Speech-Before-the-U.S.-Congress (1).pptx
- 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. She is the 11th president and first female president of the Philippines and in Asia. She was also dubbed as the “Mother of Democracy”. 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 • There was already tension between Ferdinand Marcos and Benigno Aquino, Jr. since they became president and senator. Marcos hated Aquino for opposing him so he accused Aquino of many things including being a communist, which then led him to start Martial Law and arrest Aquino. Aquino, through her wife, Corazon, kept on sending letters and exposing Marcos of his wrongdoings while he was away.
- 8. 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.
- 9. • 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.
- 10. 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.
- 11. • 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.
- 13. 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).
- 15. 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.
- 16. 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.”
- 17. 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."
- 18. QUESTION!!
- 19. "Have we achieved the democracy and freedom that Benigno Aquino Sr. and Corazon Aquino fought for?"