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Maria Corazon "Cory" Aquino y Cojuangco y Sumulong (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009), a Filipino politician who served as the 11th President of the Philippines, was the first woman to hold that office and the first female president in Asia. Aquino was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled the 20-year authoritarian rule of President Ferdinand E. Marcos and restored democracy to the Philippines. She was named ''Time'' magazine's "Woman of the Year" in 1986. Prior to this, she had not held any other elective office. A self-proclaimed "plain housewife", she was married to Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., the staunchest critic of President Marcos. She emerged as leader of the opposition after her husband was assassinated on August 21, 1983 upon returning to the Philippines from exile in the United States. In late 1985, Marcos called for snap elections, and Aquino ran for president with former senator Salvador Laurel as her Vice-President. After the elections were held on February 7, 1986, the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos and his running mate, Arturo Tolentino, as the winners amidst allegations of electoral fraud, with Aquino calling for massive civil disobedience actions. Defections from the Armed Forces and the support of the local Catholic hierarchy led to the People Power Revolution that ousted Marcos and secured Aquino's accession on February 25, 1986. As President, Aquino oversaw the promulgation of the 1987 Constitution, which limited the powers of the Presidency and re-established the bicameral Congress. Her administration gave strong emphasis and concern for civil liberties and human rights, and on peace talks to resolve the ongoing Communist insurgency and Islamist secession movements. Her economic policies centred on restoring economic health and confidence and focused on creating a market-oriented and socially responsible economy. Aquino faced several coup attempts against her government and various natural calamities until the end of her term in 1992. She was succeeded as President by Fidel V. Ramos, and returned to civilian life while remaining public about her opinions on political issues. In 2008, Aquino was diagnosed with colon cancer from which she died on August 1, 2009. She was survived by her son, Benigno Aquino III, who has been President of the Philippines since June 30, 2010. Throughout her life, Aquino was known to be a devout Roman Catholic, and was fluent in French and English aside from her native Tagalog and Kapampangan. ==Personal life== Born at 9:45 PM on January 25, 1933, at San Juan de Dios Hospital in Intramuros, Manila,〔(Corazon Cojuangco's Birth Certificate )〕 Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco was the fourth child of Jose Cojuangco y Chichioco, Sr. and Demetria Sumulong y Sumulong. Her siblings were Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Jose, Jr. and Maria Paz. Both Aquino's parents came from prominent clans. Her father was a prominent Tarlac businessman and politician, and her great-grandfather, Melecio Cojuangco, was a member of the historic Malolos Congress. Her mother, Demetria, belonged to the Sumulong family of Rizal who were also politically influential; Juan Sumulong, a prominent member of the clan, ran against Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon in 1941. As a young girl, Aquino spent her elementary days at St. Scholastica's College in Manila, where she graduated on top of her class and batch as valedictorian. For high school, she transferred to Assumption Convent for her first year of high school. Afterwards, she went to the United States, the Assumption-run Ravenhill Academy Philadelphia. The next year Cory transferred to and graduated from Notre Dame Convent School in New York City.〔(), www.coryaquino.ph,photo is also in Notre Dame high school yearbook "Chez Nous".〕 There she continued her college education in the US. She went on to the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City, where she majored in Mathematics and French. During her stay in the United States, Aquino volunteered for the campaign of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey against then Democratic U.S. President Harry S. Truman during the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election. After graduating from college, she returned to the Philippines to study law at the Far Eastern University (owned by the in-laws of her elder sister, Josephine Reyes) for one year. She married Sen. Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., son of the late Speaker Benigno S. Aquino, Sr. and a grandson of General Servillano Aquino. The couple had five children: Maria Elena (born August 18, 1955), Aurora Corazon (born December 27, 1957), Benigno Simeon III (born February 8, 1960), Victoria Elisa (born October 27, 1961) and Kristina Bernadette (born February 14, 1971). Corazon Aquino had difficulty initially adjusting to provincial life when she and her husband moved to Concepcion, Tarlac in 1955. Aquino found herself bored in Concepcion, and welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with her husband inside the American military facility at nearby Clark Field. A member of the Liberal Party, Aquino's husband Ninoy rose to become the youngest governor in the country and eventually became the youngest senator ever elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 1967. During her husband's political career, Aquino remained a housewife who helped raise their children and played hostess to her spouse's political allies who would frequent their Quezon City home. She would decline to join her husband on stage during campaign rallies, preferring instead to stand at the back of the audience and listen to him.〔 Unknown to many, she voluntarily sold some of her prized inheritance to fund the candidacy of her husband. She led a modest existence in a bungalow in suburban Quezon City. Ninoy Aquino soon emerged as a leading critic of the government of President Ferdinand Marcos. He was then touted as a strong candidate for president to succeed Marcos in the 1973 elections. However, Marcos, being barred by the Constitution to seek a third term, declared martial law on September 21, 1972, and later abolished the existing 1935 Constitution, thereby allowing him to remain in office. As a consequence, her husband was among those to be first arrested at the onset of martial law, later being sentenced to death. During his incarceration, Ninoy sought strength from prayer, attending daily Mass and saying the rosary three times a day. As a measure of sacrifice and solidarity with her husband and all other political prisoners, she enjoined her children from attending parties and she also stopped going to the beauty salon or buying new clothes until a priest advised her and her children to instead live as normal lives as possible.〔 In 1978, despite her initial opposition, Ninoy decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections. A reluctant speaker, Corazon Aquino campaigned in behalf of her husband, and for the first time in her life delivered a political speech. In 1980, upon the intervention of U.S. President Jimmy Carter,〔 Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States, where he sought medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Aquino would later call the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On August 21, 1983, however, Ninoy ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, only to be assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, which was later renamed in his honor (see Assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr.). Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Corazon Aquino」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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