Corazon Aquino delivered a pivotal speech before the U.S. Congress on September 18, 1986, shortly after becoming the first female president of the Philippines, aiming to secure support for her country’s recovery from Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship. In her address, she highlighted the struggles faced by Filipinos during martial law and appealed for a $200 million aid package to address the nation's significant debt and insurgency issues. The speech was met with widespread acclaim and is remembered as one of the finest in congressional history, symbolizing the restoration of democracy in the Philippines.

1. PRESIDENT CORAZON
AQUINO’S SPEECH
BEFORE THE U.S.
CONGRESS,
SEPTEMBER 18, 1986

2. 2
REVISIT CORY
AQUINO'S HISTORIC
1986 SPEECH BEFORE
THE U.S. CONGRESS

3. Speech before the joint session of the
United States Congress (1986) by
Corazon C. Aquino, the 11th
President of
the Philippines delivered on September
18, 1986, at the United States Capitol in
Washington, D.C., United States of
America.
NARRATIVES

4. Who is Corazon Aquino?

5.  Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco was born on January 25,
1933, in the Tarlac Province to a wealthy political and banking
family. She attended school in Manila until the age of 13, then
finished her education in the United States, first in Philadelphia
and later in New York City. She graduated from the College of
Mount St. Vincent in New York in 1953, with a bachelor's degree
in both French and mathematics.
 In 1955, she abandoned further studies to marry Benigno
Simeon Aquino, Jr., a promising young politician. During her
husband’s subsequent career, she focused on raising their five
children at home.
 She was a Philippine political leader who served as the first
female president (1986–92) of the Philippines, restoring
democratic rule in that country after the long dictatorship of
Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos unexpectedly called for
elections in 1986, Corazon Aquino became the unified
opposition's presidential candidate. She took office after Marcos
fled the country, and served as president, with mixed results,
until 1992.
Maria Corazon
Aquino

6. When former president Corazon Aquino spoke before a joint session of
the United States Congress in September of 1986, the dust was only
beginning to settle. It was her first visit to America since the dictator
Ferdinand Marcos had been deposed in February of the same year, and
the Philippines were reckoning with everything his administration had
inflicted.
That included $26 billion in total foreign debt, and a communist
insurgency that grew, throughout the Marcos era, from 500 armed
guerillas to 16,000. We were just at the start of a long road to recovery.
So Aquino appealed for help. Addressing the House, she delivered a
historic speech that managed to sway the vote for an emergency $200-
million aid appropriation in our favor.
DISCUSSION

7. NARRATIVES
• “A president-turned-dictator, and traitor to his oath, suspended the
Constitution and shut down the Congress. He detained my husband along
with thousands of other senators, publishers, and anyone who had spoken
up for democracy as its end drew near. They locked him up in a tiny,
nearly airless cell in a military camp in the north. They stripped him naked
and held the threat of sudden midnight execution over his head.”
• In September 1972 Marcos declared martial law, claiming that it was the
last defense against the rising disorder caused by increasingly violent
student demonstrations, the alleged threats of communist insurgency by
the new Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the Muslim
separatist movement of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). One
of his first actions was to arrest opposition politicians in Congress and the
Constitutional Convention.

8. • Elections for an interim National Assembly were finally held in
1978. The opposition—of which the primary group was led by
the jailed former senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr.—produced such
a bold and popular campaign that the official results, which
gave Marcos’s opposition virtually no seats, were widely believed
to have been illegally altered.
• In 1980 Aquino was allowed to go into exile in the United
States, and the following year, after announcing the suspension
of martial law, Marcos won a virtually uncontested election for
a new six-year term.

9. NARRATIVES
• “But his death was my country’s resurrection in the courage and
faith by which they could be free again. The dictator had called
him a nobody. Two million people threw aside their passivity and
escorted him to his grave.”
• On August 21, 1983, Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. was fatally shot to the
ground as he exited the plane at the Manila International Airport
now named NAIA in his honor. Rolando Galman, the alleged
assassin, was also immediately gunned down by personnel of the
Aviation Security Command.

10. • Upon investigation, however, another passenger named Rebecca
Quijano testified that she saw a man, who was wearing a
military uniform right behind Ninoy, shoot him at the back of
his head.
• A post-mortem analysis confirmed that Ninoy was indeed shot
from the back, at close range. Speculations of a conspiracy by
the Marcos government instantaneously spread.
• After investigations, 25 military men were arrested including
then Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian Ver. After a
seemingly unending trial process, only 16 were sentenced
to reclusion Perpetua on September 28, 1990.

11. NARRATIVES
• “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 going to be
fraudulent.”
• When Ferdinand Marcos boldly called for a “snap election” in a
1985 interview with David Brinkley, Marcos’s opponents
weighed whether this was an opportunity or a trap. Just as many
feared, Marcos claimed victory in the election. This time, though,
Filipinos refused to accept this lie. On February 22, citizens took
to the streets on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA).

12. NARRATIVES
• Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Archbishop of Manila, called upon Filipinos to
support the peaceful protests. From February 22 to 25, 1986, hundreds
of thousands of Filipinos gathered on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue to
protest President Ferdinand Marcos and his claim that he had won re-
election over Corazon Aquino or the so-called People Power Revolution.
• On the evening of February 25, the U.S. government facilitated Marcos’s
escape to Hawaii, where he would remain until he died in 1989. Later
that same night, protestors stormed Malacañang Palace, exposing the
opulent wealth that the Marcos family had amassed during their time in
power. As Corazon Aquino was sworn in as President, Filipinos were
hailed around the world as an example of peaceful revolution and the
restoration of democracy.

13. NARRATIVES
• “Wherever I went in the campaign, slum area or impoverished
village. They came to me with one cry, DEMOCRACY. Not food
although they needed it but DEMOCRACY. Not work, although
they surely wanted 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 would 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.”
President Cory Aquino stated.”

14. NARRATIVES
• "We fought for honor, and, if only for honor, we shall pay," she said, agreeing to pay
the debt that was stolen by Marcos. "And yet, should we have to wring the payments
from the sweat of our men’s faces and sink all the wealth piled up by the bondsman’s
two hundred fifty years of unrequited toil?”
• The speech was impassioned, deeply personal, and effective; interrupted 11 times by
applause and bookended with standing ovations. House Speaker Tip O'Neill called it
the "finest speech I've ever heard in my 34 years in Congress." Senate Majority Leader
Robert Dole told her, "Cory, you hit a home run." And House Minority Whip Trent
Lott said, "Let's just say the emotion of the moment saved the day." It would go down
in the annals of our history as one of the former President's finest speeches.
• "I was witness to an extraordinary manifestation of democracy on the part of the
Filipino people. The ultimate result was the election of Mrs. Corazon Aquino as
President and Mr. Salvador Laurel as Vice-President of the Philippines."

15. QUESTION!!

16. "Have we achieved the
democracy and freedom that
Benigno Aquino Sr. and
Corazon Aquino fought for?"