When Marcos introduced martial law in , Ninoy and others were thrown in prison on trumped-up charges. In the seven years her husband spent in jail, Aquino came to the forefront, campaigning against his imprisonment.
She acted as his link to the outside world as he kept up his agitation from his prison cell, running for election and at one stage going on hunger strike. She said of her role: "I am not a hero.
As a housewife, I stood by my husband and never questioned his decision to stand alone against an arrogant dictatorship. I never missed a chance to be with my husband when his jailers permitted it. I never chided him for the troubles he brought on my family and their businesses.
When Ninoy was diagnosed with a heart complaint, Marcos allowed the family to travel to the US so that Ninoy could have triple-bypass surgery. After successful surgery, they remained in America, Ninoy taking an academic post at Harvard. After three years, however, he was persuaded by supporters to return to the Philippines to help lead the opposition. Everyone knew his life was in danger, but few realised that assassins would strike so quickly.
Just minutes after his plane landed at the heavily guarded Manila International Airport in August , he was shot dead on the tarmac. Marcos protested his innocence of involvement in the incident, but few believed him.
Uproar followed. Marcos, in ordering such a flagrant killing, showed he had lost much of the guile which had kept him in power. The huge attendance at Ninoy's funeral, and the waves of protests that followed, indicated that his days were numbered. The shooting removed an opponent of the Marcos regime but created another, even more potent symbol, when Aquino returned to the Philippines and was drawn into political activity.
Marcos, seeing his power slipping away, called a presidential election in in the hope of shoring up his authority. Anti-Marcos factions were fragmented, but most eventually accepted that Aquino stood the best chance of providing unity. Corazon Aquino Works Cited. Engel, Keri. June 09, Harvard Divinity School. Accessed August 20, Iyer, Pico.
January 05, Nadel, Laurie. Corazon Aquino; Journey to Power. Messner, Presidential Museum and Library. How to Cite this page. Additional Resources. Scariano, Margaret. The Picture Life of Corazon Aquino.
New York: F. Watts, This administration has made large steps in that direction. To the disappointment of those who marched with me against the Marcos regime, my administration has plowed resources into regions and provinces where I was cheated in the Snap Elections.
The politics of revenge has had its day. The organized participation of the people in daily government may provide the stabilizing element that government has always lacked. Policies have radically changed with each administration, yet the basic needs of its unchanging constituencies have not been met less bureaucracy for business, more public services and infrastructure support for agriculture and industry, an economic safety net for the common man. The active participation of the people in government will lend proper direction and continuity to policy.
This is what I wish for most. That after me, the continuity of our work is not broken. So that things well done shall be completed, and the same mistakes avoided by succeeding administrations. In this way, nothing done shall go to waste, and the light of a misplaced candle shall still be valued for the light it sheds on the things to avoid. I am not asking that all my programs be blindly followed by my successor. God knows, we have made mistakes.
And the new way is much better than those before. To give the people greater power over their lives is the essence of democracy that we must strive to bring out completely. As President, I have never prayed for anything for myself; only for our people. I have been called an international beggar by the military rebels. I could have kept my pride and held aloof, but that would not have helped our people. And it is for them that I was placed in this office.
Someone who will stand in this place next year, may do better for I believe in the inexhaustible giftedness of the Filipino people. However, Ninoy decided to return when an ailing Marcos looked to be losing his grip on power. As Ninoy stepped off the plane at Manila airport on 21 August , he was murdered by armed soldiers, in full view of television cameras. A grieving Cory returned to the Philippines the following day, and instead of retiring into seclusion, allowed Ninoy's open coffin to travel from place to place before the funeral, which attracted a crowd of 2 million.
Overwhelmed by the public reaction, she managed to control the potentially explosive shock and anger, and soon learned how to harness public outrage to spectacular effect, holding weekly demonstrations of more than a million people. Coming from a wealthy family with investments in sugar, real estate and banking, she also managed to involve sectors not normally motivated to protest — the business community and upper classes, as well as the church, students and the poor.
Ayala Avenue, the Wall Street of Manila, became one of the biggest centres for her rallies. When, in November , Marcos called a snap election, she was the obvious choice of the previously fragmented opposition — 1. She agreed to take up the challenge after 10 hours' meditation on a spiritual retreat, later saying: "We had to present somebody who was the complete opposite of Marcos, someone who had been a victim.
Looking around, I may not be the worst victim, but I am the best known. She announced her candidacy a day after a Marcos-appointed court acquitted 26 military men accused of being involved in Ninoy's assassination. Marcos called her "a snake in the Garden of Eden", and his beauty-queen wife Imelda, bitter with jealousy over Cory's popularity, pooh-poohed her million-strong endorsement. Cory rose above these cheap shots, however, comparing herself with "the young boy David about to face the giant Goliath".
As widely anticipated, the election was marred by massive fraud, but by the end of the campaign it was clear that Aquino was in the ascendant. Thus, when Marcos's election commissioners delayed the vote tally by almost three weeks, and then sought to declare the dictator the winner, a military revolt combined with millions of civilians taking to the capital's streets to demand Marcos's departure.
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