The Woman Named Cory: A Biographical Sketch

I’m currently immersed in texts having to do with the Cory Aquino years. As part of my academic ritual (something I do variably to enable myself to somehow capture the zeitgeist within a period of national leadership), I have retyped a section of my undergraduate thesis, the hard copy of which my sister sent me sometime last year upon my request.

 

Based on my interview with President Aquino in May 1997 and what I could extract from the cobwebbed sections of the UPLB library then, the following was written eleven years ago today. It’s a biographical sketch which appears before my rhetorical analyses of her selected speeches.  So this is how I wrote then. I somehow liked to make things a bit convoluted. I think nothing has changed significantly:

 

Who is Cory Aquino?

 

On January 25, 1933, the day Cory Aquino, christened Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco was born, her parents Jose Cojuangco and Demetria Sumulong might not have expected that fifty-three years and a month later, their sixth child would be sworn in as the eleventh president of Asia’s first republic.  Nor might have Cory, herself, dreamt of becoming the leader of the Filipino nation, especially during the time when she became the wife of no other than the Benjamin of the Philippine Senate.  If the woman had any inclination, it might have dissipated after she got married to the charismatic “Son of Tarlac.” “I felt my primary obligation was to be a good wife and mother,” she would recount later. “I never thought of a separate career for myself. I believe that (being a good wife and mother) was my primary duty.” Little did she know that the Filipino people’s power would bless her with a career that would significantly change the direction of her life.

 

Some genealogists would contend that Cory’s apparent “noblesse oblige” and involvement in the mainstream Philippine politics were her birthmarks.  Her father, Jose Cojuangco owned vast tracts of lands in Central Luzon.  He was a third-generation descendant of Jose Cojuangco Sr., a Chinese who had come to the Philippines from Fukien province in 1836.  Due to hard work and frugality, Jose Sr. acquired lands in the town of Paniqui from which business thrived (Burton 1989). Cory’s mother, Demetria Sumulong was a U.P. graduate of pharmacy and daughter of Juan Sumulong, touted as the “brains of the opposition” during the Commonwealth Government headed by President Manuel L. Quezon. It is said that the old Sumulong “spoke loudly against the domination of the elite” and advocated the gradual independence in contrast to the Nacionalistas who favored immediate independence.

 

Though blessed with affluence generated from the vast properties of the Cojuangcos, Cory grew up to be frugal.  She in fact used hand-me-down Scholastican uniforms from elder sisters Josephine and Teresita but is remembered to have complained only once about their faded look (Sunday Inquirer Magazine, January 21, 1990).

 

On the one hand, summers and weekends in Paniqui with her siblings would expose her early to politics; on the other hand, the schools she attended significantly took part in building her individual character. St. Scholastica’s College, where she graduated sixth grade valedictorian, provided her “great influence in religion.” The French-run Assumption Convent, where she stayed for a year, “stressed social consciousness and the importance of being a lady.” The College of Mount St. Vincent in New York, where she majored in French and mathematics, taught her the habit of prayer and punctuality. After finishing her undergraduate studies in the United States, she came back to the country and studied law “as a discipline” at the Far Eastern University.  She, however, stopped schooling, a year later when she married Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

 

Her marriage to Ninoy relegated her to the traditional woman roles which she accepted with open arms.  Having been blessed with five children, Cory took the role of a full-time mother.  She narrates, “Because I was married to a politician, I felt it more urgent to take care of my children.  I think that it’s no secret in this country of ours even in other countries that children of politicians tend to be left in the care of others…so you hear of many problems connected with children of politicians.”

 

As a concerned parent, Cory tells: “I would enroll them, I’d take care of all the material needs and would also help them in doing their homework and I would also be very busy in attending PTA meetings.” Cory would also accompany them to movies and children’s parties. She would say emphatically, “Talagang, full time mother and also very supportive wife.” As a wife, Cory remained in the background of her husband Ninoy whose growing popularity during the Marcos presidency had made great expectations that he would succeed the first Philippine President to be elected for two terms.

 

Ninoy’s fiery oratory in the Senate made him so prominent that President Marcos himself felt threatened.  When President Marcos declared martial rule in 1972, Ninoy’s burning ambition to become the country’s next president was quelled.  The young Senator was incarcerated a day after President Marcos signed Proclamation 1081. For seven years and seven months, the passionate oratorical pieces emanating from the Benjamin of the Senate were deliberately kept by the Marcos forces from being heard by the Filipino people and the outside world.  At the same time, however, the housewifely Cory was starting to experience a shift from her traditional roles.  In those years, she was virtually exposed to political education.  Her number one professor was her husband. She became Ninoy’s clear channel to the outside world despite experiencing the rigors and mental tortures accorded by tyranny to loved ones of political prisoners.  Cory’s significant role during those critical times is best expressed in the concluding passages of Ninoy’s lengthy closing statement before the military tribunal:

 

“Hopefully, with the end of these proceedings, the woman who is the hope and light of my life’s dark night will be delivered from her anxiety and anguish.  She had stood by me with unshakable faith, unruffled and undeterred by the endless humiliations, the abandonment of friends, and the heavy burdens of having to be a teacher, father, mother and provider for my children. She has been the healing oasis in the desert of my prison.”

 

In her book, Time magazine correspondent Sandra Burton comments that Ninoy’s belated public acknowledgment of the role of Cory “foreshadowed the emergence of a new politics of conscience from out of his experience under martial rule.”  If we are to look at it in the politico-spiritual framework, the inclusion of this relatively short but significant detail in Ninoy’s closing statement would make us think of the Magnificat in the New Testament and compare Cory to Mary, mother of Christ.  Interestingly, both women have earned the title “Woman of History.”

 

On March 19, 1980, Ninoy suffered a heart attack.  To Cory, this was instrumental for his release.  Almost two months later, the Aquino family was allowed to leave the country for Ninoy’s operation in the United States. The next three years would be, according to Cory, "the happiest years of (their) lives together.”

 

Ninoy Aquino, however, relentlessly struggled to bring back democracy in the Philippines.  Realizing the importance of struggling in his home country, he decided to return to the Philippines and continue his struggle. But before he set his foot on the tarmac of Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, he was shot to death.  His death would trigger the opposition and the people to reinforce the seemingly endless and futile struggle against President Marcos’s dictatorship.  This would be culminated by a four-day exercise of “people power” at the Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA).

 

For three years after Ninoy’s assassination, Cory committed herself to joining the opposition leaders in challenging the strongman.  At one point, she was asked what conditions would prompt her to seek the presidency. Answering the question before members of a sorority based in the University of the Philippines, Cory gave two conditions: first a petition with at least one million signatures urging her to run for president, and second, “If Marcos calls for a snap elections.” Giving these two conditions was a genuine show of reluctance. Cory would narrate, “I wanted to make the situations almost impossible. And at that time, for Marcos to declare and call for snap elections is unthinkable because he would still be there until 1987.  So why should they call for early elections?  And in the case of one million people signing up for me, it’s really quite a task because so many people were still afraid of the dictator.  So I felt I was more or less safe with those conditions.”

 

Unexpectedly for Cory, however, the conditions she gave at the gathering in UP were met, propelling her to vie for the presidency. On November 3, 1985, President Marcos called for snap elections in an interview on This Week with David Brinkley, an American Sunday morning news program.  On the other hand, Chino Roces, owner-publisher of the Manila Times and an elderly activist, was able to gather one million signatures petitioning Cory to run for president. Invoking providential guidance, she sought for reflection and retreat in the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters.  Finally, she filed her candidacy for President. The election campaign, describes Time magazine, would turn out to be a “clash of symbols.” Cory stood out to become the anti-thesis of the dictator.  Marcos, on the other hand, argued that his challenger had no experience in politics and had not acted as an ideal woman, whose place, he said, is in the bedroom.

 

The election was reported to have been marred by massive cheating, leading thirty computer tabulators to walk out.  Unperturbed by the alleged tampering of the results, Ferdinand E. Marcos proclaimed himself winner. Defiant, Cory with the help of Cardinal Sin, called for civil disobedience.  The rest that followed was history.

 

As president, Cory presided over the transition from dictatorship to democracy.  She led the country in restoring basic rights and freedom. Some of her earliest achievements during her term were the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the restoration or the reestablishment of the Philippine Congress and the Supreme Court. She also introduced economic and social reforms. She encouraged participatory democracy through non-governmental organizations and people’s organizations.  Her term, however, was marred by many problems.  Her government faced seven coup attempts two of which were most devastating – the August 1987 and December 1989 events.  The instability experienced by the country during her term led some people to regard her as weak. She in fact turned out to be the best scapegoat of some journalists, Marcos loyalists and opposition leaders.  Moreover, the country was faced by some of the worst calamities in modern history.  These were the July 1990 earthquake and the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991.  Cory, however, survived the worst situations that had happened during her time. In 1992, she was able to finish her term successfully with a peaceful transfer of power.  Throughout her presidency, her leadership style was defined by the virtues of sincerity, integrity, religiosity and humility.

 

Since her assumption to power, Cory has received several citations and awards and has been continually invited to speak in international and national conferences and gatherings of professionals, academicians, the media and some sectoral groups. She had been conferred several honorary degrees in universities in the Philippines, United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Italy. She was named Time magazine’s “Woman of the Year for 1986.”  She was likewise given the “Politician of the Year Award” by Saudi Gazette and by the Japan Broadcasting Company.  Her awards and prizes also include the Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, the Noel Award for Political Leadership by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, 1993 Special Awards from the Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Awards Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines. In 1996, she received the J. William Fulbright Prize.  She was preceded by South African leader Nelson Mandela.  On April 24, 1997, she spoke before members of the University of Oregon as the Carlton Raymond and Wilberta Ripley Savage Professor for 1997.

 

As a private citizen, Cory Aquino has maintained her role as an articulator of the pulse of the people.  On September 21, 1997, she had served to consolidate people’s movement against hideous attempts to change the Constitution.  She was named “Filipino of the Year” by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on January 8, 1998.

 

In essence, Cory Aquino has continued to be what Theodore Roosevelt called “the man (or woman) in the arena…who strives, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and, at worst, if he fails, does it daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

 

Cory has indeed metamorphosed – from a frugal heir to the Cojuangco fortune to being a “wife at the background” of a political star; from a suffering mother of five to a symbolic Mater Dolorosa of a nation almost divided; from a grieving widow to a defiant public woman; from a referent leader to a legitimate one; from a favorite subject to a favorite scapegoat; from President to private citizen; from a religious leader to a weaver of the nation’s moral fiber.  This transformation – criticized and romanticized, insulted and exalted, pierced and loved – contributed to her indelibly unique place in Philippine history. With that, her life and political career deserve the light of scholarship.

 

 

From: Corazon C. Aquino: The Leader as a Rhetorician and Her Place in Philippine History. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis. Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños, March 1998, pp. 21-28.