speaker of the house and the president uh protm of the Senate and here we see Mrs aino she's accompanied by uh the majority leader of the House of Representatives uh Jim Wright of Texas who is likely to be the next speaker and other Congressional leaders there's Senator Robert Dole right behind her he's the majority leader of the Senate and on his right is the minority leader the Democratic leader Robert bird of West Virginia and you can hear the sustained and very enthusiastic [Applause] Applause this is much more than the usual reaction that a that a uh a leader would get coming into the [Applause] chamber for many of them I think this the first time they going to see m aino in PR no question for the for the vast majority of them and that is a real show of emotion that you can see out there and that's coming across the board Democrats and Republicans liberals and conservatives you can almost feel [Applause] it now he'll the speaker will we'll formally introduce her and then we'll get another round of [Applause] applause [Applause] this about a long round of a loss for president oh I think it's very very important to to to stress that I've seen a number of these where we've had foreign leaders brought uh come before the Congress and you'll get Applause it's it's nice it's it's uh uh appropriate and cord it's cordial this is something far more than that and it's meant to be a [Applause] signal members will be seated members of the Congress it is my great privilege and I deem it a high honor and personal privileged to present to you Her Excellency caroni aino president of the Republic of the Philippines [Applause] w Mr Speaker Senator Thurman distinguished members of Congress 3 years ago I left America in grief to bury my husband Ninoy Akino I thought I had left it also to lay to rest his restless dream of Philippine Freedom today today I have returned as the president of a free people in burying noinoi a whole nation honored him by that brave and selfless act of giving honor a nation in shame recovered its own a country that had lost faith in its future founded in a faithless and Brazen Act of murder so in giving we receive in losing we find and out of defeat we snatched our victory for the nation noinoi became the pleasing sacrifice that answered their prayers is for freedom for myself and our children noinoi was a loving husband and father his loss three times in our lives was always a deep and painful one 14 years ago this month was the first time we lost him a president turned dictator and traitor to his oath suspended the Constitution and shut down the Congress that was much like this one before which I am honored to speak he detained my husband along with thousands of others Senators Publishers and anyone who had spoken up for the Democracy as its end Drew near but for noinoi a long and cruel ordeal was reserved the dictator of already knew that noinoi was not a body merely to be imprisoned but a spirit he must break for even as the dictatorship demolished One By One The institutions of democracy the press the Congress the independence of the Judiciary the protection of the Bill of Rights noinoi kept their Spirit Alive in himself the government sought to break him by indignities and Terror they locked him up in a tiny nearly airless cell in a military camp in the north they stripped him naked and held the threat of a sudden midnight execution over his head lenoi held up manfully under all of it I barely did as well for 43 days the authorities would not tell me what had happened to him this was the first time my children and I felt we had lost him when that didn't work they put him on trial for subversion murder and a host of other crimes before a military commission denoi challenged its Authority and went on a fast if he survived it then he felt God in intended him for another fate we had lost him again for nothing would hold him back from his determination to see his fast through to the end he stopped only when it dawned on him that the government would keep his body alive after the fast had destroyed his brain and so with barely any life in his body he called off the fast on the 40th Day God meant him for other things he felt he did not know that an early death would still be his fate that only the timing was wrong at any time during his long ordeal noinoi Could Have Made A Separate Peace with a dictatorship as so many of his countrymen had done but the spirit of democracy that inheres in our race and animates this chamber could not be allowed to die he held out in the loneliness of his cell and the frustration of Exile the Democratic alternative to the insatiable greed and Mindless cruelty of the right and the purging Holocaust of the left and then we lost him irrevocably and more painfully than in the past the new came to us in Boston it had to be after the three happiest years of our lives together but his death was my country's Resurrection in the courage and Faith by which alone they could be free again the dictator had called him a nobody yet two million people threw aside their paity and fear and escorted him to his grave and so began the revolution that has brought me to democracy's most famous home the Congress of the United [Applause] States the task had fallen on my shoulders to continue offering the Democratic alternative to our people archal Mich had said that democracy must be defended by arms when it is attacked by arms and by truth when it is attacked by lies he failed to say how it shall be won I held fast to Nino's conviction that it must be by the ways of the democracy I held out for participation in the 1984 election the dictatorship called even if I knew it would be rigged I was warned by the lawyers of the opposition that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the foregone results of elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent but I was not fighting for lawyers but for the people in whose intelligence I had implicit Faith by the exercise of democracy even in a dictatorship they would be prepared for democracy when it came and then also it was the only way I knew by which we could measure our power even in the terms dictated by the dictatorship the people Vindicated me in an election shamefully marked by government thuggery and fraud the opposition swept the elections garnering a clear majority of the votes even if they ended up thanks to a corrupt Commission on elections with barely a third of the seats in Parliament now I knew our power last year in an excess of arrogance the dictatorship called for its Doom in a snap election the people obliged with over a million signatures they drafted me to challenge the dictatorship and I obliged the rest is the history that dramatically unfolded on your television screens and across the front pages of your newspapers you saw a nation armed with courage and integrity Stand Fast by democracy a against threats and Corruption you saw women pole Watchers break out in tears as armed goons crashed the polling places to steal the ballots but just the same they tied themselves to the ballot boxes you saw a people so committed to the ways of democracy that they were prepared to give their lives for its pale imitation at the end of the day before another wave of fraud could distort the results I announce the people's Victory many of you here today played a part in changing the policy of your country towards ours we the Filipinos thank each of you for what you did for balancing America's strategic interest against human concerns illuminates the American Vision of the world the co-chairman of the United States Observer team in his report to the president said I was witnessed to an extraordinary manifestation of democracy on the part of the Filipino people the ultimate result was the election of Mrs corason Akino as president and Mr Salvador Lael as Vice Vice President of the Philippines when a subservient Parliament announced my opponent's Victory the people then turned out in the streets and proclaimed me the president of all the people and true to their word when a handful of military leaders declared themselves against the dictatorship the people rallied to their protection surely the people take care of their own it is on that faith and the obligation it entails that I assumed the presidency as I came to power peacefully so shall I keep it that is my contract with my people and my commitment to God he had willed that the blood drawn with a lash shall not in my country be paid by blood drawn by the sword but by the tearful Joy of reconciliation we have Swept Away absolute power by a limited Revolution that respected the life and freedom of every Filipino now we are restoring full constitutional government again as we restore democracy by the ways of democracy so are we completing the Constitutional structures of our new democ ocracy under a constitution that already gives full respect to the Bill of Rights a jealously independent constitutional commission is completing its draft which will be submitted later this year to a popular referendum when it is approved there will be elections for both national and local positions So within about a year from a peaceful but National upheaval that overturned a dictatorship we shall have returned to full constitutional go government given the polarization and breakdown We inherited this is no small achievement my predecessor set aside democracy to save it from a communist Insurgency that numbered less than 500 unhampered by respect for human rights he went at it with hammer and tongs by the time he fled that Insurgency had grown to more than 16,000 I think there is a lesson here to be learned about trying to stifle a thing with the means by which it grows I don't thank I don't think anybody in or outside our country concerned for a democratic and open Philippines doubts what must be done through political initiative and local reintegration programs we must seek to bring the insurgents down from the hills and by economic progress and Justice show them that which the best intentioned among them fight as president of all my people I will not betray the cause of Peace by which I came to power yet equally and again no friend of Filipino democracy will challenge this I will not stand by and allow an Insurgent leadership to spurn our offer of peace and kill our young soldiers and threaten our New Freedom yet I must explore the path of peace to the utmost for at its end whatever disappointment I meet there is the moral basis for laying down the olive branch of peace and taking up the Sword of War [Music] still should it come to that I will not waver from the course laid down by your great Liberator with malice towards none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphans to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and Lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations like a Abraham Lincoln I understand that Force may be necessary before Mercy like Lincoln I don't relish it yet I will do whatever it takes to defend the integrity and freedom of my country finally may I turn to that other slavery our $26 billion foreign debt I have said that we shall honor it yet the means by which we shall be able to do so are kept from us many of the conditions imposed on the previous government that stole this debt continue to be imposed on us who never benefited from it and no assistance or liberality commensurate with the Calamity that was visted on us has been extended yet ours must have been the cheapest Revolution ever with Little Help from others we Filipinos fulfilled the first and most difficult condition of the debt negotiation the full restoration of democracy and responsible government elsewhere and in other times of more stringent World economic conditions Marshall plans and their like were felt to be necessary companions of returning democracy when I met with President Reagan we began an important dialogue about cooperation and the strengthening of friendship between our two countries that meeting was both a confirmation and a new beginning I am sure it will lead to positive results in all areas of common concern today we Face the aspiration of a people who had known so much poverty and massive unemployment for the past 14 years and yet offer their lives for the abstraction of democracy wherever I went in the campaign slum area or impoverished Village they came to me with one cry democracy not food although they clearly needed it but democracy not work although they surely wanted it but democracy not money for they gave what little they had to my campaign they didn't expect me to work a miracle that would instantly put food into their mouths clothes on their back education in their children and give them work that will put dignity in their lives but I feel the pressing obligation to respond quickly as the leader of a people so deserving of all these things we Face a communist Insurgency that feeds on economic deterioration even as we carry a great share of the Free World defenses in the Pacific these are only two of the many burdens my people carry even as they try to build a worthy and enduring house for their new democracy that may serve as well as a redout for freedom in Asia yet no sooner is one stone laid than two are taken away half are export earnings $2 billion out of $4 billion which is all all we can earn in the restrictive markets of the world must go to pay just the interest on a debt whose benefit the Filipino people never received still we fought for honor and if only for Honor we shall pay and yet should we have to ring the payments from the sweat of our men's faces and sink all the wealth piled up by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil yet to all Americans as the leader of a proud and Free People I address this question has there been a greater test of national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through you have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it and here you have a people who want it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it 3 years ago I said Thank You America for the Haven from oppression and the home you gave noinoi myself and our children and for the three happy years of our lives together today I say join us America as we build a new home for democracy another Haven for the oppressed so it may stand as a shining Testament of our two Nations commitment to Freedom good president coron sakino in Her speech before the joint session of the Congress of the United States of America uh I'm still with Norman orstein and U Norman the speech was interrupted 10 times um in its course and um I guess uh it is obvious that the response has been enthusiastic wildly enthusiastic I would say orley we can see Mrs aino leaving uh it's going to take her a while to get out of this chamber because I think you're going to find all kinds of members of Congress those are mostly the leaders now near the front of the chamber who will want to shake her hand she is uh a celebrity of uh of sorts in this country now and uh I think she will probably exchange greetings with some members of Congress who she's met uh over the years and uh others who are just going to crowd forward to the front of the aisles uh to to try to uh reach out and shake her hand exchange a word or two uh this was a very very well-received speech very cleverly presented I might I think it's balanced uh considering the fact that uh we all know um there are differences as far as stances as regards uh Aid or policy that which the Philippines is concerned uh between the Democrats and the Republicans and even amongst the Republicans there are those who are more in the air to the right yes there there are definitely some conservative Republicans who are fearful that uh uh president aino is going to be too soft towards the Communist and the Communist uh Insurgency uh and then there are members of Congress frankly on both sides of the aisle who are uh feeling the economic pinch right now the tremendous budget pinch but what Mrs aino did was to draw in both sides uh uh talking about her commitment to democracy and her desire to avoid Bloodshed at at uh almost uh any uh turn but also indicating her determination to keep the Philippines free