In 1988, the world's first Chinese female president came to China by special plane. She is the first legendary female president in the history of the Philippines.
What is unexpected is that the Philippine female president did not take the capital Beijing as the first stop of her visit to China, but chose Xiamen, a beautiful coastal city. Why did she make Xiamen her first stop on her visit to China?
Originally, her ancestral home was Hongwei Village, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China. Externally, she has always claimed that in addition to being the head of state of the Philippines, she also has another important identity - "daughter of Hongxue Village", and this visit has another task in addition to promoting friendly relations between the Philippines and China.
She has sent envoys to Visit Hongwei Village in Fujian Province, China, many times to find her roots and ask her ancestors.
She also said publicly: "Many Filipinos are actually descendants of Chinese, and I am one of them, and I am very proud of myself and China." I think a lot of other Filipinos think the same way. I would love to come to China to find my roots. I sincerely hope that the Philippines and China can cooperate more closely and help each other. ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > the village of Hongwei is the root of Corazon</h1>
The Philippine female president, whose original name was Maria Corazon Cominonco, was born on January 25, 1933 in Manila, Philippines. The word "corrazon" comes from Spanish, which means "heart."
Her catholic fathers named her Corazon, and placed an expectation on her to have a heart that loved the country and the people, and the Corazon people lived up to her name, and she fulfilled her father's wishes as an adult.
Her great-grandfather Xu Yuhuan, whose original name was Xu Shangzhi, was a native of Fujian, China, and the Xu family once lived in Hongwei Village.
Because of the chaos caused by the First Opium War, Xu Yuhuan came to the Philippines with his elders because of the compulsion of life when he was 20 years old, and initially lived by the sea to fish, and later married a Filipino girl and joined the Catholic Church.
The picture shows grandfather Xu Yuhuan and Corazon
Xu Yuhuan saw that the climate of the Philippines was particularly suitable for rubber cultivation, so he established a rubber plantation and also engaged in sugar, rice and construction business, and the family soon became a well-known family in the Philippines.
Corazon's father was the eldest grandson of Xu Yuhuan, and in the generation of Corazon's father and brothers, because of the accumulation of a strong economic foundation of his ancestors, the entire family began to shift to the political arena, and Corazon's grandfather, father and brother all served as members of Congress.
Corazon's mother came from the famous "Sumulun family", although she grew up in a wealthy family, she has always been industrious and frugal, and she has no temper of a rich lady. Corrazon's maternal grandfather was a senator who ran for vice president of the Philippines.
Corazon grew up in such a privileged family background, and she was well prepared for her future political path.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > Corazon's political career</h1>
Corrazon grew up in the Philippines with an orthodox classical, monastic education, and at the age of 13 she was sent to the United States to study, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Vincent's Hill College in New York, married Benigno Aquino, a young and promising fellow politician, and changed her name to Corazon Aquino with her husband's surname. She later received honorary doctorates from Stonehill College and St. Vincent's Hill College.
At the age of 22, Corazon was general secretary and senator of the Philippine Liberal Party, while her husband, who was both a mayor and an opposition leader at the time, raised four daughters and a son after marriage, and the family lived happily.
Pictured is a happy family in Corazon
At that time, The Philippine president Marcos was a man who did not care about the people's suffering, only cared about his own dictatorship and personal enrichment, Benigno was not accustomed to the style of this president, he was bent on the welfare of the people, and gathered some democratic aspirants with common aspirations to oppose Marcos's dictatorship.
Unexpectedly, Benigno did not succeed, but was arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up charges, he stayed in prison for 7 years, suffering from heart disease, but even so, he still did not forget his original intention, to overthrow Marcos's tyranny. After his release from prison, he gave up the peaceful life of his family in the United States, resolutely decided to return to the Philippines, and jointly planned to run for the presidency with various opposition parties, pulling Marcos from the presidency.
But this time, he never returned, And Corazon inquired around, only to learn that her husband had been shot and killed at the Manila airport, and this bad news was a thunderbolt for a woman, who had lost her beloved husband in an instant, and her husband had died to protect the Filipino people.
Her heart was like a knife, regretting that she did not accompany him at the moment of his end of life, and her heart was full of endless resentment and remorse, but she resolutely took up the burden, and as Mrs. Aquino, she decided to officially enter the political arena and seek justice for the Filipino people, which was also her husband's unfinished business.
Benigno's death provoked the anger of the opposition, and the entire Philippines was plunged into unrest, with the masses and opposition demonstrating in the streets demanding that the truth be found out. Corazon endured the grief of losing his lover and threw himself into the political movement against the Marcos dictatorship, winning the support of the people, the opposition, and the Catholic Church.
The 1986 Philippine presidential election was held early on February 7, and Marcos was elected, and it was unanimously believed that he was elected by fraud, which was not a good name. In fact, Marcos secretly pressured Congress to falsify the final election results. As a result, with the help of the Filipino people, the protest exposed Marcos election results were fraudulent, and finally the 53-year-old Corazon defeated Marcos and became the eleventh president of the Philippines in 1986, creating the first female president in the history of the Philippines.
The picture shows Corrazon elected president of the Philippines
Since taking office, Corazon has made a series of drastic reforms both internally and externally.
A new constitution was formulated internally, which clearly stipulated that the president could not be re-elected, eliminated corruption and corrupt officials politically, attached importance to the development of agriculture economically, and successfully reversed the negative growth of the economy into positive growth, making an indelible contribution to the Philippines.
The stationing of U.S. troops in the Philippines was suspended. Actively and openly establishing friendly relations with China, she never shy away from the fact that she is a Chinese, he believes that her "roots" are in China, and she will never forget that she has inextricable roots with China.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="50" > Corazon to ask for his roots</h1>
Although Corazon was born in the Philippines, she has never forgotten that her ancestors once survived on the land of China, and when she came to Xiamen and stepped off the gangway of the plane, dozens of Chinese and foreign journalists and several representatives of Filipino students studying in China greeted her and held up placards: "We love you, Keli." "Corrie was her nickname when she wasn't out of the cabinet.
Accompanied by the governor of Fujian Province and the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Corazon and her two unmarried daughters and more than 10 government officials rushed to her ancestral home, Hongwei Village. When they arrived there, the villagers had long been waiting at the head of the village, waving the flags, bouquets and ribbons of the two countries, which symbolized the friendship between China and the Philippines, to welcome this distinguished guest who had arrived from afar.
The chairman of the village committee took the delegation to the reception room of the village committee, and on behalf of the fathers and fellow villagers of the whole village, presented a pair of dragon and phoenix hanging plates with Chinese characteristics, a set of exquisite court wine utensils, and a photo album of the scenery of Hongwei Village to the female president as souvenirs, expressing the warmest welcome.
Corazon took his two daughters to the Xu family temple to burn incense and worship the ancestors, and paid homage to Corazon's great-grandfather Xu Yuhuan.
Pictured here is the Xu Family Temple: The ancestral temple of Corrazon Aquino
Corazon also visited the village kindergarten and planted a Araucaria tree with her two daughters in a small garden in the village that forged a friendship between China and the Philippines.
Accompanied by Governor Wang Zhaoguo, she ascended to the podium in the middle of the square and delivered a speech of more than 10 minutes in a dignified manner, and she excitedly said to the villagers: "I came to China for both state affairs and personal reasons, because I am the head of state of the Philippines and, in a sense, the daughter of this village." ”
A short sentence is full of respect and love for the Chinese nation by a head of state. When the villagers heard these words, they all burst into tears.
The picture shows Corazon Aquino giving a passionate speech in Hongzhi Village
After the speech, Corazon announced the donation of a "children's paradise" to Hongzhi Village, so that children can witness the Friendship between China and the Philippines from generation to generation.
The next day, Corazon ended the ancestral search for roots in Hongxue Village and came to the second stop- Beijing.
In April 1988, President Corrazon Aquino visited Beijing
The leaders of the two countries held heated discussions on international and regional issues and discussed the grand plan for the development of friendly relations between China and the Philippines for more than a thousand years. "The goals of our two countries are the same, both are to achieve national strength and safeguard national independence and dignity," Corazon said excitedly. This concept of mutual understanding and mutual support has created the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries. ”
On the third day of her visit to China, she came to the Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People and saw an old man in a black Zhongshan suit walking slowly toward her, and she recognized at a glance that it was comrade Deng Xiaoping, whom she respected, who warmly shook Korazon's hand and said kindly in a thick Sichuan accent: "Welcome, I am glad to see you." ”
Corazon stared excitedly at the idol in his heart, and his mood could not be calmed for a long time, and Deng Xiaoping then asked, "What about your daughter?" Corazon's two daughters immediately walked out of the entourage, and Deng Xiaoping did not put up a shelf at all, but asked kindly: "Can you call me Grandpa?" ”
The two daughters nodded in agreement, and Deng Xiaoping looked at the two girls as if he had seen their long-lost relatives, and said with great pleasure: "We have confessed today!" ”
After Deng Xiaoping took a solo photo with the mother and daughter, the two daughters excitedly shouted "Thank you Grandpa!" Deng Xiaoping smiled widely, feeling that he had picked up a big bargain, turned to Corazon and said, "They call me Grandpa, so it seems that you are a generation lower than me, you don't mind!" Corazon quickly replied, "What's the matter, they call you Grandpa, then I'll call you Uncle." ”
At this time, the reporters present immediately recorded the warm picture of this moment with paper, pencil and camera.
Mencius said, "Save the people from fire and water, and take their residue." "Corrazon crushed Marcos's dictatorship, saved the Filipino people from fire and water, moved the Philippine economy from decay to prosperity, and actively established friendly relations with China."
"The scarf does not let the eyebrows be raised, and the red face is better than the erlang." Corazon is not only the Chinese female president of the Philippines, but also the pride of women, and the model of women in the new era.
Her heroic deeds have inspired thousands of our female compatriots, and here we not only remember the late female president who made positive contributions to Sino-Philippine friendly relations, but also hope that the spirit of world peace can be passed on from generation to generation.
——End——
Author: Zero Lu Jinghao
Edited by: Yayu
Typography: Mu Xi