My modest Cory Aquino memorabilia

Written by President Aquino on the flyleaf of my undergraduate thesis after she painstakingly went through my draft. She was an excellent language editor.

In the mid-to-late 1990's, while former Philippine President Corazon Aquino remained popular the world over, writing academically about her and her leadership seemed unfashionable. That was especially true in the context of the 'radical- nationalist' University of the Philippines, which, understandably, was critical of the failures of the socio-economic programs pursued during the post-Marcos presidencies. While friends were supportive of my academic pursuits, I could actually sense that some of them were dismissive of, in fact, almost scoffing at what I was doing for my undergraduate research. I understand their sentiments.

It was my academic adviser UP Professor Emeritus Edelwina C. Legaspi who suggested the idea of studying the Cory Aquino speeches and who pushed me into the field called rhetorical theory and criticism. During one of our earliest meetings in UPLB, she said, 'The greatest speeches of the world are born during crises.' That line would inspire me, and somehow conceptually guide me, in studying the Cory Aquino public discourse.

Later, I would read in Professor Legaspi's dissertation ('The Rhetoric of the Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898-1900, With Emphasis on the Role of the Anti-Imperialist League,' PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, 1967 published in the Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review in 1968) the following significant excerpt she notes from Chauncey A. Goodrich's 'Select British Eloquence' (New York, 1963):

'If a speaker wishes to get to the bottom of any matter, he must prepare himself to deal with the strongest possible opposition to his proposal...If useful oratory presupposes sound rhetoric and if sound rhetoric requires dialectic, then vigorous opposition would seem to be helpful, if not indispensable. Great speeches may thus be sought in their habitat - controversy in which the requisite dialectic is provided by more speakers than one. Good speeches are likely to be found, therefore, as parts of a whole, of a dialogue involving thrust and counterthrust, argument and refutation, question and answer, proposal and denial, affirmation and negation' (p. ix in Legaspi, p. 126)

As I join the Filipino people in mourning the passing of Cory Aquino, icon of democracy and inspiration during the world-renowned People Power Revolution of 1986, I am posting my modest 'memorabilia' of my brief but meaningful encounter with her.

I thank her for the inspiration.