Grateful nation mourns for Woman in Yellow
By the Inquirer Editors
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:40:00 08/02/2009
MANILA, Philippines—A grateful nation is in mourning for the Woman in Yellow—the prayerful widow whose reluctant rise on the political stage transformed her into a slayer of tyranny, a world icon of People Power and the constant voice in the Filipinos’ continuing struggle against corrupt, abusive rule.
Corazon “Cory” Aquino’s 16-month battle against colon cancer overflowed with prayers tied to yellow ribbons. Yet even from her sickbed, her voice remained the voice of democracy.
In June, in a statement read by a grandson, Cory denounced as a “shameless abuse of power” persisting efforts by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s congressional allies to amend the 1987 Constitution. These efforts, critics say, are part of a scheme to prolong Ms Arroyo’s grip on power beyond her expiring tenure in 2010.
It was as though Cory was back on—or had never left—the high ground on which she was thrust into the global limelight 26 years ago.
The widow of the Marcos dictatorship’s foremost victim, Cory became the rallying point of the resistance against the regime and was propelled to the Philippine presidency in a revolution where not a single shot was fired. Democracy was restored in the country in 1986.
For four days in February that year, the world watched as the woman in a bright yellow dress led millions to take on and take out Ferdinand Marcos, who had ruled with an iron fist for two decades.
Early steps
During the next six years, Cory convened a constitutional convention to frame a new Charter and restore democratic processes and institutions.
With a Cabinet cobbled from left to right of the political spectrum, her presidency inherited a host of problems—an economy in its worst state since World War II, a burdensome foreign debt, a burgeoning communist insurgency and an armed forces corrupted by the patronage of the Marcos dictatorship.
It was also marred by at least six failed coup attempts, political squabbling and a continuing struggle to overhaul a political system dominated by elite clans.
The Philippines’ first woman President revitalized the legislature and judiciary, freed political prisoners and commenced peace talks with communists and Moro secessionists.
Her administration boosted the moribund economy through deregulation, privatization and decentralization. It dismantled Marcos-era cartels while recovering without legal obstacles part of the ill-gotten, well-concealed wealth of the dictator’s family and cronies.
Government presence in business activities was also scaled back with the privatization of 71 government-owned or -controlled corporations.
But a slowing economy and sporadic energy blackouts marked the close of Cory’s term. The Senate also refused to ratify an agreement extending the lease of American bases in Clark and Subic, despite her lobbying.
With the election in 1992 of Fidel Ramos, a former general and Cory’s chosen successor, her administration accomplished, in her words, the “peaceful political transition perpetuating democracy.”
In post-Edsa Philippine history, she was the only President who did not plan to perpetuate herself in power.
Family of privilege
Born into the Cojuangco clan in Tarlac on Jan. 25, 1933, Cory was a product of privilege, power and wealth.
She was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy, of Jose Cojuangco, a former congressman, and Demetria Sumulong Cojuangco, a pharmacist.
Both of her grandfathers were also legislators. The Sumulongs’ bailiwick was the province of Rizal, while the Cojuangcos owned huge tracts of land in Tarlac.
A year after World War II, Cory and her two sisters went to the United States to study. She spent a year in Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia before transferring to Notre Dame Convent School in New York City.
After finishing high school in Notre Dame, Cory majored in French and mathematics at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the same city.
She returned to Manila in 1953 to study law. She enrolled at Far Eastern University, but did not complete her law course.
Though belonging to a family of politicians, Cory entertained no political ambitions and once thought of a teaching career.
But all that changed when she met Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., a bright young journalist from another prominent Tarlac clan—and whom she actually first met when she was 9 years old. They got married in 1954.
Married life for Cory then meant taking care of their five children and being supportive of her husband’s career. She once confided in an interview that “he discouraged me from having a career … since staying home was commonly accepted once you had a family.”
‘Wonder Boy’
Ninoy was seen by many as the “Wonder Boy” of Philippine politics who rose in record time from being a reporter, town mayor, provincial governor, to senator at the age of 35.
In September 1972, Marcos declared martial law and jailed hundreds of his opponents and critics, including Ninoy, by then considered a president-in-the-making and Marcos’ most serious rival.
After nearly eight years in prison (often in solitary confinement), Ninoy was allowed by the Marcos regime to undergo triple bypass surgery in the United States. This was after a hunger strike meant to protest his conviction by a military tribunal caused damage to his heart.
In August 1983, against the advice of friends, Ninoy flew back to the Philippines from exile in Boston to seek an audience with the ailing Marcos. But he was gunned down on the last step of the airline’s stairway, before he could even set foot on his homeland.
Ninoy’s grief-stricken widow flew back to the Philippines, where she was quickly thrust into the role of uniting the opposition. She silently stood as the symbol of the victims of the Marcos regime.
Laban!
Cory, the shy “plain housewife” that she considered herself, helped keep the opposition alive, eventually gaining confidence as a public speaker and rallying the opposition to unite.
Young and old, rich and poor, followed her from rally to rally.
Over the next three years, she led almost daily anti-Marcos rallies at Rizal Park in Manila and on Ayala Avenue and Ugarte Field in Makati, flashing the “L” sign—for Laban (Fight)!—to show defiance to Marcos.
The protests particularly transformed the country’s central business district into a seething cauldron of dissent. The gathering political storm took the form of yellow confetti raining down from Ayala’s high-rise offices.
Cory made the leap from protests to politics in 1984 when she signed a pact with other opposition groups to boycott the Batasang Pambansa elections.
But in a controversial move, she later opted for elections, which led to a split with her brother-in-law, Agapito “Butz” Aquino, who continued to go for a boycott.
Despite the cheating in the elections, 49 of her candidates won.
1M signatures
In 1985, seeking to quell the disquiet in the nation once and for all, Marcos acceded to the US request for him to submit to a “snap election.”
Journalist and former Marcos detainee Joaquin “Chino” Roces gathered one million signatures for a petition for Cory to run for president.
“I don’t seek vengeance, only justice, not only for Ninoy but [also] for the suffering Filipino people,” Cory declared as, with much trepidation, she accepted the nomination of her peers as their common candidate against Marcos in the snap election of February 1986.
She made the decision after a day of fasting and prayer.
She undertook an unorthodox campaign, holding audiences in rapt attention because, as writer Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz put it, “her earnestness and sincerity always shone through her words.”
Marcos derided her as “a mere housewife.” Cory called him a coward.
An estimated one million people, considered one of the largest political gatherings in Philippine history, attended her miting de avance at Rizal Park.
Though Cory won in the unofficial count, Marcos was declared winner of the election at the Batasan on Feb. 15.
To pragmatic politicians, this declaration meant that the game was over.
People Power
But not to Cory. A day after the Batasan declaration, at the Cojuangco building in Makati, she called her brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. and gave him a terse command.
He would later reveal after the meeting that Acheng (elder sister) “insists on calling on the people to a rally at Luneta.”
What most politicians apparently failed to realize was that Cory had an innate and instinctive ability to sense what the people wanted and felt.
To everyone’s amazement, except perhaps Cory, a crowd of over two million showed up. She presented an initial seven-point program aimed at pressuring Marcos to step down.
Crony businesses and products were boycotted. Banks were plagued with runs, beer sales plummeted, newspaper circulations shrank.
Thus was People Power born.
Through those four days in February, the mantra, the force of unity, the magic and the miracle was the “Cory, Cory” chant of the multitudes on Edsa.
On the fourth day of the revolt, where unarmed civilians massed on Edsa stopped Marcos tanks with their bodies, rosaries and flowers, Cory took her oath as the country’s 11th President at Club Filipino.
The world’s high esteem for her became palpable when, just seven months into the presidency, she delivered a much-applauded and historic speech before a joint session of the US Congress in September 1986.
Citizen Cory
In retirement, Citizen Cory remained in the public eye, often speaking out against abuses in government.
She fought moves to amend the Constitution during the terms of President Fidel Ramos and his successor, President Joseph Estrada.
With Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, Cory also lent her presence to Edsa II—considered a reprise of the bloodless People Power revolt of 1986—which forced Estrada out of Malacañang in 2001 on charges of corruption.
She later became a vocal critic of President Macapagal-Arroyo, whose family has been accused of massive corruption.
In 2005, following allegations of massive fraud in the 2004 presidential election, Cory publicly called on Ms Arroyo to resign from office.
Last year, she virtually apologized to Estrada for helping oust him from the presidency.
Cory supported programs promoting people empowerment, peace and human rights, largely through the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation.
She continued to join street protests against the Arroyo administration until she was diagnosed with colon cancer in March 2008.
Inspiration
In private life, Cory was said to have found joy in her eight grandchildren and in her hobby—painting landscapes and still-life.
In 2006, Time magazine named her one of Asia’s heroes, praising her “quiet courage” and describing her as “the symbol of People Power and an inspiration to others around the world struggling against tyranny.”
Cory then said: “I don’t know how [people] will judge my presidency, but I hope they will realize it was not easy restoring democracy after a dictatorship.”
Sources: http://www.coryaquino.ph, Time magazine, Inquirer Archives, Agence France-Presse, “…So Help Us God” by J. Eduardo Malaya and Jonathan Malaya.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090802-218342/Grateful-nation-mourns-for-Woman-in-Yellow
At about 5 a.m. outside the hospital, Noynoy read a statement announcing the death of his mother.
Obama “was deeply saddened” by news of Aquino’s death, read a statement late Friday from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
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