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María Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as Cory Aquino, was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the first female President of The Philippines. She was Asia's first female President and world-renowned advocate of democracy, peace, women empowerment, and religious piety. Aquino is the widow of the popular opposition senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., and when he was assassinated at then Manila International Airport on his return from exile on August 21, 1983, she became the focus of the opposition to the autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. Corazon Cojuangco was born in Paniqui, Tarlac into one of the richest Chinese-mestizo families in the Philippines, the powerful Cojuangcos of Tarlac province. Her mother's family, the Sumulongs, also belong to a political Chinese Filipino family in Rizal, making her one-eighth Tagalog in maternal side, one-eighth Kapampangan and one-fourth Spanish in paternal side, and half-Chinese in both maternal and paternal sides. Growing up in a privileged family, she was sent to St. Scholastica's College and finished grade school as class valedictorian in 1943. She was sent overseas to study in Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia where Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco once studied, the Notre Dame Convent School in New York, and College of Mount Saint Vincent, also in New York. She studied liberal arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree major in French Language and minor in Mathematics in 1953. She intended to become a math teacher and language interpreter. She returned to the Philippines to study law at Far Eastern University, owned by her cousin Don Nicanor Reyes. In 1955 she married Benigno Aquino, Jr. Ninoy, who had just been elected mayor of Concepcion, Tarlac province at the age of 22. They had five children together: a son, Benigno Aquino III, and four daughters, Maria Elena Aquino, Aurora Corazon Aquino, Victoria Eliza Aquino, and television host Kris Aquino. Like her husband, Corazon was a member of the Liberal Party Philippines. Benigno Aquino, Jr. rose to be governor and senator, then under the Marcos regime was arrested, sentenced to death, and exiled. She accompanied him into exile in 1980. He was later assassinated on August 21,1983 upon arrival from a 3-year exile in the United States at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, which was later renamed in his honor. After his death she was convinced by the friends and supporters of Ninoy to enter into politics as head of the Laban party.
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