Crowds Shout ‘We Love You, Cory’ as Aquino Starts Campaign Against Marcos

Tens of thousands of Filipinos, some shouting “We love you, Cory,” cheered opposition presidential candidate Corazon Aquino today at the start of her campaign to defeat President Ferdinand E. Marcos in a Feb. 7 special election.

“If this is a promise of things to come, we will make it,” the widow of assassinated opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. told reporters after a speech at a rally culminating a five-hour motorcade through seven towns in Batangas province, 35 miles south of Manila.

Marcos remained in Manila, scoffing at opposition claims of impending victory. “I do not, of course, expect them to win,” he told a group of farmers at the presidential palace. “There is not one single survey out of about 100 where they are (projected to win) in the election, not one.”

Today marked Aquino’s first campaign tour outside Manila and came just hours after she and Salvador Laurel, her former rival for the opposition candidacy, formally announced they had agreed to run together, with Laurel as the vice presidential candidate.

“You probably are wondering why I entered politics,” Aquino told a crowd of 7,000 in the provincial capital, which is also called Batangas.

“It is because I want to continue the fight of Ninoy,” she said. Ninoy is the nickname of her husband, who had been Marcos’ chief rival before his assassination in 1983.

“I am not out to seek revenge, but I want justice for all the victims of Marcos. . . . I will go to all corners of the Philippines because I know it is the people who can give me justice,” she said.

She called Marcos a man “who didn’t use his intelligence for the good of the people, and that’s why the people are suffering.”

Aquino also said that if elected, she would hold office at Malacanang Palace, official residence of Philippine presidents, but would not live there.

“We are a poor country and we cannot live extravagantly. We have to give the palace back to the people,” Aquino said, adding that she planned to turn the palace into a hall where people could hold wedding ceremonies.

The motorcade also stopped at Laurel’s hometown of Tanauan and at Lipa, a commercial center. Crowds estimated at more than 10,000 assembled at each rally.

Some residents apparently had not heard of Laurel’s last-minute agreement to abandon his presidential candidacy and become Aquino’s running mate. (Story on Page 4.) A banner in one town read “Laurel for president.”