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CORAZON COJOANCO AQUINO
(born 1933) was the first woman to run for the office of the president of the Republic of the
Philippines. The results of the 1986 election were so fraudulent that both Aquino and her
opponent, the incumbent, Ferdinand Marcos declared victory. As a result of the election, the
Filipino people rose in protest and Marcos was forced to flee the country and Aquino assumed the
office of president.
Corazon Cojoangco Aquino was born on January 25, 1933, the sixth of eight children born to
Jose Cojoangco of Tarlac, a prosperous province 65 miles northwest of Manila, the Philippines
capital. The Cojoangcos were members of a wealthy landowning family prominent in politics.
Aquino attended an exclusive Catholic school for girls in Manila before travelling to America to
attend Philadelphia's Raven Hill Academy. After earning a degree in French and mathematics
from New York's Mount Saint Vincent College in 1953, she returned to the Philippines and
enrolled in a Manila law school. While at law school she met her future husband, Benigno
Aquino and married him in 1954. The marriage united two of Tarlac's most prominent families.
The Politician's Wife
Aquino's husband belonged to a family whose involvement in politics went as far back as the last
century. One year after they were married, Aquino's husband was elected mayor of the city of
Concepcion at the age of 22. Her husband was considered one of the Philippines' brightest
political hopes.
Moving up in politics, Aquino's husband became the youngest territorial governor and later the
youngest senator in the Philippines. Through out all her husband's political successes, Aquino
stayed in the background, preferring to concentrate her energies on raising their four daughters
and a son.
As her husband rose in prominence, he became an outspoken critic of the regime of President
Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, Aquino's husband
was one of the first persons arrested and put in jail. During the long years of her husband's
incarceration from 1972 to 1980, Aquino's role as a quiet wife slowly changed. Becoming her
husband's main link to the outside world, she was instrumental in having his statements passed
along to the press and to activists outside the prison walls. From inside his cell, Aquino's husband
even ran for a seat in Parliament, with his wife conducting a large portion of the campaign.
In 1980, Aquino's husband was released from jail in order to undergo heart surgery in the United
States. Aquino's husband worked as a research fellow at Harvard University for the next three
years. His family lived with him in the Boston area and his wife described the time as the best
years of her life.
In 1983 supporters of the anti-Marcos factions persuaded Aquino's husband to return to the
Philippines and to lead their cause. When his plane landed on the tarmac of the Manila
International Airport on August 21, 1983, Aquino's husband was assassinated. A commission
formed to investigate the murder indicted the military men assigned to escort him as well as their
military superiors. However, the court which eventually tried them for the murder acquitted all 26
defendants.
Homemaker Turns Politician
Her husband's assassination served as the turning point of Aquino's life. As her dead husband
became the rallying focus of anti-Marcos groups she, as his widow, became the unifying figure
for the different factions of the opposition. Aquino was catapulted into the role of keeping the
unity alive. On October 15, 1985, the Aquino presidential campaign was launched at the National
Press Club in Manila by 250 founding members, many of whom were businesspeople and
professionals.
Aquino agreed to run if one million supporters signed an endorsement of her candidacy and if
President Marcos called for a snap election. The supporters collected more than one million
signatures, and her candidacy was endorsed by six opposition political parties as the common
candidate for president in the election called for February 7, 1986. The political support she
amassed, and the exoneration of the military men tried for her husband's murder, made Aquino
accept the mandate to run for the presidency, "not in vengeance but in search of justice."
She picked Salvador Laurel, leader of the opposition's largest faction, as her running mate. Initial
negotiations fell through in a disagreement about which party's name to carry--her husband's
LABAN (Fight) Party or Laurel's UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization). Before
the deadline for filing candidacy she and Laurel agreed to run under the UNIDO banner.
Countering Marcos's charges of her political inexperience, Aquino counted as her main asset her
diametrical opposition to the president. Her supporters considered her a fresh new face with a
reputation for moral integrity. Her main assets in the campaign were her reputation for moral
integrity along with her avowal of her slain husband's ideals. To these were added the quiet
support of the influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, whose prelate Jamie
Cardinal Sin was instrumental in the Aquino-Laurel reconciliation.
The homemaker-turned-politician responded to the challenge with enthusiasm and a singular

commitment to the cause of justice. Her opponent, Marcos, had extended his term of office for
more than 20 years through a declaration of martial law and constitutional changes that increased
his powers. The true results of the election may never be known as the incumbent forces used
intimidation, scattered violence, and overt fraud to declare Marcos the winner. The people took to
the streets in protest; some army leaders revolted; the United States expressed its indignation.
Less than three weeks after his alleged election victory in February 1986, Marcos fled the
Philippines. Aquino became the acknowledged president of the republic.
The Presidency and Beyond
Aquino admitted that she faced numerous challenges as the new Filipino president. The release of
441 political prisoners and the forced retirement of 22 pro-Marcos generals were among her first
actions as president. She also reinstated the writ of habeas corpus, the right of a prisoner to appear
before a judge, and abolished the government's ability to imprison people at will, which had been
in effect since 1981. Aquino promised to promote the right to assemble peaceably, and free
speech along with prosecuting corruption and abusers of human rights.
Protecting the countryside was another of Aquino's goals. She planned to accomplish this by
disarming the private armies that roamed the rural areas and establish industries there. Aquino
said she would revitalize the sugar industry by breaking the monopoly. She acknowledged the
special relationship with the United States but emphasized that her concern was with the
Filipinos, not the Americans.
Aquino knew her popularity would wane and that her leadership would be harshly criticized. At
least seven coups were directed at her government during her tenure as president, many times by
former allies who had helped her come to power. Besides dealing with factious parties both
within her cabinet and in the nation, Aquino had to contend with natural disasters and frequent
power failures.
In 1991, a constitutional amendment was passed by referendum which enabled Aquino to remain
president until June 30, 1992. Her successor was Fidel Ramos, her former secretary of defense
and Marcos' former deputy chief of staff of the armed forces. Ramos, who assisted Aquino in
fending off the coup attempts, has continued to support Aquino's democratic ideals. Aquino has
still retained her popularity with the Filipino people and works for reform by participating in
cooperatives and non-governmental organizations in the Philippines.

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CORAZON COJOANCO AQUINO

The Politician's Wife

The homemaker-turned-politician responded to the challenge with enthusiasm and a singular

The Presidency and Beyond

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