People Power's Philippine Saint: Corazon Aquino

At a critical time in her country's history, the shy widow took up her charismatic husband's legacy and led it through a valley of the shadow of death

DIANA WALKER / Time Life Pictures / Getty

The arc of Corazon Aquino's life lent itself to maxims, but two hard-nosed ones seem particularly worth pointing out. First, political sainthood is a gift from heaven with a Cinderella deadline — once past midnight, you are a pumpkin. Second, personal virtues are never a guarantee of effective or successful governance. What was truly shocking about Aquino's tumultuous six-year term as President of the Philippines was that those maxims proved untrue. Midnight always threatened Aquino but never struck; and she was a good woman whose goodness alone, at the very end, was what proved enough, if only by an iota, to...

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