WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.459 Here's a paradox for you. It's one of those things 00:00:02.459 --> 00:00:05.240 that when you really map it out, it just creates 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:08.220 a real headache. You have this political landscape, 00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:12.759 right? It's completely dominated by Machiavellian 00:00:12.759 --> 00:00:16.339 strongmen, military juntas, entrenched dynasties. 00:00:16.339 --> 00:00:19.039 It's a brutal game. A totally brutal, violent 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.800 game where the currency is basically fear. And 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:25.899 then the person who comes along and breaks a 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:29.000 20 year dictatorship isn't a general. It isn't 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.780 some rival warlord. No, it's someone who I mean, 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:33.340 if you look at it on paper, they shouldn't even 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:35.119 be on the playing field. Right. We're looking 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:38.240 at a self -described housewife, someone who majored 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:40.539 in French and mathematics, of all things, who, 00:00:40.619 --> 00:00:42.340 by her own admission, stayed in the back of the 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:44.119 room during her husband's political rallies. 00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:47.840 And yet. Corazon Coriaquino, she didn't just 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:50.640 inherit a presidency. No, she dismantled a regime. 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:52.979 And became the first female president in the 00:00:52.979 --> 00:00:55.979 Philippines. And in all of Asia in the process. 00:00:56.219 --> 00:00:57.840 Which is just staggering when you think about 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.100 it. But here's the mission for this deep dive. 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:02.719 We've got this whole stack of sources in front 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:06.140 of us. Biographies, economic data from the 80s, 00:01:06.140 --> 00:01:08.959 constitutional texts. We really want to move 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:11.900 past that St. Cory image. You know, the yellow 00:01:11.900 --> 00:01:15.000 ribbons, the peace signs. The iconography. Exactly. 00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:17.439 We need to figure out how she actually governed. 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:20.420 Because what the sources really suggest is that 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.319 winning the revolution might have been the easy 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:24.739 part. Oh, compared to what came next. Absolutely. 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:27.409 Yeah. The governance part is where the story 00:01:27.409 --> 00:01:30.030 gets incredibly gritty. I mean, you're talking 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:32.510 about a brand new government trying to survive 00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:36.310 constant military coups, a totally bankrupt treasury. 00:01:36.390 --> 00:01:39.909 And natural disasters that just felt biblical 00:01:39.909 --> 00:01:41.829 in scale. Yeah, it was one thing after another. 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:44.129 So let's try to strip away the mythology and 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:46.250 actually look at the mechanics of this takeover. 00:01:46.569 --> 00:01:48.969 Because to understand her presidency, you first 00:01:48.969 --> 00:01:51.129 have to understand the specific kind of elite 00:01:51.129 --> 00:01:54.359 she came from. The word housewife feels like 00:01:54.359 --> 00:01:56.420 a bit of a marketing term, doesn't it? It was 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:59.549 an incredibly effective political brand. You're 00:01:59.549 --> 00:02:01.530 right. It wasn't the whole truth. Maria Corazon 00:02:01.530 --> 00:02:05.950 Simulong Cojuangco was born into, well, the 0 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:09.270 .1%. The Cojuangcos and the Simulongs are essentially 00:02:09.270 --> 00:02:11.729 Philippine royalty. We're talking massive landowners. 00:02:11.889 --> 00:02:15.509 Massive. And political heavyweights. Her father 00:02:15.509 --> 00:02:19.349 was a congressman, a major businessman. Her grandfather 00:02:19.349 --> 00:02:22.949 was in the historic Malolos Congress. This is 00:02:22.949 --> 00:02:25.169 a woman who grew up completely fluent in the 00:02:25.169 --> 00:02:27.650 language of power. And as we said, literally 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:30.370 fluent in French. Right. And she was brilliant 00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:33.030 academically. Valedictorian in grade school, 00:02:33.210 --> 00:02:34.969 attended these finishing schools in Philadelphia, 00:02:35.210 --> 00:02:37.409 New York, and then graduated from the College 00:02:37.409 --> 00:02:40.370 of Mount St. Vincent. But look at her major. 00:02:40.389 --> 00:02:42.710 French and mathematics. French and math. That 00:02:42.710 --> 00:02:45.090 is such a fascinating combination. It's logic 00:02:45.090 --> 00:02:48.530 and linguistics. It's not the degree you get 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:50.729 if your plan is to just, you know, sit around. 00:02:50.830 --> 00:02:52.669 No, it tells you something about how her mind 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:54.409 works. She wasn't just, you know, culturally 00:02:54.409 --> 00:02:57.030 refined. She was rigorous. It speaks to a very 00:02:57.030 --> 00:02:59.669 structured, logical way of thinking. But for 00:02:59.669 --> 00:03:01.909 the first part of her adult life, she completely 00:03:01.909 --> 00:03:05.669 submerged that. She married Benigno Ninoy Aquino 00:03:05.669 --> 00:03:10.319 Jr. in 1954, and he was the superstar. The youngest 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:13.259 governor, the youngest senator. He was the one 00:03:13.259 --> 00:03:16.099 who was destined for Malacanang Palace. And she 00:03:16.099 --> 00:03:17.819 was the logistics manager behind the scenes. 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:20.419 Essentially, yeah. She raised five children. 00:03:20.580 --> 00:03:23.719 She hosted his political allies. And there's 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:25.919 this really telling detail in a couple of the 00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:29.560 biographies. She would intentionally avoid the 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:31.979 stage during his rallies. She wanted to be in 00:03:31.979 --> 00:03:34.560 the audience. She preferred to stand at the back 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:37.719 with the crowd. She just did not want the limelight. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:39.860 But there's this little nugget in the financial 00:03:39.860 --> 00:03:42.979 records that people often miss. She sold a portion 00:03:42.979 --> 00:03:45.460 of her own inheritance to fund Ninoy's campaigns. 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:48.240 Which is a crucial detail. It's huge. She wasn't 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.300 just a passive observer. She was a financier. 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:52.960 She was a silent partner in the entire enterprise. 00:03:53.219 --> 00:03:55.240 It shows she was a partner in the ambition, just 00:03:55.240 --> 00:03:57.360 not the public face of it. But then that whole 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:00.379 dynamic shifts, and it shifts violently. In 1972, 00:04:00.939 --> 00:04:03.979 Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law. And Ninoy 00:04:03.979 --> 00:04:06.199 is one of the very first people arrested. Thrown 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:09.319 in prison. And just like that, Corey's life of 00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:11.520 hosting parties and raising kids in the suburbs 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:13.979 is completely over. This is where the housewife 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:17.300 really enters the crucible. It was seven long 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:20.600 years of incarceration for Ninoy. And Corey, 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:24.680 she adopted this life of self -denial. The sources 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.160 detail how she stopped buying clothes. She stopped 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:29.160 going to beauty salons. She even stopped her 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:31.300 kids from going to parties. Yeah. It was an act 00:04:31.300 --> 00:04:34.899 of solidarity, a private protest. She was hardening 00:04:34.899 --> 00:04:37.180 herself for what was coming. Which prepares her 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:40.480 for the big catalyst. Eventually, the family 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.779 is allowed to go into exile in the U .S. for 00:04:42.779 --> 00:04:45.100 Ninoy's medical treatment. They have about three 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:48.980 years of peace of normalcy in Boston. But Ninoy 00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:51.139 decides he has to go back. He knew the risks. 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:54.240 He had to know. So in 1983, he flies back to 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:57.040 Manila. He steps off the plane. And is immediately 00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.300 assassinated on the tarmac. That image of him 00:04:59.300 --> 00:05:01.519 in the white suit lying bloodied on the tarmac, 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:03.240 I mean, that changed everything. It just broke 00:05:03.240 --> 00:05:05.720 the dam of fear. And when Corey returned to the 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:08.279 Philippines to lead his funeral procession, two 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:10.420 million people showed up. Two million? That was 00:05:10.420 --> 00:05:13.120 the data point the opposition needed. They suddenly 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.800 realized the traditional politicians, the old 00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:18.180 guard, they couldn't unite the country. Only 00:05:18.180 --> 00:05:21.350 the widow could. But she resisted. She really 00:05:21.350 --> 00:05:23.449 did not want the job. It actually took a petition 00:05:23.449 --> 00:05:27.110 with 1 .2 million signatures to finally get her 00:05:27.110 --> 00:05:29.550 to agree to run. And this was for the snap election 00:05:29.550 --> 00:05:32.410 Marcos called in late 85. He thought he could 00:05:32.410 --> 00:05:35.790 catch the opposition off guard. And this campaign. 00:05:36.509 --> 00:05:38.730 I mean, looking back at the transcripts of what 00:05:38.730 --> 00:05:41.829 Marcos was saying, it was just incredibly nasty. 00:05:41.889 --> 00:05:44.170 It was a classic authoritarian playbook, right? 00:05:44.490 --> 00:05:47.550 He framed it as democracy versus communism, trying 00:05:47.550 --> 00:05:50.110 to link her to insurgents. But then he leaned 00:05:50.110 --> 00:05:52.949 so heavily into misogyny. Oh, yeah. He called 00:05:52.949 --> 00:05:55.370 her just a woman. He said women's talk should 00:05:55.370 --> 00:05:58.029 be limited to the bedroom. Which, looking back 00:05:58.029 --> 00:06:00.970 now, was such a massive tactical error. A huge 00:06:00.970 --> 00:06:03.529 one. Because Corey used that logical... You know, 00:06:03.550 --> 00:06:05.709 that math mind we were talking about. She just 00:06:05.709 --> 00:06:07.810 flipped the entire narrative. She stood up and 00:06:07.810 --> 00:06:09.629 admitted, yes, I have no political experience. 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:12.089 But then she immediately followed it up with. 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:14.089 But I also have no experience in lying, cheating 00:06:14.089 --> 00:06:17.350 or stealing. It was a knockout punch. She turned 00:06:17.350 --> 00:06:19.569 her lack of a resume into her primary asset. 00:06:20.009 --> 00:06:21.629 She wasn't a politician, which meant she wasn't 00:06:21.629 --> 00:06:24.470 corrupt. Exactly. The whole thing became a referendum 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:27.149 on moral authority. And when the election finally 00:06:27.149 --> 00:06:30.129 happened on February 7th, 1986, the machinery 00:06:30.129 --> 00:06:32.829 of the dictatorship tried to crush that authority 00:06:32.829 --> 00:06:36.230 with just blatant fraud. The government parliament, 00:06:36.490 --> 00:06:39.110 the Bada sign Pambansa, they declare Marcos the 00:06:39.110 --> 00:06:42.970 winner. But the independent watchdog, NMFREL, 00:06:43.189 --> 00:06:45.819 their numbers showed Corey winning. So you have 00:06:45.819 --> 00:06:48.860 two different results and the country is on a 00:06:48.860 --> 00:06:50.860 knife's edge. But then you have this one scene 00:06:50.860 --> 00:06:53.060 that feels like it belongs in a techno thriller. 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:56.670 The computer technicians. The walkout at the 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:59.310 PICC, it's such an incredible moment. You had 00:06:59.310 --> 00:07:01.850 30 computer technicians from Comelec, the official 00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:04.029 election commission, and they're watching the 00:07:04.029 --> 00:07:06.209 raw data come in from the provinces. And they 00:07:06.209 --> 00:07:08.170 can see it. They see the numbers being manipulated 00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:10.709 in real time on the back end to favor Marcos. 00:07:10.850 --> 00:07:13.509 And in this moment of just insane bravery, they 00:07:13.509 --> 00:07:15.649 all just stand up and walk out in front of the 00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:17.769 press. That's the emperor has no clothes moment 00:07:17.769 --> 00:07:20.110 right there. It confirmed the rig for the entire 00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:23.490 world to see. So Corey calls for a massive civil 00:07:23.490 --> 00:07:26.339 disobedience campaign. She holds a rally, the 00:07:26.339 --> 00:07:29.680 Tagumpang Bayan, or People's Victory Rally. Two 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:32.439 million people show up again, and she tells them 00:07:32.439 --> 00:07:35.819 to boycott the crony companies. The banks, the 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:38.879 media, even the soda companies owned by Marcos' 00:07:39.019 --> 00:07:41.160 allies. She hit them right in the wallet. And 00:07:41.160 --> 00:07:43.660 that economic pressure, combined with the moral 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:46.319 outrage from the walkout, finally cracks the 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.339 military. Her defense minister, Juan Ponce N. 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:52.370 Ryle, and the vice chief of staff. General Fidel 00:07:52.370 --> 00:07:55.269 V. Ramos, they defect. They hole up in the military 00:07:55.269 --> 00:07:58.470 camps along the main highway, EDSA, and they 00:07:58.470 --> 00:08:01.230 basically dare Marcos to come and get them. And 00:08:01.230 --> 00:08:03.529 this is where the Catholic Church steps in. Cardinal 00:08:03.529 --> 00:08:05.939 Sin gets on the radio. and appeals to the faithful, 00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:08.379 telling them to go to EDSA to protect the rebels. 00:08:08.579 --> 00:08:11.220 And millions show up. They face down tanks with 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:14.759 flowers and rosaries. It was this massive, nonviolent 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:17.879 demonstration that just froze the military. Marcos 00:08:17.879 --> 00:08:20.439 realizes he can't shoot his way out of this without 00:08:20.439 --> 00:08:22.720 a massacre, which the U .S., his main backer, 00:08:22.740 --> 00:08:24.879 would never support. So it all culminates on 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:29.740 February 25, 1986. Corey is sworn in as the 11th 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.340 president in one part of town. About an hour 00:08:32.340 --> 00:08:35.230 later, Marcos holds his own inauguration. But 00:08:35.230 --> 00:08:38.090 he flees to Hawaii that same day. The dictator 00:08:38.090 --> 00:08:40.429 is gone. And this is where the movie usually 00:08:40.429 --> 00:08:42.889 ends, with the credits rolling. But for us, this 00:08:42.889 --> 00:08:45.070 is where the deep dive really begins. Because 00:08:45.070 --> 00:08:47.509 now she's sitting in Malakanyang Palace, the 00:08:47.509 --> 00:08:50.070 confetti has all been swept away, and the country 00:08:50.070 --> 00:08:53.350 she's inherited is an absolute wreck. And wreck 00:08:53.350 --> 00:08:55.690 might be an understatement. She inherits a bankrupt 00:08:55.690 --> 00:08:58.919 nation. a divided military, multiple insurgencies. 00:08:59.059 --> 00:09:01.919 But her first move is so bold, and it's one of 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:03.879 the most interesting constitutional maneuvers 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:07.000 in modern Asian history. She issues proclamation 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.460 number three. The Freedom Constitution. That's 00:09:09.460 --> 00:09:11.639 right. To restore democracy, she effectively 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:14.360 declared a revolutionary government. She abolished 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:17.379 the 1973 Marcos Constitution. She dissolved the 00:09:17.379 --> 00:09:19.460 rubber stamp parliament, and she fired every 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:21.639 single Marcos appointee. All the way up to the 00:09:21.639 --> 00:09:23.320 Supreme Court. All the way to the top. Wait a 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.519 minute. So to fix the dictatorship, she had to 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:28.019 assume dictatorial powers herself. That is the 00:09:28.019 --> 00:09:31.500 central paradox of her first year. For a short 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:34.000 time, she held both executive and legislative 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.419 power. Her argument, and the argument of her 00:09:37.419 --> 00:09:39.879 legal team, was that the existing system was 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:43.600 so poisoned, so booby -trapped by Marcos, that 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:45.639 she had to bulldoze it to build a new foundation. 00:09:46.110 --> 00:09:47.809 You couldn't just, you know, operate the old 00:09:47.809 --> 00:09:50.289 machine. You had to scrap it for parts. A very 00:09:50.289 --> 00:09:53.950 hard reset. But, and this is the absolute key 00:09:53.950 --> 00:09:56.830 difference, she immediately used those absolute 00:09:56.830 --> 00:10:00.330 powers to draft a new constitution that explicitly 00:10:00.330 --> 00:10:03.370 stripped her of that same power. The 1987 Constitution. 00:10:03.470 --> 00:10:06.090 Which restored the bicameral Congress, limited 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:08.309 the president to a single six -year term with 00:10:08.309 --> 00:10:10.710 no re -election, and installed a massive Bill 00:10:10.710 --> 00:10:13.269 of Rights. She was effectively using absolute 00:10:13.269 --> 00:10:15.610 power to make sure no one could ever have absolute 00:10:15.610 --> 00:10:18.309 power again. Which is incredibly rare. Usually 00:10:18.309 --> 00:10:20.210 when people get that kind of power, they find 00:10:20.210 --> 00:10:22.750 very good reasons to keep it. Exactly. And she 00:10:22.750 --> 00:10:24.450 also pushed through the local government code 00:10:24.450 --> 00:10:27.009 of 1991, which was another huge deal. It devolved 00:10:27.009 --> 00:10:28.750 power from the national government in Manila 00:10:28.750 --> 00:10:31.889 down to local units. She was deliberately dismantling 00:10:31.889 --> 00:10:33.990 the centralized power structure that Marcos had 00:10:33.990 --> 00:10:36.309 perfected. Okay, so that's the legal and political 00:10:36.309 --> 00:10:39.629 cleanup. But the economic cleanup? That seems 00:10:39.629 --> 00:10:42.610 like a much, much messier job. The numbers in 00:10:42.610 --> 00:10:44.990 these reports are just staggering. Foreign debt 00:10:44.990 --> 00:10:48.269 went from, what, around $3 billion in 1970? To 00:10:48.269 --> 00:10:51.370 $28 billion by the time Marcos fled. $28 billion. 00:10:51.490 --> 00:10:54.490 And the Treasury was empty. Completely empty. 00:10:54.730 --> 00:10:56.629 Yeah. So Corey's government faced this binary 00:10:56.629 --> 00:10:59.169 choice, and it's one that economists still debate 00:10:59.169 --> 00:11:03.179 today. Option A was to repudiate the debt. Basically 00:11:03.179 --> 00:11:06.139 say the dictator stole this money. The Filipino 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:08.600 people didn't benefit from these loans, so we 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:10.620 aren't paying it back. Which is the moral argument, 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.379 right? Why should a rice farmer in Luzon have 00:11:13.379 --> 00:11:15.820 to pay for a loan that went into some Swiss bank 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:18.700 account or a failed nuclear power plant? Precisely. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:21.620 And the political left was screaming for this. 00:11:21.659 --> 00:11:23.720 They wanted a clean slate. But Cori and her economic 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:26.100 team, they took option B. They chose to honor 00:11:26.100 --> 00:11:29.100 all the debts. Every single cent. Even the unjust 00:11:29.100 --> 00:11:31.519 ones. Even the fraudulent ones. Why? I mean, 00:11:31.539 --> 00:11:33.360 that seems like political suicide. You're basically 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:35.559 taking money away from schools and hospitals 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:37.679 to pay foreign banks for loans your country never 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:40.539 even saw. It was a cold, pragmatic calculation. 00:11:41.559 --> 00:11:44.240 Her team argued that they had to restore the 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:46.259 Philippines' international credit reputation. 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:49.740 They feared that if they defaulted, the country 00:11:49.740 --> 00:11:52.159 would become a pariah. to the global banking 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:54.940 system no more trade financing no development 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.700 loans total isolation right she chose what she 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:01.580 called honor to keep the credit lines open for 00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:04.559 the future so she sacrificed short -term welfare 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:08.360 for long -term credibility yes and the cost was 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:11.360 incredibly high for her entire six -year term 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:14.320 huge chunks of the national budget went straight 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:16.740 to debt servicing just paying the interest It 00:12:16.740 --> 00:12:18.779 hamstrung her ability to build infrastructure 00:12:18.779 --> 00:12:21.759 or fund social services. It's a major reason 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:23.840 why the poverty numbers remain so stubborn and 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:25.700 why, you know, people started to get frustrated 00:12:25.700 --> 00:12:28.000 a few years in. She did try to go after the stolen 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.580 money, though, right? The PCGG. She did. She 00:12:30.580 --> 00:12:32.799 established the PCG, the Presidential Commission 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:35.100 on Good Government, to hunt down the billions 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:37.940 in ill -gotten wealth. And she also dismantled 00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:40.279 some of the huge crony monopolies in the sugar 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:42.440 and coconut industries. And the economy did start 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:45.450 to recover, didn't it? It did. The economy grew 00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:48.730 at an average of 3 .8 % during her term, which 00:12:48.730 --> 00:12:50.649 is decent, and inflation dropped significantly. 00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:54.389 But that debt service, it was a constant anchor 00:12:54.389 --> 00:12:56.309 around the neck of the recovery. And speaking 00:12:56.309 --> 00:12:58.490 of frustration and poverty, we have to talk about 00:12:58.490 --> 00:13:01.230 land reform. This was supposed to be the centerpiece 00:13:01.230 --> 00:13:03.590 social program of her entire administration, 00:13:03.870 --> 00:13:07.029 CRRP. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:09.029 This is probably the most glaring contradiction 00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:12.919 of her presidency. The goal was so noble. To 00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:15.639 finally break up the old feudal estates and give 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:17.779 land to the tenant farmers who worked it. Which 00:13:17.779 --> 00:13:19.779 in a country that was still semi -feudal in many 00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:22.799 areas was seen as the key to ending rural poverty. 00:13:23.019 --> 00:13:25.840 It was the silver bullet. Yeah. But Corrie came 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:29.120 from the landlord class. The Kowankos owned Hacienda 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:34.039 Luisita, a massive 6 ,453 hectare sugar estate. 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:36.080 One of the biggest contiguous estates in the 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:38.419 entire country. So you have this situation where 00:13:38.419 --> 00:13:40.750 she's passing a law to redistribute land. while 00:13:40.750 --> 00:13:43.049 her own family owns a massive chunk of it. That's 00:13:43.049 --> 00:13:45.710 a huge conflict of interest. And when the law 00:13:45.710 --> 00:13:48.250 was finally passed, it contained a critical, 00:13:48.470 --> 00:13:52.169 some would say fatal, loophole. It allowed corporate 00:13:52.169 --> 00:13:54.909 landowners to use something called a stock distribution 00:13:54.909 --> 00:13:57.789 option. Okay, what does that mean? Instead of 00:13:57.789 --> 00:14:00.190 giving the farmers the actual dirt, the land 00:14:00.190 --> 00:14:03.090 titles, the corporation could give them shares 00:14:03.090 --> 00:14:05.529 of stock in the company that owned the land. 00:14:05.690 --> 00:14:09.769 Oh. So farmers get a piece of paper and the family 00:14:09.769 --> 00:14:12.070 gets to keep the land intact. Basically. And 00:14:12.070 --> 00:14:14.549 Hacienda Luisita used that option immediately. 00:14:14.789 --> 00:14:17.230 It allowed the Kowanko family to maintain control 00:14:17.230 --> 00:14:20.070 of the estate. And to the critics, especially 00:14:20.070 --> 00:14:21.710 the peasant groups who had marched and fought 00:14:21.710 --> 00:14:24.429 for this, it felt like a total betrayal. It looked 00:14:24.429 --> 00:14:26.370 like the president had rigged her own signature 00:14:26.370 --> 00:14:28.830 program to protect her own family. It really 00:14:28.830 --> 00:14:31.330 punches a hole in the St. Cory narrative. It 00:14:31.330 --> 00:14:33.870 shows the limits of her revolutionary zeal when 00:14:33.870 --> 00:14:35.730 it bumped up against her own class interests. 00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:38.860 It does. And that kind of disillusionment, it 00:14:38.860 --> 00:14:41.059 fueled the instability because while she was 00:14:41.059 --> 00:14:43.559 battling economists over debt and landowners 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.559 over reform, she was also literally battling 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:49.179 for her life. The coup attempts. The list here 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:52.639 is just exhausting. I mean, the sources say numerous 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:55.120 coup attempts. Depending on how you count them, 00:14:55.179 --> 00:14:57.600 there were somewhere between seven and nine serious 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:01.059 attempts between 1986 and 1990. And the incredible 00:15:01.059 --> 00:15:03.629 irony. They were led by some of the same guys 00:15:03.629 --> 00:15:05.830 that were formed the Armed Forces Movement, or 00:15:05.830 --> 00:15:08.269 RAM, who had helped put her in power during the 00:15:08.269 --> 00:15:10.690 EDSA revolution. So why did they turn on her 00:15:10.690 --> 00:15:13.509 so quickly? It seems like a case of buyer's remorse. 00:15:13.750 --> 00:15:16.370 They didn't want a liberal democracy. They wanted 00:15:16.370 --> 00:15:19.669 a military -guided Jinta. They saw Corrie as 00:15:19.669 --> 00:15:22.389 soft on communists because she released political 00:15:22.389 --> 00:15:25.049 prisoners and tried to negotiate peace. They 00:15:25.049 --> 00:15:27.269 wanted to save the queen from her own leftist 00:15:27.269 --> 00:15:29.669 advisors. It's a classic Praetorian Guard mentality. 00:15:30.379 --> 00:15:33.000 And it created this terrifying environment for 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.360 governance. I mean, imagine trying to court foreign 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.860 investors and every six months or so there are 00:15:37.860 --> 00:15:40.059 tanks rolling down the main highway in your capital 00:15:40.059 --> 00:15:42.379 city. It would just kill any economic momentum. 00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.879 The 1989 coup attempt was particularly bloody 00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:48.279 and damaging. It actually required U .S. air 00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:50.539 support from Clark Air Base to help suppress 00:15:50.539 --> 00:15:52.740 it. And that shattered the illusion of stability. 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:56.240 It sent the economy into a dip. Amidst all this 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:58.899 military posturing, the government lost a lot 00:15:58.899 --> 00:16:01.460 of its moral high ground with the Mendiola massacre. 00:16:01.659 --> 00:16:06.039 January 1987. This was a true tragedy. Thousands 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:08.200 of farmers marched to Mendiola Bridge, which 00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:10.019 is right near the presidential palace, demanding 00:16:10.019 --> 00:16:13.480 genuine land reform, no stock options, real land. 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:16.340 The Marines opened fire. Twelve people were killed, 00:16:16.539 --> 00:16:19.059 over 50 injured. For an administration that was 00:16:19.059 --> 00:16:21.919 built on the principle of people power and nonviolence, 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.220 that must have been just devastating. It was 00:16:24.220 --> 00:16:26.820 a turning point. It caused her own human rights 00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:29.500 commissioner, the legendary Jose Diacno, to resign 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:32.320 in protest. It led to the collapse of peace talks 00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:34.740 with the communist insurgents. It showed that 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:37.159 the state apparatus was still capable of brutality, 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:39.639 regardless of who was sitting in the president's 00:16:39.639 --> 00:16:41.740 chair. And speaking of conflict, she was also 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:44.019 dealing with the long -running more insurgency 00:16:44.019 --> 00:16:46.059 in the south. She tried to make peace there too. 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:48.299 She famously went down to the island of Jolo 00:16:48.299 --> 00:16:51.879 and met with the MNLF leader Nirmizwari, which 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:54.240 was a very brave move. It led to the creation 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.980 of the ARMM, the Autonomous Region in Muslim 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.899 Mindanao. It was a genuine step toward autonomy. 00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:03.659 But a splinter group, the MILF, kept fighting. 00:17:03.779 --> 00:17:06.299 And terrifyingly, this was the period when the 00:17:06.299 --> 00:17:08.619 terrorist group Abu Sayyaf was founded around 00:17:08.619 --> 00:17:12.059 1989. So you've got political instability, constant 00:17:12.059 --> 00:17:14.920 military rebellion, economic stagnation from 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:17.960 the debt. And then the universe just decides 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:20.740 to pile on. Section seven of our notes here is 00:17:20.740 --> 00:17:23.319 just titled Acts of God. It is genuinely difficult 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:25.420 to believe the sequence of events happened to 00:17:25.420 --> 00:17:27.759 one administration in such a short time. It starts 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:31.240 with the MV Doña Paz in 1987. A passenger ferry 00:17:31.240 --> 00:17:33.559 collided with an oil tanker. The death toll was 00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:36.880 just horrific. Over 4 ,300 people died. It is 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.900 still the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster 00:17:38.900 --> 00:17:41.380 in recorded history. Worse than the Titanic. 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:43.779 It was a massive national trauma. And then the 00:17:43.779 --> 00:17:46.799 earth itself starts shaking. The 1990 Luzon earthquake. 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:50.000 A magnitude 7 .8 to just flatten cities in the 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:52.819 north like Baguio and Cabanatuan. And then the 00:17:52.819 --> 00:17:56.099 big one, Mount Pinatubo in 1991. A volcano that 00:17:56.099 --> 00:17:58.299 everyone thought was dormant. It hadn't erupted 00:17:58.299 --> 00:18:01.480 in hundreds of years. When it finally blew, it 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:03.880 was the second largest terrestrial eruption of 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:07.299 the entire 20th century. It buried central Luzon 00:18:07.299 --> 00:18:09.779 in volcanic ash. It destroyed the agricultural 00:18:09.779 --> 00:18:13.299 heartland. And strategically, it completely buried 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:16.609 the U .S. airbase at Clark. Which sort of forced 00:18:16.609 --> 00:18:18.970 the issue on the whole American military presence. 00:18:19.130 --> 00:18:20.650 Right. That was another massive headache she 00:18:20.650 --> 00:18:22.730 was dealing with. The Philippine Senate, driven 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:25.750 by nationalism, wanted the U .S. bases out Sibic 00:18:25.750 --> 00:18:28.450 Naval Base and Clark Air Base. They saw it as 00:18:28.450 --> 00:18:31.390 an issue of sovereignty. But Cori initially wanted 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:34.650 them to stay. Why? Pragmatism, again. She was 00:18:34.650 --> 00:18:36.490 worried about the thousands of Filipinos who 00:18:36.490 --> 00:18:38.849 worked on those bases and the economic impact 00:18:38.849 --> 00:18:41.769 of them leaving so suddenly. She even led a protest 00:18:41.769 --> 00:18:43.930 march to try and convince the Senate to keep 00:18:43.930 --> 00:18:46.470 the bases. The president protesting her own Senate. 00:18:46.650 --> 00:18:48.690 Exactly. But the Senate voted to eject them. 00:18:48.950 --> 00:18:51.950 And then Pinatubo erupted and basically sealed 00:18:51.950 --> 00:18:54.150 the deal for Clark Air Base. The Americans left. 00:18:54.309 --> 00:18:56.990 But there is one man -made disaster from this 00:18:56.990 --> 00:18:59.769 period that I think, for many people, defines 00:18:59.769 --> 00:19:02.549 the daily experience of the late core years even 00:19:02.549 --> 00:19:05.410 more than the volcano. The lights went out. The 00:19:05.410 --> 00:19:08.309 power crisis. This is a classic case of good 00:19:08.309 --> 00:19:11.849 intentions leading to really bad outcomes. Early 00:19:11.849 --> 00:19:14.069 in her term, Corey's administration decided to 00:19:14.069 --> 00:19:16.589 mothball the Bataan nuclear power plant. This 00:19:16.589 --> 00:19:19.069 was the big controversial plant built by Marcos. 00:19:19.089 --> 00:19:21.829 Yes. It was riddled with corruption issues and 00:19:21.829 --> 00:19:25.329 worse, major safety concerns. It sits near a 00:19:25.329 --> 00:19:28.710 fault line and a volcano. So deciding not to 00:19:28.710 --> 00:19:31.710 turn it on was arguably the safe moral choice. 00:19:31.829 --> 00:19:35.000 But there's a but. The big but is that the administration 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.180 failed to build a replacement energy source. 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:39.660 They completely underestimated the growing demand 00:19:39.660 --> 00:19:42.299 for electricity. They didn't ramp up coal or 00:19:42.299 --> 00:19:44.460 geothermal or anything else fast enough. So by 00:19:44.460 --> 00:19:46.359 the end of her term. By the end of her term, 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.119 Manila was experiencing 7 to 12 hour blackouts. 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:51.420 Every single day. There was a bitter joke at 00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:53.799 the time. Corey Magic, now you see the light, 00:19:53.859 --> 00:19:56.799 now you don't. It was brutal. It decimated small 00:19:56.799 --> 00:19:59.400 businesses. You can't run a factory or a restaurant 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:02.440 or even small shop without power. It just soured 00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:04.460 the public mood completely right at the end of 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:07.279 her term. People were exhausted. So we get to 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:10.839 1992. She's tired. Her popularity has taken a 00:20:10.839 --> 00:20:13.000 serious hit from the blackouts and the instability. 00:20:13.740 --> 00:20:16.180 Her advisors come to her and say, hey, you know, 00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.720 technically you weren't sworn in under the 1987 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:21.579 Constitution. That one term limit doesn't apply 00:20:21.579 --> 00:20:24.019 to you. You can run again. And this right here 00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:26.079 is the moment that I think secures her legacy. 00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:29.640 She says, no, absolutely not. She understood 00:20:29.640 --> 00:20:31.779 that the single most important thing she could 00:20:31.779 --> 00:20:34.240 do for the future of Philippine democracy was 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:36.900 not to fix the power plants, but to step down. 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:39.299 To show that power can be transferred peacefully. 00:20:39.950 --> 00:20:42.490 That the system works. She endorses Fidel Ramos, 00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:44.549 the general who stuck by her during all the coups, 00:20:44.549 --> 00:20:47.390 and he wins the election. And there's this one 00:20:47.390 --> 00:20:50.230 detail about her last day in office. She rides 00:20:50.230 --> 00:20:52.170 to the inauguration in the presidential Mercedes. 00:20:52.549 --> 00:20:54.690 But after the ceremony. After the ceremony, she 00:20:54.690 --> 00:20:57.369 leaves in a plain white Toyota Crown. No entourage, 00:20:57.509 --> 00:21:00.470 no security detail, just a citizen driving away. 00:21:00.630 --> 00:21:03.789 That is such a powerful visual. But she didn't 00:21:03.789 --> 00:21:06.309 exactly retire to a rocking chair, did she? No, 00:21:06.390 --> 00:21:08.910 not at all. She became what people call the guardian 00:21:08.910 --> 00:21:11.170 of democracy. She would show up whenever she 00:21:11.170 --> 00:21:13.539 felt that democracy was being threatened. She 00:21:13.539 --> 00:21:16.500 actively campaigned against charter change, attempts 00:21:16.500 --> 00:21:19.420 by later presidents like Ramos and Estrada, to 00:21:19.420 --> 00:21:21.599 change the Constitution to extend their term 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:24.359 limits. And she was instrumental in the EDSA 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:26.819 to a second movement, which ousted President 00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:30.259 Joseph Estrada in 2001. She was, though interestingly, 00:21:30.460 --> 00:21:33.160 the sources note that she later apologized to 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:35.740 Estrada for her role in that. That's fascinating. 00:21:35.859 --> 00:21:38.829 Why? It was a very nuanced apology. years later, 00:21:38.990 --> 00:21:41.589 in 2008. She basically admitted that while she 00:21:41.589 --> 00:21:43.650 felt his ouster was necessary at the time because 00:21:43.650 --> 00:21:46.190 of corruption, the extra -constitutional nature 00:21:46.190 --> 00:21:48.549 of it, using street power to remove a leader 00:21:48.549 --> 00:21:51.210 again, had negative long -term consequences for 00:21:51.210 --> 00:21:53.849 the rule of law. She recognized the double -edged 00:21:53.849 --> 00:21:56.369 sword of people power. She was always watching, 00:21:56.509 --> 00:21:59.329 always re -evaluating. She even called for Gloria 00:21:59.329 --> 00:22:02.470 Macapagal -Arroyo's resignation in 2005 over 00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:04.950 election -rigging allegations. She never really 00:22:04.950 --> 00:22:08.630 left the stage. And then the end came. She was 00:22:08.630 --> 00:22:11.789 diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008, and 00:22:11.789 --> 00:22:14.950 she passed away on August 1st, 2009. And the 00:22:14.950 --> 00:22:18.049 reaction from the public? It was like 1986 all 00:22:18.049 --> 00:22:20.690 over again. All the cynicism about the blackouts 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:23.089 and the coups and the compromises just seemed 00:22:23.089 --> 00:22:25.750 to fade away. And people remembered the symbol. 00:22:25.849 --> 00:22:27.690 The yellow ribbons came back out everywhere. 00:22:28.049 --> 00:22:30.150 She had declined a state funeral. Her family 00:22:30.150 --> 00:22:32.589 wanted a private one. But the public just turned 00:22:32.589 --> 00:22:35.170 it into a state event anyway. Hundreds of thousands 00:22:35.170 --> 00:22:37.690 of people lined the streets for her funeral procession. 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:41.119 So when we synthesize all of this, the math major, 00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:44.039 the housewife, the widow, the revolutionary president, 00:22:44.259 --> 00:22:47.019 what is the final takeaway? Because it's clearly 00:22:47.019 --> 00:22:49.599 not a clean success story. No, it's not. Not 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:51.940 at all. If you look at the metrics, GDP, infrastructure, 00:22:52.259 --> 00:22:54.900 poverty rates. Her scorecard is average at best, 00:22:54.980 --> 00:22:57.039 maybe even below average. She'd factor in the 00:22:57.039 --> 00:22:59.279 power crisis. But you look at the institutions, 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:01.819 it's a completely different story. She inherited 00:23:01.819 --> 00:23:04.279 a country where the press was silenced, Congress 00:23:04.279 --> 00:23:07.059 was a sham, the Supreme Court was in the dictator's 00:23:07.059 --> 00:23:10.019 pocket, and elections were a joke. She left a 00:23:10.019 --> 00:23:12.380 country where all those institutions, for better 00:23:12.380 --> 00:23:16.680 or worse, were working again. Noisy, messy, often 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:19.890 gridlocked, but... She rebuilt the container 00:23:19.890 --> 00:23:22.069 for democracy, even if the contents were still 00:23:22.069 --> 00:23:25.210 chaotic and often disappointing. I mean, democracy 00:23:25.210 --> 00:23:27.730 is inefficient. An authoritarian government can 00:23:27.730 --> 00:23:30.490 build a bridge just by ordering it done. A democracy 00:23:30.490 --> 00:23:33.029 has to debate it, bid it out, and vote on it. 00:23:33.069 --> 00:23:35.630 The blackouts, the instability, the slow pace 00:23:35.630 --> 00:23:38.710 of recovery, in a way, those were the price tags 00:23:38.710 --> 00:23:41.079 of the transition. Which leaves us with a really 00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:43.319 heavy thought to wrap this all up. We love the 00:23:43.319 --> 00:23:46.380 stories of revolution, the walkouts, the human 00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:48.660 shields on the highway, the dictator fleeing 00:23:48.660 --> 00:23:51.480 in a helicopter. That's the movie version. But 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.039 the Cory Aquino story, when you really look at 00:23:54.039 --> 00:23:56.819 it, asks a much harder question. Is restoring 00:23:56.819 --> 00:23:59.119 democracy actually more difficult than fighting 00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:01.380 for it? It's so much easier to unite people against 00:24:01.380 --> 00:24:04.019 a common villain. It's incredibly hard to unite 00:24:04.019 --> 00:24:06.779 them. for the boring, painful day -to -day work 00:24:06.779 --> 00:24:09.539 of paying off old debts and drafting local government 00:24:09.539 --> 00:24:12.339 codes. The revolution doesn't end when the confetti 00:24:12.339 --> 00:24:14.660 falls. That's just when the real work begins. 00:24:15.079 --> 00:24:17.680 And sometimes the person who wins the war is 00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:19.619 the one who has to sacrifice their own popularity 00:24:19.619 --> 00:24:23.200 just to survive the peace. A complex legacy for 00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:25.980 a truly complex figure. That is our deep dive 00:24:25.980 --> 00:24:28.359 on Corazon Aquino. Thanks for listening, and 00:24:28.359 --> 00:24:29.180 we'll catch you on the next one.