Cory
President: Corazon C. Aquino
(1986-199)
Leaders are born to serve. Their aspirations and dreams for their constituents, for the country are embodied in their deeds and speech. To be a president is a noble and a very sophisticated job a man can do in his own life. But the first Philippine woman president had no background for being a politician, seemed to be agitated during times of trouble, she took the responsibility of being the new bearer of the noble mission to lead the Filipino people out from the mud of unwanted rule of the intelligent president Marcos. She was no other than Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, the 11th president of the Philippine Republic.
Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, universally and affectionally known as “Cory” grew up in a famous and one of the richest clans in the Philippines, the powerful Cojuangcos of Tarlac Province. She was born on January 25, 1933. Her father is Jose Cojuanco, Sr, who was a congressional representative and her mother is Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Her maiden name indicates Chinese mestizo ancestry; her Chinese great- grandfather’s name could have been Romanized to Ko Hwan-ko, but, following the normal practice of assimilationist Catholic Chinese-Filipinos, all the Chinese names were collapsed into one, and a Spanish first name was taken. Aquino neither sought power nor expected it would come to her.
Her life was that of a privileged, well-educated girl who finished grade school and graduated Valedictorian in Saint Scholastica College in Manila. She continued her studies in United States to the Ravenhill Academy in Philidelphia, the Notre Dame Convent School in New York, and Mount St. Vincent College, also in New York. She studied mathematics and graduated with a degree in French in 1953, then returned to the Philippines to study law, but soon married the restless, rich scion of another prominent Tarlac family, Benigno (“Ninoy”) Aquino, Jr.
The widow of Ninoy surrounded herself with advisers who had the goals and
(1986-199)
Leaders are born to serve. Their aspirations and dreams for their constituents, for the country are embodied in their deeds and speech. To be a president is a noble and a very sophisticated job a man can do in his own life. But the first Philippine woman president had no background for being a politician, seemed to be agitated during times of trouble, she took the responsibility of being the new bearer of the noble mission to lead the Filipino people out from the mud of unwanted rule of the intelligent president Marcos. She was no other than Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, the 11th president of the Philippine Republic.
Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, universally and affectionally known as “Cory” grew up in a famous and one of the richest clans in the Philippines, the powerful Cojuangcos of Tarlac Province. She was born on January 25, 1933. Her father is Jose Cojuanco, Sr, who was a congressional representative and her mother is Demetria Sumulong, a pharmacist. Her maiden name indicates Chinese mestizo ancestry; her Chinese great- grandfather’s name could have been Romanized to Ko Hwan-ko, but, following the normal practice of assimilationist Catholic Chinese-Filipinos, all the Chinese names were collapsed into one, and a Spanish first name was taken. Aquino neither sought power nor expected it would come to her.
Her life was that of a privileged, well-educated girl who finished grade school and graduated Valedictorian in Saint Scholastica College in Manila. She continued her studies in United States to the Ravenhill Academy in Philidelphia, the Notre Dame Convent School in New York, and Mount St. Vincent College, also in New York. She studied mathematics and graduated with a degree in French in 1953, then returned to the Philippines to study law, but soon married the restless, rich scion of another prominent Tarlac family, Benigno (“Ninoy”) Aquino, Jr.
The widow of Ninoy surrounded herself with advisers who had the goals and