Today is the first year of death anniversary of President Corazon C. Aquino. In remembering her death below is her Prayer for a Happy Death:
Almighty God, most merciful Father, you alone know the time. You alone know the hour. You alone know the moment when I will breathe my last.
So, remind me each day to be the best I can be, to be humble, to be kind, to be patient, to be true, to embrace what is good, to reject what is evil, to adore only you.
When that final moment does come let not my loved ones grieve for long. Let them comfort each other and let them know how well they brought happiness into my life. Let them pray for me as I will continue to pray for them, hoping that they will always pray for each other.
Let them know that they made possible whatever good I offered to our world. And let them realize that our separation is just for a short while as we prepare for our reunion in eternity.
Our Father in heaven, you alone are my hope. You alone are my salvation. Thank you for your unconditional love. Amen.
Timeline for Tita Cory
1933, January 25: Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino is born in Tarlac, the sixth of eight children of Jose Cojuangco and Demetria Sumulong Cojuangco.
1946: Cory leaves with her family for the United States where she pursues her high school and college education. She studied earlier at St. Scholastica’s College and Assumption Convent in Manila.
1953: She finishes her Bachelor of Arts degree, major in French and minor in Mathematics, at Mt. Saint Vincent College in New York. She is a member of Kappa Gamma Pi, the National Honor Society of Women in American Catholic Colleges. She returns to Manila to study law.
1954, Oct. 11: Cory marries Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. They have five children: Maria Elena, Aurora Corazon, Benigno “Noynoy” III, Victoria Elisa and Kristina Bernadette.
1955: Ninoy is elected youngest mayor of his hometown in Concepcion, Tarlac.
1963: Ninoy is elected governor of Tarlac province and is dubbed the “Wonder Boy of Philippine Politics.”
1967: Ninoy is elected the youngest senator of the Philippines at 35 years old. As the lone opposition (Liberal Party) candidate to survive the election sweep by then President Ferdinand Marcos’ Nationalista Party, he begins to be seen as a “presidential timber.”
1971: Ninoy is voted Man of the Year by the Philippine Free Press, who cited him for the leadership he showed when his party’s leadership was bombed in Plaza Miranda. He leads his party’s campaign “with courage, with distinction” despite threats to arrest him by Marcos.
Quiet profile
November: Ninoy leads the Liberal Party (LP) to a 6-2 victory in the senatorial elections. His fiery exposés at the Senate on the abuses of Marcos catapult him to become the No. 1 presidential contender in the 1973 elections. Cory continues to keep a quiet profile, the supportive housewife who prefers to stay in the background, happily content to serve coffee to the stream of visitors in the Aquino home.
1972, Sept. 21: Marcos declares martial law and Ninoy is among the first to be arrested. He is detained and imprisoned for seven years and seven months, mostly in solitary confinement.
1980: Ninoy suffers from heart attack in prison. Marcos then allows him to undergo heart surgery in the United States and go into exile. Cory and her children join Ninoy in the United States to enjoy what then 12-year-old Kris called as three “super happy years” as a family.
1983, Aug. 21. p.m.: Ninoy is assassinated at the Manila International Airport seconds after disembarking from a China Airlines jet from Taipei.
Aug. 31: Ninoy’s funeral march from Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City covers 32 kilometers in 11 hours—the “longest funeral march in world’s history”—as around two million people join the funeral.
After Ninoy’s tragic death, Cory emerges as her own person. The shy widow—wearing yellow and flashing the Laban sign—has become the unifying symbol for the diverse forces of the anti-Marcos opposition.
Snap election
1985, November: Marcos calls for a snap election. Newspaperman Chino Roces leads hundreds of volunteers in a campaign to gather one million signatures to persuade Cory to run against Marcos in the snap election.
Dec. 15: Cory and former Sen. Salvador Laurel are officially proclaimed opposition candidates for president and vice president. They vow to end the 20-year-old rule of Marcos, who is running for reelection.
Feb. 4: “People power” is demonstrated during the miting de avance of Cory and Laurel when an estimated two million cheering and flag-waving supporters attend their culminating campaign rally at Luneta Park in Manila.
Feb. 7: Snap elections are held for president and vice president amid reports of fraud, violence and disenfranchisement of voters.
Feb. 16: Cory disputes the Batasang Pambansa’s proclamation of Marcos as winner and leads the Tagumpay ng Bayan (People’s Victory) rally at Luneta. Before an estimated two million supporters, she vows to lead a civil disobedience campaign and boycott of crony-owned companies and products to force Marcos down.
Edsa Revolution
Feb. 25: Cory is sworn in as president during the historic Edsa People Power Revolution, ending the Marcos dictatorship.
Feb. 28: Fulfilling a campaign promise, Cory announces the release of political detainees “without exception.” She also creates the Presidential Commission on Good Government, which is tasked with investigating and recovering Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth. Reports estimate Marcos’ “hidden wealth” at $10 billion.
March 10: Cory is Newsweek’s Woman of the Year.
March 15: Cory creates the Presidential Commission on Human Rights to investigate the complaints of unexplained disappearances, “salvaging,” massacres, tortures, hamletting, food blockades and other violates of human rights.
March 25: Cory proclaims a provisional government and promulgates a “Freedom Constitution,” which abolishes the Batasang Pambansa, grants legislative powers to her until after a new constitution is drafted and provides for the formation of a 50-member commission to draft a new Charter within 60 days.
Sept. 18: Cory addresses the joint session of US Congress, whose members in a show of support for Cory wear yellow ties and Cory dolls or yellow roses on their lapels. At the end of her speech, she is given a sustained and rousing applause that some have described as “the longest the US Congress had given to a foreign dignitary.”
1987, Jan. 5: Cory is on the cover of Time Magazine and is hailed Woman of the Year 1986. (About 20 years later, Time also cited Cory as one of 60 Asian Heroes in 2006).
Yes to Constitution
Feb. 2: In a crucial show of support for Cory, Filipinos vote an overwhelming “yes” to the 1986 constitution in a plebiscite marked by a high 85 percent turnout.
July 22: By virtue of her residual powers under the Freedom Constitution (just days before the opening of Congress when her lawmaking power would end), Cory signs law providing for a comprehensive agrarian reform program (CARP), which calls for the transfer of all types of agricultural lands, including Hacienda Luisita, to landless tenant farmers in a bold move to wipe out rural poverty and communist insurgency.
In Proclamation No. 131, she also makes the CARP “a major program of the government” with P50 billion set for the first five years of CARP, plus another P2.7 billion for financing support.
Aug. 28: The most serious attempt yet to topple the 18-month-old Aquino administration led by Lt. Col. Gregorio Honasan, a former aide of Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile is crushed some 20 hours after it was launched. More than 55 people, at least 40 of them soldiers, are killed. More than a hundred others are injured, one of them Noynoy, the only son of the President.
1988, June: Cory addresses the 75th Annual Conference of the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, the first woman chief of state to address the distinguished conference.
Sept. 13: Cory signs Republic Act No. 6675 or the Generics Act, which provides for the use of generic names in prescribing and producing medicines to promote drug safety and ensure the adequate supply of drugs at the lowest possible cost.
Bloodiest coup try
1989, Dec. 1: Rebel forces bomb Malacañang, starting the bloodiest coup attempt during Cory’s administration.
Dec. 6: Cory places the entire country under a state of national emergency to give the government the power to take over or direct operations of privately-owned utilities or businesses to deal with the crisis caused by the Dec. 1 putsch.
Dec. 7: The coup ends with the surrender of the rebels who hold 22 buildings in Makati. From 1986 to 1989, Cory survived seven coup attempts mostly instigated by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, Armed Forces of the Philippines, aimed at the overthrow of the government. About 5,000 military rebels, consisting of 575 officers and 4,376 enlisted men, had been captured or had surrendered by the end of her term.
1990, July 16: A killer earthquake measuring 7.8 in the Richter scale devastates the cities of Baguio and Dagupan, and the rest of northern Luzon and leaves around 1,600 dead. The killer quake was one of the devastating natural disasters faced by the Cory administration. In 1991, the long-dormant Mount Pinatubo erupted, the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, and killed around 300 people and caused widespread long-term devastation of agricultural lands in Central Luzon. Typhoon “Uring” in November 1991 caused massive flooding in Ormoc City, leaving around 8,000 dead in what was the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history.
Ramos sworn in
1992, June 30: Cory witnesses the swearing in of her successor Fidel Ramos at inaugural rites held at Luneta—completing the task of insuring an elected successor and the orderly transfer of power after 20 long years.
1997, Sept. 21: Private Citizen Cory continues to be a moral and political leader. With Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, she leads a rally of more than 600,000 at Rizal Park against the proposed Charter change. Cory is also at the forefront of the movement to empower people—by promoting better-managed, business-wise cooperatives.
1998, August: Cory wins the 1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for international understanding for inspiring struggles against dictatorships worldwide.
2001: Cory is among the figures who supported Edsa II, which ousted President Joseph Estrada from power.
2005, July: Cory joins calls on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down after the “Hello Garci” tape scandal triggered allegations that Ms Arroyo conspired with Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to rig the results of the 2004 polls.
2009, Aug. 1: Cory dies after a 16-month battle with colon cancer, uniting the nation in mourning. Thousands line up to pay their respects to her.
Aug. 5: Cory is laid to rest beside Ninoy at Manila Memorial Park in Sucat, Parañaque, after a nine-hour funeral procession that drew thousands upon thousands of Filipinos, reminiscent of Ninoy’s mammoth funeral. Days after the funeral, calls mount for Noynoy to run for president.
Picture Taken from: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1914109_1915123,00.html
Timeline Taken from: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100802-284442/Timeline-Cory-Aquino
