Editor's Pick

ON 25 FEBRUARY 1986, Corazon Aquino—seen here, second from left, during a Women’s Day protest march in Manila the previous year—was sworn in as the first female president of the Philippines. This marked the end of Ferdinand Marcos’s authoritarian regime, which had been notorious for its corruption and suppression of democratic processes.

Elected in 1965, Marcos had instituted martial law in 1972 and jailed a number of his political opponents. These included Aquino’s husband, Benigno, who was sentenced to death by a military commission, on charges of subversion, murder and possessing illegal firearms. Marcos commuted the death sentence in 1980, allowing the Aquinos to live in exile in the United States. He ended martial law the following year but retained dictatorial control over the government.

Benigno flew back to the Philippines in 1983, intending to campaign in the forthcoming elections that had been promised by the government. Upon disembarking at Manila International Airport, he was shot dead. His killing galvanised opposition against the Marcos regime, which appointed a commission of inquiry that held senior military officers responsible for the assassination. To reassert his mandate amid growing protests, Marcos called a snap presidential election in February 1986. The united opposition nominated Corazon as its candidate.

Although official reports claimed that Marcos had won the election, Aquino and her followers challenged the results, alleging widespread fraud. The military leadership was split among whom to support. Both sets of supporters proclaimed their candidates as having been elected on 25 February, but, at the urging of the US government, Marcos fled the country with his family that same day, later settling in Hawaii. Aquino established a provisional constitution and appointed a commission to draft a final version. The new constitution, which restored the bicameral legislature that Marcos had abolished, was ratified by a landslide margin in a 1987 referendum.