Analysis

Corazon Aquino’s speech highlights her relationship with Ninoy Aquino, her attribution of the
revolution to Ninoy’s death, and her commitment to a democratic constitution. Corazon saw
the communist insurgency as a product of a repressive and corrupt government, and sought
to resolve it through peace and not war.
Corazon Aquino’s speech highlights her relationship with Ninoy Aquino, her attribution of the
revolution to Ninoy’s death, and her commitment to a democratic constitution.
• Corazon Aquino’s speech in the United States Congress is now an important historical event
and a primary source in Philippine politics and diplomatic history. Her speech was
empowered to assert the validity and justice of the governance influenced by the EDSO
People Power Revolution on the global stage. She pointed out not only her governing
strategies and accomplishments but also the teachings and legacies of her late husband,
Benigno Aquino.
• Her speech was about the chaos and torments of her late husband, to the tortures of the
government’s dictatorship in the country that he detested and resisted. Moreover, her
participation and attribution of the revolution, which was ignited by her husband’s death,
clearly illustrated not only her point of view on the revolution but also the representation of
the primary subject of her speech.
• The speech also elaborated on how painful it was for her and her family to grieve and cope
with losing her husband. Upon processing the content of Corazon’s speech, Ninoy Aquino’s
death can be regarded as the Philippines’ resurrection, which freed the country and its
people through courage and faith. She quoted Archibald MacLeish’s words, said, “democracy
must be defended by arms when it is attacked by arms, and with truth when it is attacked by
lies”, which referenced how she took the responsibility in protecting and fighting for the sake
of freedom and democracy of the country.
Corazon saw the communist insurgency as a product of a repressive and corrupt government,
and sought to resolve it through peace and not war.
• The revived democratic government and its philosophy and principles were also mentioned
in her speech. She went on to vent out the differences, compare and contrast, between her
government and her predecessor’s, by expressing her promises and words of commitment
to an independently commissioned constitution of democracy. Corazon, being engrossed in
democratic practices, dealt with an ongoing communist insurgency by perceiving it as a
product of a passive and corrupt government and responding to it in peace and wisdom to
avoid war.
• Corazon might have convinced us that she differs from Ferdinand Marcos and his
government. However, she only partially determined what Marcos started. She continued
building the alliance between the Philippines and the United States of America and
implemented an identical foreign policy to the previous dictatorship government.
Nevertheless, she also acknowledged the country’s foreign debts incurred by the previous
administration of Marcos, which she claimed as useless and never benefitted the Filipino
people.