Woman of the Year

Cory Aquino leads a fairy-tale revolution, then surprises the world with her strength

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(11 of 14)

In her first ten months as President, Aquino has already begun to freshen up the office with an honesty and humility rarely seen in political circles. Before her U.S. visit, for example, she exasperated Philippine couturiers, accustomed to the imperial Imelda, by refusing to spend more than $40 on any dress. She still prefers not to be called "Madam," an honorific she feels was stained by the former First Lady. In many ways, in fact, she seems as open as before. Upon learning that a local journalist had won a grant to study in the U.S., the President stunned the woman by calling her up to offer her an old winter coat.

That unassuming style reflects a person with a very precise sense of herself and her limits. Aquino recognizes the vanity of vanity. "I've reached a point in life," she says, "where it's no longer necessary to try to impress. If they like me the way I am, that's good. If they don't, that's too bad." It is that same kind of detached self-possession that enables her, in the midst of pandemonium, to remain as composed as a sermon. "A single word of anger from her or any suggestion of violence ((at Ninoy's funeral)) could conceivably have overtaken Malacanang Palace," relates Emmanuel Pelaez, the Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. "But she was very scriptural. 'Vengeance is mine,' she must have said to herself."

Nor has the presidency yet smudged her sense of priorities. The eldest of Cory's four daughters, Maria Elena ("Ballsy") Cruz, 31, is still her private secretary, and her only son, Benigno III ("Noynoy"), 26, was one of her emissaries to the Communists. Aquino attends no more than three formal dinners a week, and the day on which the historic cease-fire with the Communists was signed found her marking what would have been her husband's 54th birthday with Cardinal Sin and her one-year-old grandson Justin Benigno. Being a grandmother, she says, makes her happier than being President.

With her moral -- even moralistic -- strictness, Aquino can at times treat even her Cabinet colleagues with the kind of affectionate sternness she lavishes on her children. She allows no smoking in her office, and she expects all the President's men to be prompt and tireless. Once she told Chief Speechwriter Teodoro Locsin to dress less like a gangster. The faint air of maternalism is heightened by her habit of referring to "my people," "my Cabinet," and even, most disconcertingly, "my generals."

For all that, however, Aquino's leadership of her Cabinet has often been uncertain. She manages by intuition, observers say, which is perhaps why her government remains somewhat disorderly. So far, says one minister very close to the President, "she gives herself a B. Her political instincts are superb, but she needs a better balance of close-in advisers. What she really needs is a chief of staff."

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