NEW YORK—President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday recalled the years of martial law—which was imposed by Ferdinand Marcos on Sept. 21, 1972—and how democracy was restored in his motherland.
Speaking at Fordham University after accepting an honorary doctorate of laws, the President lashed out at the administration of the late dictator Marcos and took a dig at his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in discussing how Filipinos had discovered that they had the “power” not only to reclaim democracy but pursue economic progress as well.
“We had our periods of darkness but now we are living in the light,” the President said.
He said his “own ambition” was that by the time he stepped down in 2016, his successor would not be able to “roll back the tide of progress and good governance” spurred by his administration.
It was the first event for the President, who arrived here on Monday morning (Monday night in Manila) and who was promptly caught in a whirlwind of activities scheduled for his three-day official visit here and in Washington.
He met later with American business firms like Convergys to thank them for investing in the Philippines and to make a pitch for new investments.
At the start of his speech, Mr. Aquino seemed to jab at Arroyo, when he remarked that the carving of the names of more than 40 leaders on whom Fordham had conferred honorary doctorates was “proof positive or proof negative of this university’s considered judgment in bestowing this honor.”
He said he hoped he belonged to “the first category,” eliciting some laughter from the packed auditorium at Keating Hall that also included Filipino students as well as members of the Filipino community in New York.
Aside from Mr. Aquino and his mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino, six other Philippine presidents had their names carved at the “Terrace of the President,” including Arroyo, now a congresswoman.
‘Thieves in the night’
In his speech, Mr. Aquino talked about the circumstances that brought him to power and said he was now representing “people who were not given, but rather, who gave themselves, a fresh start.”
He recalled the martial law years under the Marcos dictatorship, which he described as “a regime where the law is nothing but the whim of one man,” and narrated how an American official made “a cruel remark” during the imprisonment of his father, the martyred former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.
“The problem with the Philippines is it has 40 million cowards and one [SOB],” he quoted the US official as saying, and added: “That official never had to live in a regime where one man was not only despotic judge, jury and executioner but also had the bayonets to impose his whims and will.”
But eventually, he said, people power pushed Marcos and his family “to flee like the thieves they were into the night.”
Still, the President said, it was not easy to maintain democracy.
He said this had been a “task” to which Filipinos had “rededicated themselves time and again regardless of some of our leaders’ return to the days of impunity and plunder.”
‘Never again’
Mr. Aquino said the Constitution crafted under his mother’s administration endured because the people made good on their vow “Never again” after the fall of the dictatorship.
“It is that determination not to surrender to apathy, and not to allow ourselves to become atomized prisoners of despair and intimidation, that led me to where I am now,” he said.
Citing the adage “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” the President also noted how Arroyo, who fought down questions on the legitimacy of her election, had “focused on keeping herself in power, to the exclusion of all other considerations.”
He said “those who had grown fat on the corrupt status quo funded and supported efforts to subvert democracy, and … despite it all, the Filipinos renewed their social contract with each other and stood firm in their democratic ideals.”
The President said that when he took office last year, his first act was to stop using sirens in presidential vehicles and prohibit other officials from doing the same.
He said he was “happy” to note that this decision “has been accompanied by fierce insistence on the part of my countrymen not to tolerate any violations of this policy.”
“It is in small things that big things are accomplished: where the population not only abides by the law, but insists on its implementation,” he said.
Instruments of people’s will
The President said that after “a decade of political turbulence,” the Philippines had now entered “an era of renewed stability and confidence.”
Filipinos had discovered that “the people power that faced down tanks and artillery, truncheons and tear gas, can be the dynamo for progress and the lasting mortar for a government that applies its laws fairly,” Mr. Aquino said.
He described himself as “the instrument of the people’s will,” and said he hoped that by the end of his term, Filipinos would have “grown accustomed to genuine public service and so intolerant of corruption that whether a saint or sinner succeeds me, no one will be able to roll back the tide of progress and good governance.”
“To my countrymen and those of good will to all Filipinos, it is with great pride that I say: You have made us proud. You make me proud for you have remained true to yourselves,” the President said.
He said it was “with that sense of paying it forward” that he was in the United States—“to share the lessons … that we have learned in keeping government open and transparent.”