2 History

Express your critic about The Speech of Corazon Aquino before the US Congress on September 1986
Write an essay discussing;
1. The importance of the text.

- 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. The speech of former President Cory Aquino is indeed amazing and
an eye opener to all Filipinos.
2. The background of the text’s author
- Maria Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco; 25 January 1933
– 1 August 2009), popularly known as Cory Aquino, was a Filipino politician who served as
the 11th President of the Philippines, becoming the first woman to hold that office. Corazon
Aquino was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which ended
the 20-year rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. She was named Time magazine's Woman of the
Year in 1986. Prior to this, she had not held any elective office.
3. The context of the document
- The context of the document, On September 18, 1986, seven months after she was swept to
power by a popular revolt against dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines president Corazon C. Aquino
addressed the joint session of the United States Congress. She declares the freedom of the Filipinos
from the Marcos regime, to mark a new beginning for the Filipinos and to its government. To appeal for
financial assistance by informing the Americans about the Philippines’ state.
4. The text’s contribution in understanding Philippine History
- To look at the number of primary sources from different historical periods and evaluate these
documents' content in terms of historical value, and examine the context of their production. The
primary sources that we are going to examine are: The KKK and Emilio Jacinto's “Kartilya ng Katipunan,”
The 1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence, Political Cartoon’s Alfred Mccoy's Philippine Cartoons:
Political Caricature of the American Era (1900-1941), and Corazon Aquino speech before the U.S.
congress. These primary sources range from chronicles, official documents, speeches, and cartoons to
visual arts. Needless to say. different types of sources necessitate different kinds of analysis and contain
different levels of importance.
Activity 1.
(10pts.) Explain and discuss your answer with the following the instructions.
1. The essence and significant happenings during The Speech of Corazon Aquino before the US Congress
on September 1986.
-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 was 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 lodged an appeal for help. Addressing the House, she delivered a historic speech
that managed to sway in our favor the vote for an emergency $200-million aid appropriation. In the
moving speech penned by her speechwriter (and our current ambassador to the United Nations) Teddy
Locsin, Jr., Aquino defended her reconciliatory stand on the communist insurgency—a sensitive issue in
the U.S., given that this was 1986—and asked for financial aid towards rebuilding the Philippine
economy. 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 was 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 lodged an appeal for help. Addressing the House, she delivered a historic speech that
managed to sway in our favor the vote for an emergency $200-million aid appropriation. In the moving
speech penned by her speechwriter (and our current ambassador to the United Nations) Teddy
Locsin, Jr., Aquino defended her reconciliatory stand on the communist insurgency—a sensitive issue in
the U.S., given that this was 1986—and asked for financial aid towards rebuilding the Philippine
economy.
"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.
3. Express your philosophy and perspective of the quote “without the right values in the people a
democracy is only a confederacy of fools”
Cory Aquino, the President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, was the focus of
opposition to autocratic president Ferdinand Marcos. She challenged Marcos for the presidency
in the 1986 election. The official vote tally declared Marcos the winner, but there was evidence
of widespread fraud. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in support of Aquino. With the
country united against him and the military refusing to intervene on his behalf, Marcos fled the
country.
Cory Aquino was a magnanimous women. She abolished dictatorship. “I assumed the
powers of the dictatorship, she said, but only long enough to abolish it. I had absolute power,
yet ruled with restraint. I created independent courts to question my absolute power, and finally
a legislature to take it from me.” Aquino was a singular example of integrity in politics. She
served for one six-year term and chose not to seek re-election.
At a time when democracy was worshiped as a god by Western intellectuals, Aquino
said she would never accept the idea of democracy for democracy’s sake. “Without the right
values in the people,” she said, “a democracy is only a confederacy of fools.” This was a
magnanimous, courageous and deeply counter-cultural statement.
Activity 1. (10pts.)
Describe using your own words and realization. How the Speech of Corazon Aquino before the US
Congress on September 1986 inspired the Filipino people of todays’ generation?
Cory Aquino was a magnanimous woman. She abolished dictatorship. “I assumed the powers of the
dictatorship, she said, but only long enough to abolish it. I had absolute power, yet ruled with restraint. I
created independent courts to question my absolute power, and finally a legislature to take it from me.”
Aquino was a singular example of integrity in politics. She served for one six-year term and chose not to
seek re-election.
At a time when democracy was worshiped as a god by Western intellectuals, Aquino said she would
never accept the idea of democracy for democracy’s sake. “Without the right values in the people,” she
said, “a democracy is only a confederacy of fools.” This was a magnanimous, courageous and deeply
counter-cultural statement.
Aquino practiced humility: she wanted to bring out the greatness in her subordinates through
empowerment and inclusion. She would say: “The ability to work well with others, to listen to different
points of view, to credit such views with a sincerity equal to one’s own, and to have the flexibility to
accommodate the valid concerns of others: this is an important quality for anyone who wishes to serve
the people. It is an expression of the spirit of service. Indeed, how can anyone claim to have a genuine
spirit of solidarity with the people in general, if he is incapable of an operational solidarity with those he
must work with closely?”
In a time when politics had fallen into the hands of a political cast, Corazon Aquino showed the whole
world that professional housewives may be a better fit for politics than many professional politicians,
who seem to have lost all sense of greatness and service. When Cory Aquino was campaigning to oust
Ferdinand Marcos from the presidency, the old dictator accused her of being unfit to govern because
she was a housewife. But this housewife went on to win the election, send Marcos into exile, and
thoroughly transform the Philippines.
Long after she ceased to be President, Filipinos still looked up to her as a leader who united the nation.

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Express your critic about The Speech of Corazon Aquino before the US Congress on September 1986

Write an essay discussing;

1. The importance of the text.

3. The context of the document

4. The text’s contribution in understanding Philippine History

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