Will Philippine democracy stay with the absense of an icon?
With Former President Corazon Aquino’s passing, will Philippine democracy stay or will her efforts in restoring Philippine democracy go to waste?
It can be recalled that her “people power” revolution toppled a dictatorship that inspired millions of people around the world. With her death at 76, many are asking if the Philippines will be able to sustain the democracy she has restored.
History will tell us that Corazon Aquino was widowed in 1983 when her political opposition husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., was asassinated upon his return from exile to lead a pro-democracy movement against authoritarian president Ferdinand E. Marcos. She run against Marcos in a “snap election” called by Marcos himself. Marcos won, but his winning was marked by widespread fraud and violence. People gave full support to Aquino led by mutineers Marcos’s former defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, a distant cousin of Marcos serving then as acting armed forces chief of staff. The country’s faithful led by the Catholic primate, Jaime Cardinal Sin, joined calling the faithful into the streets to block any attack on them by Marcos’s forces. Millions responded that gave birth to “people power.”
