Corazon Aquino

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María Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as Cory Aquino, was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was Asia's first female President. She was the wife of the popular opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr., and when he was assassinated at then Manila International Airport on his return from exile on August 21, 1983, she became the focus of the opposition to the autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos.

1 Early life and career
2 Presidential Campaign 1986
3 Presidency
4 Post-presidency
5 See also
6 References
7 External link

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Early life and career

Maria Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco was born in Manila into one of the richest Chinese-mestizo families in the Philippines, the powerful Cojuangcos of Tarlac province. Her mother's family, the Sumulongs, also belong to a political Chinese Filipino family in Rizal.

She grew up privileged, sent overseas to study in Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia, the Notre Dame Convent School in New York, and College of Mount Saint Vincent, also in New York. She studied mathematics and graduated with a degree in French in 1953.

She returned to the Philippines to study law at Far Eastern University, but in 1955 she married Benigno Aquino Jr., who had just been elected mayor of Concepción in Tarlac province at the age of 22. She eventually bore him five children: a son, Benigno III, and four daughters, Maria Elena, Aurora, Victoria, and Kristina. Ninoy rose to be governor and senator, then under the Marcos regime was arrested, sentenced to death, and exiled. She accompanied him into exile in 1980. He was later assassinated on August 21, 1983 upon arrival from a 3-year exile in the United States at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, which was later renamed in his honor. After his death she was convinced by the friends and supporters of Ninoy to enter into politics as head of the Laban coalition.

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Presidential Campaign 1986

On the last week of November, 1985, President Ferdinand Marcos shocked the entire nation when he called for a snap presidential elections to be held in February 1986, at first the opposition formed the United Nationalists Democratic Organizations (UNIDO) as the main political umbrella of the opposition, UNIDO at first supported Senator Salvador Laurel of Batangas as its standard bearer, but business tycoon Don Joaquin Chino Roces was not convinced that Laurel could defeat Marcos in the polls. Roces initiated the Cory Aquino for President Movement to gather one million signatures in one week for Cory to run as president; Aquino was convinced to run initially as President, but Laurel gave way to Cory to run as President and ran as her running-mate.

The campaign was made in the month of January 1986, for the February elections. Although she was officially reported to have lost the election to Marcos, the elections were widely believed to be fraudulent. Both Marcos and Aquino claimed to have won, and held rival inaugurations on February 25, but Marcos then fled in the face of huge popular demonstrations and the refusal of the military to intervene against them.

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Presidency

Image:Cory Aquino - Woman of the Year.jpg Despite the euphoria following the overthrow of the Marcos government, Aquino faced the massive challenge of restoring the nation. She established a revolutionary government under the terms of a provisional "Freedom Constitution", legally establishing the structure of the government pending the adoption of a permanent, democratically-drafted constitution. In late 1986, the Aquino administration appointed a Constitutional Commission to draft the new constitution. It was ratified on February 7, 1987. Congressional and local elections soon followed, setting up a government based on popular and democratic mandate.

Aquino drew praise for her support for democracy, and was selected as Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1986. Despite her enormous personal popularity and that of the new constitution, Aquino continued to face repeated military coup attempts and communist insurrection. Marcos loyalists continued to oppose the government, culminating in a failed July 1986 attempt to establish a rival government at the Manila Hotel, with Arturo Tolentino as temporary president. A more serious threat came from an attempted coup in August 1987 which was repeated in December 1989. Both military coups were led by Col. Gregorio Honasan. The Aquino administration was continually plagued by rumors of coup attempts.

In the 1992 Philippine elections, Aquino backed Fidel V. Ramos, Marcos' army chief-of-staff whose defection to the Aquino party proved crucial to the popular revolution. This decision was unpopular among many of her core supporters, including the Catholic Church (Ramos is a Protestant). Ramos narrowly won with just 23.5 percent of the vote, and succeeded Aquino as president on June 30, 1992.

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Post-presidency

Following the end of her term, Aquino retired to private life. When she rode away from the inauguration of her successor, she chose to go in a simple white Toyota Crown she had purchased (rather than the government-issue Mercedes), to make the point that she was once again an ordinary citizen. She has directed a number of projects that aim at furthering the spread of democracy in Asia.

In 1998, she supported Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim for the presidency. Lim however landed in the 5th place in the May 1998 election where Joseph Estrada won in a landslide victory.

Aquino was the recipient of the 1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding with President Joseph Estrada as the guest-of-honor. In 2002, Aquino received an honorary doctorate from the University of Washington in Seattle.

In January 2001, Aquino was instrumental in the success of the second EDSA Revolution, a four-day popular revolt that peacefully overthrew Philippine president Joseph Estrada that led Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the presidency.

In 2005, Aquino condemned Arroyo, the current president, for allegedly rigging the 2004 electoral process. In February 2006, Aquino joined protestors demonstrating against Arroyo on EDSA, after an alleged coup attempt by members of the Filipino military.

In October 2005, she was awarded one of the World's Elite Women Who Make a Difference by the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame of 2005.

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