud and free people, I address
this question, "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."
 Three years ago I said, Thank you
America for the haven from
oppression and the home you gave
Ninoy, myself and our children and for
the three happiest years of our lives
together. Today I say, join us America
as we build a new home for
democracy; another haven for the
oppressed so it may stand as a
shining testament of our two nations'
commitment to freedom.”
She ended her speech by thanking
the America for serving as home to
her family and joined America in
building the Philippines as a new
home for democracy.
Note: please click the following link to watch the full
video of the speech of President Corazon “Cory”
Cojuangco Aquino.
1. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 1
of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX9ysynaI
q0&list=PL43D2623CB44204E4
2. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 2
of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4gWe6KkF
X4&index=2&list=PL43D2623CB44204E4
3. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 3
of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ZbsEUU
rg&list=PL43D2623CB44204E4&index=3
 References and Supplementary Materials
Books and Journals
1. Antonio, Eleonor D., Dallo, Evangeline M. at et al... ;
2010; Kayamanan (kasaysayan ng Pilipinas);
Sampaloc, Manila; Rex Book Store, Inc.
2. Agoncillo, Teodoro A.; 2010; Philippine History; South
Triangle, Quezon City; C & E Publishing, Inc.
3. Candelaria, John Lee P., Alporha, Veronica C.: Reading
in Philippine History; Sampaloc Manila : REX Book
Store, Inc.
 Online Supplementary Reading
Materials
1.Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino
Speech;
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017
/03/21/speech-before-the-joint-session-
of-the-united-states-congress-sept-18-
1986/
 Online Instructional Videos
1. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 1 of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX9ysynaIq0&l
ist=PL43D2623CB44204E4
2. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 2 of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4gWe6KkFX4
&index=2&list=PL43D2623CB44204E4
3. Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino Speech Part 3 of 3;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ZbsEUUrg&l
ist=PL43D2623CB44204E4&index=3