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The Speech That Gave The Philippines $200 Million | PRESIDENT CORY AQUINO’S SPEECH TO US CONGRESS 🇵🇭 — Transcript

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0:00[Applause]
0:33[Applause]
0:45members will be
0:46seated members of the Congress it is my
0:50great privilege and I deem it a high
0:53honor and personal privilege to present
0:55to you Her
0:57Excellency kazon C aino president of the
1:00Republic of the Philippines
1:33[Applause]
1:41Mr
1:42Speaker Senator
1:44Thurman distinguished members of
1:48Congress 3 years ago I left America in
1:53grief to bury my husband Ninoy
1:57Akino I thought I had left it also to
2:01lay to rest his restless dream of
2:05Philippine
2:07Freedom today I have returned as the
2:10president of a free
2:27people in burying the noi a whole nation
2:31honored him by that brave and selfless
2:35act of giving honor a nation in shame
2:40recovered its
2:42own a country that had lost faith in its
2:46future found it in a faithless and
2:49Brazen Act of
2:51murder so in giving we receive in losing
2:55we find and out of defeat we snatched
2:59our
3:00victory for the nation noinoi became the
3:05pleasing sacrifice that answered their
3:08prayers for
3:09freedom for myself and our children
3:13noinoi was a loving husband and
3:16father his loss three times in our lives
3:21was always a deep and painful
3:25one 14 years ago this month was the
3:29first time we lost him a president
3:33turned dictator and traitor to his oath
3:37suspended the
3:38Constitution and shut down the Congress
3:42that was much like this one before which
3:45I am honored to
3:46speak he detained my husband along with
3:50thousands of others Senators Publishers
3:54and anyone who had spoken up for the
3:57Democracy as its end Drew near
4:01but for noinoi a long and cruel ordeal
4:05was
4:06reserved the dictator already knew that
4:09noinoi was not a body merely to be
4:12imprisoned but a spirit he must
4:15break for even as the dictatorship
4:19demolished One By One The institutions
4:22of
4:23democracy the press the Congress the
4:27independence of the Judiciary the the
4:29protection of the Bill of Rights noinoi
4:33kept their Spirit Alive in
4:36himself the government sought to break
4:39him by indignities and Terror they
4:42locked him up in a tiny nearly airless
4:45cell in a military camp in the north
4:49they stripped him naked and held the
4:52threat of a sudden midnight execution
4:55over his
4:56head noinoi held up manfully on all of
5:00it I barely did as well for 43 days the
5:06authorities would not tell me what had
5:08happened to
5:10him this was the first time my children
5:13and I felt we had lost
5:16him when that didn't work they put him
5:19on trial for subversion murder and a
5:22host of other crimes before a military
5:27commission theoy challenge its Authority
5:31and went on a
5:33fast if he survived it then he felt God
5:38intended him for another
5:40fate we had lost him again for nothing
5:44would hold him back from his
5:46determination to see his fast through to
5:49the
5:50end he stopped only when it dawned on
5:54him that the government would keep his
5:56body alive after the fast had destroyed
6:00his
6:01brain and so with barely any life in his
6:05body he called off the fast on the 40th
6:09Day God meant him for other things he
6:12felt he did not know that an early death
6:16would still be his fate that only the
6:19timing was
6:21wrong at any time during his long
6:24ordeal noinoi Could Have Made A Separate
6:27Peace with a dictatorship as so many of
6:30his countrymen had
6:31done but the spirit of democracy that
6:35inheres in our race and animates this
6:39chamber could not be allowed to die he
6:43held out in the loneliness of his cell
6:47and the frustration of Exile the
6:50Democratic alternative to the insatiable
6:53greed and Mindless cruelty of the right
6:56and the purging Holocaust of the left
7:00and then we lost him irrevocably and
7:04more painfully than in the past the news
7:08came to us in
7:10Boston it had to be after the three
7:13happiest years of our lives
7:16together but his death was my country's
7:19Resurrection in the courage and Faith by
7:23which alone they could be free
7:26again the dictator had called him and no
7:30body yet 2 million people threw aside
7:34their paity and fear and escorted him to
7:38his
7:40grave and so began the revolution that
7:44has brought me to democracy's most
7:47famous home the Congress of the United
7:51States
8:06[Applause]
8:07the task had fallen on my shoulders to
8:10continue offering the Democratic
8:13alternative to our
8:15people archal mle had said that
8:18democracy must be defended by arms when
8:21it is attacked by arms and by truth when
8:25it is attacked by
8:27lies he failed to say how it shall be
8:31won I held fast to Nino's conviction
8:35that it must be by the ways of
8:38democracy I held out for participation
8:41in the 1984 election the dictatorship
8:45called even if I knew it would be
8:49rigged I was warned by the lawyers of
8:51the opposition that I ran the grave risk
8:55of legitimizing the foregone results of
8:58elections that were clearly going to be
9:01fraudulent but I was not fighting for
9:04lawyers but for the people in whose
9:08intelligence I had implicit Faith by the
9:12exercise of democracy even in a
9:16dictatorship they would be prepared for
9:19democracy when it came and then also it
9:23was the only way I knew by which we
9:26could measure our power even in the
9:29terms dictated by the
9:32dictatorship the people Vindicated me in
9:35an election shamefully marked by
9:38government thuggery and fraud the
9:40opposition swept the elections garnering
9:44a clear majority of the votes even if
9:47they ended up thanks to a corrupt
9:50Commission on elections with barely a
9:53third of the seats in
9:55Parliament now I knew our power
9:59last year in an excess of arrogance the
10:03dictatorship called for its Doom in a
10:06snap
10:07election the people
10:09obliged with over a million signatures
10:13they drafted me to challenge the
10:16dictatorship and I
10:18obliged the rest is the history that
10:21dramatically unfolded on your television
10:25screens and across the front pages of
10:28your newspapers
10:30you saw a nation armed with courage and
10:34integrity Stand Fast by democracy
10:37against threats and
10:40Corruption you saw women pole Watchers
10:43break out in tears as armed goons
10:46crashed the polling places to steal the
10:49ballots but just the same they tied
10:53themselves to the ballot
10:55boxes you saw a people so committed to
10:58the way of democracy that they were
11:01prepared to give their lives for its
11:04pale
11:05imitation at the end of the day before
11:08another wave of fraud could distort the
11:12results I announc the people's
11:15Victory many of you here today played a
11:19part in changing the policy of your
11:23country towards
11:24ours we the
11:27Filipinos thank each of you for what you
11:30did for balancing America's strategic
11:34interest against human concerns
11:37illuminates the American Vision of the
11:41world the
11:43co-chairman of the United States
11:45Observer team in his report to the
11:48president
11:50said I was witness to an extraordinary
11:53manifestation of democracy on the part
11:57of the Filipino people the ultimate
12:00result was the election of Mrs corason
12:03Akino as president and Mr Salvador Lael
12:07as Vice President of the
12:10Philippines when a subservient
12:13Parliament announced my opponent's
12:16Victory the people then turned out in
12:19the streets and proclaimed me the
12:22president of all the people and true to
12:26their word when a handful of military
12:29leaders declared themselves against the
12:32dictatorship the people rallied to their
12:36protection surely the people take care
12:39of their own it is on that faith and the
12:44obligation it entails that I assume the
12:50presidency as I came to power
12:52peacefully so shall I keep it that is my
12:57contract with my people
13:00and my commitment to
13:25God he had willed that the blood drawn
13:28with the lash shall not in my country be
13:32paid by blood drawn by the sword but by
13:36the tearful Joy of
13:39reconciliation we have Swept Away
13:42absolute power by a limited
13:45Revolution that respected the life and
13:48freedom of every
13:51Filipino now we are restoring full
13:54constitutional
13:56government again as we restore democracy
13:59by the ways of democracy so are we
14:03completing the Constitutional structures
14:06of our new
14:08democracy under a constitution that
14:11already gives full respect to the Bill
14:14of
14:15Rights a jealously independent
14:18constitutional commission is completing
14:21its draft which will be submitted later
14:24this year to a popular
14:27referendum when it is approved there
14:30will be elections for both national and
14:35local
14:37positions So within about a year from a
14:40peaceful but National upheaval that
14:43overturned a dictatorship we shall have
14:47returned to full constitutional go
14:51government given the polarization and
14:54breakdown We
14:55inherited this is no small achievement
15:00my predecessor set aside democracy to
15:03save it from a communist Insurgency that
15:07numbered less than
15:10500 unhampered by respect for human
15:13rights he went at it with hammer and
15:17tongs by the time he fled that
15:20Insurgency had grown to more than
15:2616,000 I think there is a lesson here to
15:29be learned about trying to stifle a
15:32thing with the means by which it
15:35grows I don't
15:38[Applause]
15:53think I don't think anybody in or
15:56outside our country concerned for a
15:59democratic and open Philippines doubts
16:03what must be
16:04done through political initiatives and
16:08local reintegration programs we must
16:12seek to bring the insurgents down from
16:14the hills and by economic progress and
16:18Justice show them that which the best
16:22intentioned among them
16:24fight as president of all my people I
16:28will will not betray the cause of Peace
16:31by which I came to
16:46power yet equally and again no friend of
16:50Filipino democracy will challenge this I
16:54will not stand by and allow an Insurgent
16:57leadership to burn our offer of peace
17:01and kill our young soldiers and threaten
17:04our New
17:16Freedom yet I must explore the path of
17:20peace to the utmost for at its end
17:24whatever disappointment I meet there is
17:27the moral basis for laying down the
17:30olive branch of peace and taking up the
17:33Sword of
17:35[Applause]
17:42War still should it come to that I will
17:45not waver from the course laid down by
17:48your great
17:50Liberator with malice towards none with
17:54charity for all with firmness in the
17:57right as God gives us to see the right
18:00let us finish the work we are in to bind
18:04up the nation's wounds to care for him
18:08who shall have borne the battle and for
18:10his widow and for his orphans to do all
18:14which may achieve and cherish a just and
18:18Lasting peace among ourselves and with
18:21all nations
18:23[Applause]
18:36like Abraham Lincoln I understand that
18:39Force may be necessary before
18:43Mercy like Lincoln I don't relish it yet
18:47I will do whatever it takes to defend
18:51the integrity and freedom of my country
19:05finally may I turn to that other slavery
19:08our $26 billion foreign
19:12debt I have said that we shall honor it
19:17yet the means by which we shall be able
19:20to do so are kept from
19:23us many of the conditions imposed on the
19:27previous government that stole this debt
19:31continued to be imposed on us who never
19:34benefited from
19:36it and no assistance or liberality
19:40commensurate with a Calamity that was
19:42visted on us has been
19:46extended yet ours must have been the
19:49cheapest Revolution ever
20:09with Little Help from others we
20:12Filipinos fulfilled the first and most
20:16difficult condition of the debt
20:19negotiation the full restoration of
20:22democracy and responsible
20:25government elsewhere and in other times
20:28of more stringent World economic
20:31conditions Marshall plans and their like
20:34were felt to be necessary Companions of
20:37returning
20:39democracy when I met with President
20:42Reagan we began an important dialogue
20:46about
20:47cooperation and the strengthening of
20:49friendship between our two
20:52countries that meeting was both a
20:55confirmation and a new beginning
20:58I am sure it will lead to positive
21:01results in all areas of common
21:06concern today we Face the aspiration of
21:09a people who had known so much poverty
21:13and massive unemployment for the past 14
21:17years and yet offer their lives for the
21:21abstraction of
21:23democracy wherever I went in the
21:26campaign slum area or impoverished
21:29Village they came to me with one cry
21:34democracy not food although they clearly
21:38needed it but
21:41democracy not work although they surely
21:44wanted it but
21:47democracy not money for they gave what
21:50little they had to my
21:52campaign they didn't expect me to work a
21:56miracle that would instantly put food
21:59into their mouths clothes on their back
22:03education in their children and give
22:06them work that will put dignity in their
22:09lives but I feel the pressing obligation
22:14to respond quickly as the leader of a
22:17people so deserving of all these
22:21things we Face a communist Insurgency
22:25that feeds on economic deterioration
22:28even as we carry a great share of the
22:32Free World defenses in the
22:35Pacific these are only two of the many
22:38burdens my people carry even as they try
22:42to build a worthy and enduring house for
22:46their new
22:47democracy that may serve as well as a
22:51redout for freedom in
22:53Asia yet no sooner is one stone laid
22:57than two are Tak taken away half our
23:00export earnings $2 billion out of $4
23:05billion which is all we can earn in the
23:08restrictive markets of the world must go
23:11to pay just the interest on a debt whose
23:15benefit the Filipino people never
23:20received still we fought for honor and
23:23if only for Honor we shall
23:26pay and yet
23:29should we have to ring the payments from
23:32the sweat of our men's faces and sink
23:35all the wealth piled up by the
23:38bondsman's 250 years of unrequited
23:42toil yet to all Americans as the leader
23:47of a proud and Free People I address
23:50this
23:51question has there been a greater test
23:55of national commitment to the ideals you
23:59hold dear than that my people have gone
24:03through you have spent many lives and
24:07much treasure to bring freedom to many
24:10lands that were reluctant to receive it
24:14and here you have a people who want it
24:17by themselves and need only the help to
24:22preserve it
24:51[Applause]
24:533 years ago I
24:55said Thank You America for the The Haven
24:59from oppression and the home you gave
25:02noinoi myself and our children and for
25:05the three happiest years of our lives
25:09together today I say join us America as
25:14we build a new home for
25:16democracy another Haven for the
25:19oppressed so it may stand as a shining
25:23Testament of our two Nations commitment
25:26to Freedom
25:43we
26:57oh e
28:05[Applause]
28:11than
28:24[Applause]
28:31[Applause]

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