‘My mom had FM, I have GMA’

NEW YORK – Like mother, like son.

President Aquino has compared his destiny with that of his late mother Corazon, noting how she was catapulted to the presidency after fighting dictator Ferdinand Marcos, while the unpopularity of his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led to his landslide victory in 2010.

In a speech at Columbia University here, the President, the only son of democracy icons Ninoy and Corazon Aquino, delved on how the Filipinos lost their patience twice in Philippine history: in the 1986 People Power Revolution and in the May 2010 presidential elections.

“The Filipino people reached that limit once again in 2010. In another strong display of People Power, they filled the polling stations and voted for the primary ideal behind our campaign: Where there is no corruption, there will be no poverty,” Aquino told the Columbia World Leaders Forum.

Aquino repeatedly described Arroyo’s nine-year reign as the “lost decade” because the government had “decayed, weakened by corruption and impunity.”

He said businesses under the regime of Arroyo became more afraid to invest in the Philippines, for lack of a level playing field and stability in the political climate.

Arroyo was the second longest serving president after Marcos, who stayed in power for 20 years until the first People Power Revolution in February 1986.

Arroyo was also Aquino’s economics professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.

“Now I stand here as president of a country that has risen from the ashes of a lost decade,” Aquino said, likening himself to his mother, whom he described as an ordinary citizen who rose to the task of restoring democracy and nurturing it after the end of martial law.

The President also said that in his entire life, he witnessed the Filipinos doing “incredible things” such as resisting the Marcos dictatorship, mounting a peaceful revolution that captured the imagination of the world, standing firmly against tyranny and corruption and working tirelessly to put the Philippines back on the map.

“My father once said that the Filipino is worth dying for. Through the difficult years of my mother’s presidency, she in turn devoted herself to proving that the Filipino was also worth living for,” Aquino said.

“Unfortunately, not all presidents who followed my mother shared her belief. To some, democracy was a tool to be manipulated; power was a seat to be claimed, from which one could impose his or her will upon the people,” Aquino said.

“This was most apparent in the nine-and-a-half-year administration of my predecessor. Instead of learning the lessons of history under the dictatorship, she seemed to have taken a course on how to abuse the system, straight from Mr. Marcos’ playbook,” the President added.