Corazon Aquino: Simplicity Hides a Firm Resolve

Corazon Aquino, wearing a simple yellow dress and delivering a plain-spoken speech, accepted the presidency of the Philippines on Tuesday in the style that already had won the hearts and votes of millions of Filipinos on the campaign trail.

It is an honest image, and it obscures a political toughness that evolved during the election campaign and helped her to stand up to Ferdinand E. Marcos even after the National Assembly declared him the victor of the Feb. 7 presidential election, overriding charges of massive vote fraud.

Aquino, 53, a petite mother of five, began her campaign in December declaring that she was “just a housewife.” At the end, she was unbending, refusing to let Marcos cling to the presidency that she said he had stolen from her.

“The most shameless in the world’s living memory,” she said of the election. “Marcos pulled out all the stops . . . and did it all before the eyes of his own people and the world. Despite all this, I won.”

After Marcos had the National Assembly proclaim him president in a midnight session, Aquino said she would go into the streets to deny him the people’s support. She was prepared to do just that when threats of widespread arrests of opposition leaders and of reform-minded military figures triggered a military mutiny that finished Marcos off.

In proclaiming her presidency Tuesday, she revealed her determination. “On the basis of the people’s mandate clearly manifested last Feb. 7, I and Salvador Laurel are taking power,” she said.

Debt to Her Husband

She acknowledged again the debt her candidacy and supporters owe to her late husband, Benigno S. (Ninoy) Aquino Jr., who was assassinated Aug. 21, 1983, as he returned from self-exile in the United States.

“It took the brutal murder of Ninoy to bring about liberty through people power,” she said.

Throughout the campaign, she called Marcos the “No. 1 suspect” in her husband’s death and consistently wore yellow, the traditional color of remembrance. As Filipinos recalled, yellow ribbons and banners had decorated Manila’s International Airport the day that Benigno Aquino returned from the United States and was shot to death as he left the airplane.

At the start of the race, the once-reluctant candidate still seemed to be under her husband’s shadow. But at the end, the crowds were coming to see “Cory,” not Ninoy’s widow.

High-Pitched Voice

Despite a high-pitched, somewhat monotonous voice and a self-effacing personality, she became a political comet, drawing huge crowds in the cities and in the provinces. Marcos called her inexperienced, but she knew instinctively what she had to offer, an image of morality in a system rife with corruption.

It was this conviction that persuaded her to reject an invitation from the ambitious Laurel to take second spot on an opposition ticket with him.

“I’ve psyched myself up into thinking I can do this,” she told an interviewer in January. “It really isn’t me.”

From her birth on Jan. 25, 1933, Corazon Cojuangco was groomed to be a retiring wife and mother. The sixth child of a wealthy landowner and sugar baron in Tarlac province, she was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the Philippines, then at Raven Hill Academy in Philadelphia and the Notre Dame School in New York. She earned a bachelor of arts degree from the College of Mt. St. Vincent in New York, majoring in French and mathematics.

Education Cut Short

She returned to the Philippines to study law but cut short her education in 1956 to marry Benigno Aquino, then an ambitious young politician who was eventually elected a provincial governor and a member of the Senate.

Her political education came indirectly, as the result of being his wife and his spokesman after he was jailed in 1972, when Marcos declared martial law. Benigno Aquino, who had come to be regarded as Marcos’ primary political rival and perhaps the next president of the Philippines, spent eight years in jail and was released in 1980 to go to the United States for medical treatment.

Her official biography describes Aquino as her husband’s “eyes, ears and voice in the stifling environment of martial law.”

‘One of the Best Teachers’

“Some people tell me I did not have any formal education in politics,” she once said. “But I was living with one of the best teachers in politics.”

In addition, her grandfather, father and brother served as congressmen. Her other grandfather and an uncle were senators, and another uncle is still a member of the National Assembly.

Describing her husband’s legacy, she said last month, “He always used to say, ‘If there’s anything you could have done and didn’t, then you’ll regret it the rest of your life.’ ” It was that attitude, she said, that helped her decide to run against Marcos.

Rolando Solis, a family friend, once observed that “a lot of people underestimate Cory’s intelligence and knowledge of politics because they don’t understand how things work in the Filipino family,” with wives exerting their influence behind the scenes while remaining outwardly deferential to their husbands.

Calling the Shots

In the turbulent weeks since the election, she has called the shots. Her spokesman, Rene Saguisag, once questioned on a point of strategy, replied, “Cory hasn’t made her decision on that one yet.”

By all accounts, the decisions were hers, often in the face of contrary opinions held by the tough, pragmatic politicians representing Laurel.

She insisted that any protests against Marcos’ tactics be nonviolent. But she never let up on the man she called “an evil genius.”

By the end of the campaign, she was confidently proclaiming, “What Mr. Marcos can do, I can do better.”

Can Afford to Stumble

As president, she will have to be a manager and policy-maker as well as an inspiration, and it is in this area that she lacks experience. If she stumbles, it will be one of the few times since she declared her candidacy. And with the affection she has earned as the architect of a new politics in the Philippines, she can afford a few stumbles.

“The lessons I have learned and taken to heart,” she said, “are the tragic and simple faith of the common people in democracy, the modesty of their demands, the courage of their convictions. I have seen with my eyes what Ninoy saw with faith--that the Filipino is worth dying for.”