History

Philippines
History of the Author
• Maria Corazon “Cory” Sumulong
Cojuangco Aquino

• January 25, 1933-August 1, 2009

• The wife of Ninoy Aquino

• The first female president of

southeast asia
• Featured in Time
magazine and named as
Woman of the year in 1986

• She Died on August 1, 2009

due to colorectal cancer.

Historical Background of the Document

• Corazon c. aquino delivered her historical
speech before the US conress on September 18,
1986.

• Barely seven month after being sworn into

office under a revolutionary government brought
about by 1986 EDSA People Power.

• At that time, Cory’s presidency was standing

on an unstable ground.
• The economic situation she inherited is shamble.

• There is massive unemployment and poverty.

• The military’s loyalty to the new administration is

still in question.

• Just five months for office, her administration was

already besiege by a coup attempt, backed by
multitude of civilian Marcos loyalist.

• The communist insurgency is still gripping the country

side(though she release political detainees).

• The newly established administration needs all foreign

allies.

• The re-established of the Communist party of the

Philippines in 1968

• The New people’s army only number to a few hundreds

increasing to more than 20,000 by the 1980s.

Marcos also considered the

cessationistmovement in the South by the
Muslims a threat to national security
•Marcos crushed the initiation of democracy
enshrined in the constitution.
•Dissolving the Philippine Congress, curtailing
freedom of the press.
• Concocting cases rebellion and criminal acts for
those who bought the dictatorship as evidenced by the
trial on Ninoy before a military commission.

• Due to Ninoy’s health which led to his medical exile in

Boston, USA.

• Although lining in comfort with his family, Ninoy

decide to go back home to the Philippines this
eventually led to his assassination.

• Benigno S. Aquino Jr. was fatally shot to the ground

as he exited the plane.

• Rolando Galman, the alleged assasin, was also

immediately gunned down by personel of the aviation
security command.

• Rebecca Quijano testified that she saw a man who

was wearing a military uniform right behind Ninoy, shot
him at the back of his head.

• Approximately 2 million Filipinos set aside their

passivity and fear of oppressive regime during his funeral.

• Awakening of the peoples’ desire for democracy.

• Faced with mounting pressure here and abroad ,

President Marcos called for a recap Presidential election
in February 7, 1986, to prove that he still had the support
of Filipinos.

• Cory became the standard bearer of the opposition.

• The election that took place when marred by reports of

cheating, violence, and disenfranchisement of voters but the
people stood their ground in protecting the Balot boxes.

Among the highlights of the 1986 election was the famous

walkout of the 30 tabulators of the COMELEC for PICC
convention hall.
•The Marcos rubberstamp parliament proclaimed the
winner
• In February 22, 1986, a small group of military
personnel headed by the Defense Minister Juan
Ponce Enrile and Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, call of the
Philippine Constabulary, issued a joint statement
demanding Marcos resignation.

 • Enrile stated about the ambush( fake

ambush)
“ Whether I was ambushed or not, martial law is the
country was already an irreversible fast. So what need
to fake my own ambush?
• Then manila archbishop cardinal Jamie Sin
appealed to the people vi radio veritas broadcast to
bring food and supplies for the rebels and to be
nonviolence to block pro-Marcos troop ordered to
crush the military rebellion

• Culminating the
EDSA PEOPLE
POWER of 1986.

• Which led to the

installation of Cory
Aquino as
President.
Content Presentation and Analysis of the
Important Historical Information Found in
the Documents

• 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 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.”
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
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.”
• She asserted:“ 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 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-sex 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, 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 commitment to the
ideals you hold dear than that my people have
gone through?You have 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.
 Analysis
Analysis of Cory Aquino’s Speech
• 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 herself as the

exact opposite of Marcos, her speech still
revealed certain parallelisms between her and
the Marcos’s government.

• 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.
 Contribution and Relevance of the
Document in Understanding the Grand
narrative of Philippine History
• The document significantly contribute
to the development of diplomatic history
of the country in general and in the US-
Philippine relation in particular
• The historic speech made by President Aquino
strengthened the political, economical, social ties between
the two nations.

• The US Congress granted the Philippines an initial 200

million dollars as emergency aid to help build the
economy.

• The US also reiterated its long time commitment to

defend the security of the Philippines via the Mutual
defense agreement.

• With present administration’s foreign policy shift

especially towards the US, the speech may be document
thay could be included in the discourse of Philippine- US
relation.

Relevance of the Document

• The document speaks on the social
reality of the Philippines during and after
the Marcos regime

• The author who happened to be the

main participants and key stakeholder of
the political events unfolding in those
eyes, saw her personal and political
prejudice adds to the level of credibility
and authenticity of this document.

Thank You for

listening!