Sunday, June 17, 2007

Corazon C. Aquino--Asia' s and Philippines' first Female President

Filipina
María Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as 'Cory Aquino', was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the first female President of The Philippines. She was Asia's first female President and world-renowned advocate of democracy, peace, women empowerment, and religious piety.

Aquino is the widow of the popular opposition senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., and when he was assassinated at then Manila International Airport on his return from exile on August 21, 1983, she became the focus of the opposition to the autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Corazon Cojuangco was born in Manila into one of the richest Chinese-mestizo families in the Philippines, the powerful Cojuangcos of Tarlac province. Her mother's family, the Sumulongs, also belong to a political Chinese Filipino family in Rizal.

Growing up in a privileged family, she was sent to St. Scholastica's College and finished grade school as class valedictorian in 1943. She was sent overseas to study in Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia (where Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco once studied), the Notre Dame Convent School in New York, and College of Mount Saint Vincent, also in New York. She studied liberal arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree major in French and minor in Mathematics in 1953. She intended to become a Math teacher and language interpreter.

She returned to the Philippines to study Law at Far Eastern University, owned by her cousin Don Nicanor Reyes. In 1955 she married Benigno Aquino, Jr.(Ninoy), who had just been elected mayor of Concepción in Tarlac province at the age of 22. They had five children together: a son, Benigno III, and four daughters, Maria Elena Aquino, Aurora Corazon Aquino, Victoria Eliza Aquino, and television host Kris Aquino.

source: wikipedia

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