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

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

Filipina,Gregoria de Jesus,Corazon Aquino,Kris Aquino

Cecilia Muñoz-Palma-First Female Supreme Court Associate Justice

Cecilia Muñoz-Palma (November 22, 1913 — January 2, 2006) was the first woman appointed to sit on the Supreme Court of the Philippines. She was appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos on October 29, 1973, and served in the Court until she reached the then-mandatory retirement age of 65. She later served as the president of the 1986 Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution.

The daughter of a congressman from Batangas, Muñoz-Palma earned her law degree from the University of the Philippines, and a Master of Laws degree from Yale University. She became the first woman prosecutor of Quezon City in 1947. Seven years later, she became the first female district judge when she was named a trial court judge for Negros Oriental.[1] In the next few years, she was assigned as a judge to Laguna and Rizal until her appointment to the Court of Appeals in 1968, the second woman ever to be appointed to the appellate court. In 1973, she again made history, this time as the first female Supreme Court Associate Justice, preceding by eight years Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

source: wikipedia


Filipina,Cecilia Munoz-Palma,First Female Supreme CourtAssociate Justice

Estefania Aldaba-Lim-first woman to become special ambassador to the United Nations

Estefania Aldaba-Lim, Ph.D. (1917-March 7, 2006) was the first female secretary of any Cabinet of the Philippines, serving as Secretary of Social Services and Development from 1971 to 1977. She obtained her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1942. She was also the first Filipino clinical psychologist.

She played prominent roles as the former assistant secretary general of the United Nations Children's Fund's International Year of the Child. Aldaba-Lim served as President of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines. She also founded the Museo Pambata in Manila. In 1948 she set up the Institute of Human Relations at Philippine Women's University . Ms. Aldaba-Lim became was the first woman to become special ambassador to the United Nations, with the rank of assistant secretary general during the International Year of the Child in 1979. She received the UN Peace Medal Award from then Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.

source: wikipedia

Filipina