Fulbright Prize

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Senator Richard Lugar Pays Tribute to Former Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino

During some very chaotic times in 1985 joining Mrs. Aquino in the Philippines was Senator Richard Lugar, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and co-chair of the presidential election observer group in the Philippines. He has represented the state of Indiana in the United States Senate since 1977 and currently serves on the Committee on Foreign Relations as well as chairs the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, the Select Committee on Intelligence, and is co-chairman of the Arms Control Observer Group. Throughout his years in the Senate, Senator Lugar has been a strong supporter of the Fulbright Program and, in fact, is, as is President Clinton, a Rhodes scholar.
--from Philip Geier’s introduction of Senator Lugar

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of Senator Lugar’s Remarks.

From Philip Geier’s introduction of Senator Lugar How appropriate it is that the Fulbright Association, named in honor of a great senator and statesmen—as has been mentioned by Phil Geier, a man for whom our president Bill Clinton worked and gained so much and a gentleman with whom I corresponded as a student at Pembroke College, Oxford, the very same college that Senator Fulbright had attended a generation before. Our Association became very close when I came to Washington. He was the longest-serving chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and took great pride in the two years that I served as chairman of the committee. But it is an especially appropriate situation here in the State Department that this award should be given to President Aquino today, because in this department so much occurred that made possible our re-evaluation of our foreign policy in the Philippines and the very strong support of the election of Corazon Aquino, however, which was clearly in dispute at that time.

I’ve mentioned my short tenure as chairman of the [Foreign Relations] Committee, and it was fortuitous that those were the years—1985 and 1986—in which this occurred. Fairly early in 1985, we had testimony from the State Department and from our Department of Defense—conspicuous testimony by Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage—as they outlined growing debate within those two departments as to where our interests lay and where they ought to lie in the future. We were sensitized, both as a committee and as a Congress, and as a public, that we had some hard choices ahead of us.

What we could not have imagined was that the focus of this debate in our country might lead President Marcos to call the snap election which he did on the Brinkley program on a Sunday afternoon in November and in essence, challenged us to put up or shut up. The input of that particular program was to say, "I’m calling a special election and I ask anybody in the world who wants to come and observe it—especially you people in the United States. And you will see that I’m going to win it, and I’m going to win it big, and democracy will be served." At that point, the wheels began to move in our committee and within the Reagan administration and particularly in the minds of Secretary George Shultz and of Steve Bosworth, our great ambassador out there on the point. And without going through all of the detail of what occurred, an observer group was named. I was co-chairman with John Murtha, distinguished congressman who still serves in the state of Pennsylvania.

With a host of about 30 distinguished Americans assembled to go to all parts of the Philippines, we negotiated with the Marcos administration on such things as how close we could get to the voting booths. A strange law was adopted shortly before we were underway that 150 feet would be our distance. Then we said we won’t come under those circumstances and to the end Marcos was so eager for us to come that essentially almost all of the rules and stipulations we suggested they acceded to, understanding that 30 people in the midst of that vast country were unlikely to see a whole lot. We proceeded and, in fact, had an experience that is indelible in my memory and, I think, that of our honoree today. Let me just say that the election was one in which our intelligence people told me before I went that President Aquino would be the winner if, in fact, all the votes were counted—at least it was beyond what we call now in our election campaigns the margin of error. But, they indicated to me, she would not be the winner. I had to understand the realpolitik of the situation. It was simply not in the cards, given the nature of the way the election was going to be conducted, despite all of our best efforts to observe and to editorialize. And indeed, as the election approached, a very large number of people were disenfranchised and suddenly strange machinations occurred as some polls reported votes of 400 to 0 and other things to which I’ve become accustomed in some of our own elections in Indiana. We were prepared for the challenge. We were not prepared, I suspect, for the aftermath.

We made our report while still in the Philippines and with a cable from George Shultz in hand, "Come back as soon as possible." As in the parlance of the game Monopoly, do not pass go, do not collect $200, come directly to the White House because the secretary intimated there was a great debate going on. There were those who shall remain nameless who were suggesting that President Aquino ought to accept the Good Sportsmanship Award. In essence a good faith attempt had been made. Two parties had been established. It hadn’t quite worked out for her on this occasion, but there was still another election to go.

IFor a variety of reasons, this was very unsatisfactory to our honoree today to accept that particular verdict. I spoke directly to President Reagan in the Oval Office and described, in my best attempt, what had happened. But the president that evening had a nationally televised press conference—the first one he had had in months—six questions on the Philippines and one which caught the attention of President Aquino was one about cheating and fraud and abuse. President Reagan said there appeared to be fraud and abuse on both sides. President Aquino told our ambassador, "This is simply not so," and was prepared really to demonstrate that by taking hundreds of thousands of people in regular demonstrations to the streets.

Without going through everything that occurred subsequently, let me just say that by Saturday President Reagan had come to a different evaluation, that the election had been fraudulent, indeed, to a grave extent and set in motion events which led to President Marcos being spirited out of the country through Hawaii and President Aquino being sworn in as president.

As we visited this morning, I reminded her that’s the exciting part but then you have to serve. And serve, indeed, she did. It was magnificent that she agreed to become a candidate in mid-December of the previous year. It was nearly miraculous, for those of you who have followed Philippine politics, that somehow the candidacy became a single challenge to Marcos, because it would not have been successful had there been…a number of candidates.

That she was available was a testament to her courage. She did not choose to run. In fact, even given the martyrdom of her husband Benigno and given all the circumstances in which she really wanted justice, she herself admitted she was ill-prepared in terms of all the gamut of issues, the problems of handling not only the national press in the Philippines, but by then the international press. That election in February of 1986 was covered by more press than any other election of a five-year period of time, save our elections here in the United States.

And the ultimate judgment of that election, by our friends not only in Asia—in South Korea—but in Latin America, was that there had been a change in our foreign policy, and President Reagan enunciated that in a speech to the Congress not long thereafter in which he said that our policy will now be to fight totalitarianism of the left and authoritarianism of the right equally, evenhandedly, both—not that one is more of a problem than the other. That was a change, and it was noted by people in Guatemala, in Nicaragua, in El Salvador, in many other places of the earth far away from the Philippines. It was certainly noted in South Korea in a hurry, and I will point out, just for the sake of historical accuracy, when I visited Indonesia later in 1986 that President Suharto sat me down and lectured me for 30 minutes on how he was a grass-roots politician, coming up through the democratic route, so we would not get any ideas while we were visiting Jakarta.

This award recognizes a world-class achievement, an achievement of courage in the Philippines, a person who had not only to serve but to endure six coups, and they were serious. They could have resulted in her loss of life and that of her family and loss of Philippine democracy.

She stayed the course. She made possible a free and fair election of her successor. And what a great successor he is—a great ally of President Aquino and a friend of the United States, really throughout his career—President Ramos. She made possible a vision in our own country of ways in which our foreign policy could be geared to celebrate democracy and to fight authoritarianism of the right as well as totalitarianism of the left—both equally, vigorously. I am so grateful that she is not only alive but happy—assured today by her own testimony—living in the same neighborhood, the same friends and neighbors. And she surely is in the right neighborhood here today in the United States State Department with the Fulbright Association. It is an extreme honor to be with her on this occasion and to salute her again and to indicate that ten years ago the EDSA revolution for her and for me was, I’m sure, one of the most significant days of our lives. And we’re grateful that so many have celebrated it again and again. Thank you very much.

Presented at October 11 at the 1996 Fulbright Prize ceremony at the U.S. Department of State.

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