Corazon Aquino

President of the Philippines (1986-1992)

• Born: January 25, 1933
• Birthplace: Tarlac Province, the Philippines
• Died: August 1, 2009
• Place of death: Makati, the Philippines

Aquino succeeded Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos to become Asia’s first female president. The widow of Benigno Aquino, Jr., a senator assassinated under orders of the despotic Marcos, Aquino chose government reform as the primary thrust of her political platform.

Early Life

Corazon Aquino (KOHR-ah-zohn ah-KEE-noh) was born María Corazon Cojuangco, the daughter of Don Jose Cojuangco and Doña Demetria Sumulong, in Paniqui in the Tarlac district of the Philippines. The sixth of eight children, Aquino was always intelligent, and her wealthy family educated her at the best schools. She graduated first in her class at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila (a prominent girl’s school with classes ranging from grade school to junior college level) and then studied at a number of exclusive prep schools in the United States: Ravenhill Academy (Philadelphia), the Notre Dame Convent School (New York), and the College of Mount Saint Vincent (also in New York). In college, Aquino gravitated to liberal arts, acquiring a bachelor of arts degree in French.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Aquino returned to the Philippines. Rather than beginning her teaching career as planned, however, she found herself drawn toward the study of law and politics. With the blessing of her parents, she attended Far Eastern University and, in 1955, fell in love with the young, charismatic Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., who at the tender age of twenty-two had already served as a war correspondent for The Manila Times, been awarded a Philippine Legion of Honor Award from President Elpidio Quirino, and was a key adviser to President Ramon Magsaysay. A personable and magnetic man, Ninoy had just been elected mayor of Concepción in Tarlac province when he met Corazon Cojuangco, and the young couple found that they had much in common. Both were members of the Philippines’ Liberal Party, both were idealistic, and both wanted their country to be more progressive politically and socially. They married, and subsequently had five children: Maria Elena Aquino, Aurora Corazon Aquino, Benigno Aquino III, Victoria Eliza Aquino, and Kristina Bernadette Cojuangco.

Life’s Work

Ninoy Aquino became a governor and, later, a senator, but his political speeches frequently questioned the policies of President Ferdinand Marcos . As the only Liberal Party member to have succeeded in being elected to the Senate, Aquino was politically unpopular among his colleagues. His speeches targeted not only the military excesses of President Marcos, but also the fiscal excesses of Marcos’s wife, Imelda. He became the most popular choice to become the next president, which, ironically, sealed his political fate. A short time after President Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1971, Aquino was arrested and charged with murder, illegal possession of firearms, and subversion. He was sentenced to death by firing squad; however, his political power proved too intimidating to the politically weakened President Marcos. Bowing to public pressure for Aquino’s release, Marcos allowed Corazon Aquino to secretly take her ailing husband into exile in the United States, unaware that she had promised her husband that they would eventually return. In 1983, having heard that Marcos’s health was failing due to lupus, the Aquinos decided that the time was right to return to the Philippines. It was a decision that would dramatically change the young woman’s expectations for the future. Stepping down onto the tarmac at the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, Corazon Aquino witnessed the brutal assassination of her beloved husband. In horror, she vowed to continue Ninoy’s political fight, and she became an influential leader within the Lakas ng Bayan, or Laban Party (the People’s Power Party).

Because his health was so fragile, President Marcos shocked the nation with his sudden call for a presidential election to take place during February of 1986. Although originally slated to act as running mate to opposition favorite Senator Salvador Laurel of Batangas, Corazon Aquino had greater political sway than Laurel did, and public opinion favored her. Her supporters gathered one million signatures in one week to ensure that Aquino, rather than Laurel, would be the coalition’s representative.

After a tumultuous campaign, the February elections were held to great public fanfare. Although the media initially reported that Aquino had lost the election to President Marcos, too many people believed the outcome was fraudulent. Aquino herself expressed doubt that the votes had been properly tabulated. Consequently, she refused to admit defeat, and both Marcos and Aquino held rival inaugurations on February 25. President Marcos tried to use his remaining political power to stay in power but found the pressure of public demonstrations, the threat of a military revolt, and the censure of foreign governments such as the United States to be too great to overcome, and he voluntarily left the country.

With her main political rival disgraced and exiled, Corazon Aquino took up the challenge of repairing the damage that twenty years of autocratic rule had done to her country. She conceived of a federal government realigned and reorganized under a Freedom Constitution, a constitution that would be democratically established and subject to both internal and external public review. The new constitution’s official acceptance (it was ratified February 7, 1987) made Aquino’s vision real and permanent, as the constitution became the basis by which congressional and local elections could take place in the Philippines.

Like her late husband, Aquino was widely praised both inside and outside the Philippines. Her previous schooling and residency in the United States made her particularly appealing to mainstream Americans. Not surprisingly, she was selected as Time magazine’s Woman of the Year for 1986 because of her progressive political stance and her dogged determination to persevere in the face of not only intense political upheaval but also a slew of natural disasters that ripped apart her country. Besides being repeatedly attacked by Marcos loyalists and having to defend her fledgling government against numerous coup attempts, Aquino had to lead recovery efforts following an eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, and a category five typhoon that collectively devastated the countryside.

Exhausted by her tenure as president, Aquino chose not to run again for office. Instead, she supported Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos as her candidate of choice for the 1992 Philippine elections. Many Filipinos were unhappy with Aquino’s choice of successor, especially because he was not as personally charismatic and lacked the support of the Catholic Church. Although he did manage to win office, his victory was hard-won and lacked a clear mandate from the Filipino public.

Significance

Aquino was renowned not only for being one of the first female leaders of an Asian country but also for her many humanitarian activities and awards: In 1996 she received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding; in 1998 she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, an award created in honor of the former president and friend of her late husband; in 2001 she was awarded a World Citizenship Award; in 2002 she became chair for the Board of Trustees of the Asian Institute of Management; and in November, 2006, Time magazine published an extensive article detailing Aquino’s work as a political reformer and naming her an Asian Hero. She received many honorary doctorates, including degrees in humanities from the University of Oregon (1995), San Beda College (2000), and Seattle University (2002); in humane letters from her alma mater, the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York; and in international relations from Boston University. Aquino also has been involved with microfinance projects for beginning entrepreneurs and social welfare and scholarship assistance through the Benigno Aquino Memorial Foundation, a fund established in honor of her beloved husband.

Bibliography

Burton, Sandra. Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, the Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution. New York: Warner Books, 1988. One of the most interesting aspects of the Marcos/Aquino election scandal is just how polarized the two candidates became in the court of public opinion. Burton explains the basis of the adulation of Ninoy and Corazon Aquino, the hatred of Ferdinand Marcos, and the impetus for the 1986 revolt.

D’Amico, Francine, and Peter R. Beckman, eds. Women in World Politics: An Introduction. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1995. This scholarly collection of essays studies the impact of female leadership on world politics. Includes biographies of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Indira Ghandi, and Margaret Thatcher as well as excerpts from the published memoirs of other female political figures.

Komisar, Lucy. Corazon Aquino: The Story of a Revolution. New York: G. Braziller, 1987. Komisar treats readers to a lively and highly readable biography of Corazon Aquino, detailing her transformation from the reclusive wealthy wife of a political firebrand to the role as social reformer and noted humanitarian.

Ohrn, Deborah Gore, ed. Herstory: Women Who Changed the World. New York: Viking, 1995. Ohrn outlines the increasing influence of women in a variety of social spheres, including that of international politics. She presents life stories of women in the arts, the sciences, and the political forum, finding common threads between the disparate fields.

Reid, Robert H. Corazon Aquino and the Brushfire Revolution. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. This is a fairly dense scholarly history of Corazon Aquino’s rise to power from her husband’s assassination through her election to the Philippine presidency. It also provides a look at her role within the Laban party.