Cory's Legacy

(Editor’s note: We are reprinting excerpts from a profile that was a surprise birthday gift to President Corazon C. Aquino on her 59th birthday. This was a work of love among presidential photographer Val Rodriguez, then presidential press staff writer Joanne M. Ramirez, then STAR associate editor Conrad Banal III, STARWeek editor Doreen G. Yu, and Sonny and the late Betty Belmonte.)

MANILA, Philippines - January 25, 1992 marks the 59th birthday of Corazon C. Aquino, seventh and only woman President of the Republic of the Philippines. She is also the only Philippine President who has not sought re-election, even if her critics and foes concede that she is going to be formidable at the polls if she does.

Yes, this President has no intention of perpetuating herself in power and is in fact looking forward to relinquishing it peacefully, the first such transition since 1965. This President is looking forward to being at the Luneta for the inauguration rites of her successor.

Cory Aquino, on June 1, 1992, will be leaving behind a country with, in economists’ jargon, “positive GNP growth.” She will leave behind this growth despite seven coup attempts (the first of which occurred only one-and-a-half years after she took over the reins of government), three major natural calamities, and a legacy of debt ($23 billion) from her predecessor.

Under Cory, fear of detention in a military camp does not cross the minds of people who criticize and vilify here — whether in the halls of Congress, in cocktail parties, over the airwaves, or in print.

Cory Aquino let loose the gates of the dam of democracy, and she lets its waters flow almost unchecked.

Some Filipinos intentionally forget the good. But these are real, and they have taken root.

The President, in a letter to the Filipino people, sums it up this way:

“Democracy, once a word, is now alive: this is our legacy.”

The President once recalled how her late husband, Ninoy Aquino, in his valedictory before the Senate on September 13, 1972, exposed the ills of the dictatorship. That speech led to his unjust detention in a military camp for seven years and seven months. In prison, Ninoy wrote a poem comparing himself to a burning candle, worrying that no one will gather the melted wax and re-shape it after his life is spent.

The President believes that it is one of her major accomplishments to “have gathered and shaped that melted wax: the light has led us to blaze the trail of democracy, restoring it through the ways of freedom and peace.”

She feels her own valedictory, 19 years after Ninoy delivered his own, will be spoken through the accomplishments of her six years in Malacañang.

In 1985, the year before the EDSA Revolution, the Philippines’ GNP growth was negative 4.1 percent. It climbed to 1.9 percent in 1986. It registered an average of 6.1 percent from 1987 to 1989. In 1990, growth was still positive at 3.1 percent despite the scourges of nature and man-made calamities pre- and post- the Gulf War.

Real per capital income, meaning income per person, averaged a 2.4 percent annual growth from 1986 to 1990, a significant increase from the negative 6.5 of 1985.

These figures chart a solid line of accomplishments when they are viewed alongside the economic mess that the country, upon President Aquino’s assumption to power, had to face. Only a strong leader could dismantle the existing monopolies in the sugar and coconut industries, change the tariff system amidst cries of protest from vested interest groups and deregulate several industries. The main factor in implementing these changes was political will, and it was never lacking in her administration. She undertook a painful but necessary economic restructuring program, devised in the 1970s but left undone during the long years of a supposedly strong government, for fear of political repercussions. She was the “will” which technocrats of other administrations wished their chief executives had, in order to do the long over-due restructuring of the economy. Part of President Aquino’s legacy to her people is this: It was she who initiated changes in an economic system the defects of which had already been detected 40 years ago.

A major achievement of the Aquino administration was the performance of the government financial institutions (GFIs) — due to Mrs. Aquino’s orders that under no circumstances should these institutions be personal piggy banks of the powers-that-be. Inheriting all these financial institutions — except the Social Security System — in the worst shape ever as they were practically bankrupt, the Aquino administration made a turn-around of every one of them: the Philippine National Bank, the Development Bank of the Philippines, the Land Bank and the Government Service Insurance System.

The SSS also provides long-term financing to big, medium-, small- and micro-scale enterprises that generate employment and promote country-side development, channeling over P6 billion to such social programs. The emphasis of late, however, has been on small- and medium-scale enterprises.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the only government financial institution whose rehabilitation was not funded by the government, more than doubled its assets and even had a surplus last year of over P100 million to turn over to the national treasury. This was only the second time in t he 54-year history of the GSIS that his happened; the first time occurred during the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal, when it turned over P1 million to the national government.

Under the Aquino administration, the salaries of teachers and soldiers more than doubled. Government pensioners who used to receive only P200 a month now get P1,000 a month. And for the first time, students enjoy free high school education.

During Aquino’s term, punctuality was back in style. The Chief Executive arrives on the dot for her engagements. Corazon Aquino is perhaps the only government official who has not gone on more than a two-day vacation leave since she took office more than 2,000 days ago.

One distinctive quality of President Cory is the fact that prayer is very much a part of her life. She started prayer rallies shortly after Ninoy was a buried. She sought God’s guidance on bended knees about running in the snap elections. She has time and again led the whole nation in prayer, and only last year declared December 14 as National Prayer Day.