Ex-Philippine Leader Ramos, Who Helped Oust Dictator Marcos, Dies

MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine President Fidel Valdez Ramos, a U.S.-properly trained ex-common who noticed action in the Korean and Vietnam wars and played a key job in a 1986 pro-democracy rebellion that ousted a dictator, has died. He was 94.

Ramos’s relatives announced his demise with profound disappointment but did not provide other specifics in a short assertion that questioned for privateness.

1 of his longtime aides, Norman Legaspi, mentioned Ramos experienced been in and out of the clinic in modern a long time owing to a coronary heart affliction and experienced endured from dementia.

Some of Ramos’s kin were with him when he died on Sunday at the Makati Professional medical Centre in metropolitan Manila, Legaspi mentioned.

“He was an icon. We shed a hero and I misplaced a father,” explained Legaspi, a retired Philippine air pressure formal, who served as a close employees to Ramos in and out of federal government for about 15 many years.

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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condoled with the family of Ramos in a Fb write-up. “We did not only get rid of a superior leader but also a member of the relatives,” he said.

The recently elected president is the namesake son of the former Philippine dictator, whose 1986 ouster came following Ramos, then a major official of the Philippine Constabulary, and defense main Juan Ponce Enrile withdrew their help in defections that sparked substantial military-backed protests.

Ramos was the late dictator’s next cousin, and in 1972 experienced aided him carry out martial law through which hundreds of men and women ended up incarcerated, tortured and became victims of extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

The Division of National Defense, which was at the time led by him, mentioned Ramos was a adorned soldier who spearheaded the modernization of the navy, a person of Asia’s most underfunded. He structured the elite distinctive forces of the army and the countrywide law enforcement.

The United States, the European Union and other foreign governments expressed their condolences. “His contributions to the U.S.-Philippines bilateral partnership and advancing our shared ambitions of peace and democracy will normally be remembered,” the U.S. Embassy in Manila claimed.

Invoice Clinton and Fidel Ramos toast in the course of a state luncheon tendered by the latter in Malacaniang palace in Manila on November 13, 1994.

Marcy Nighswander/AP

The cigar-chomping Ramos, regarded for his “we can do this” rallying simply call, thumbs-up indication, notice to element and organization handshakes, served as president from 1992 to 1998, succeeding the democracy icon, Corazon Aquino.

She was swept into the presidency in 1986 just after the largely tranquil “People Power” revolt that toppled the elder Marcos and turned a harbinger of transform in authoritarian regimes worldwide.

In a unforgettable instant of the revolt, as the tide turned against Marcos, Ramos jumped in triumph with his arms higher up while Enrile was rallying a group below a Philippine flagpole, drawing applause and cheers from rebel forces. The scene was captured by an AP and a few other photojournalists and had been reenacted by Ramos each yr all through the anniversary of the revolt, until eventually age and his failing well being prevented him from displaying up.

Marcos, his household and cronies were pushed into U.S. exile, wherever he died in 1989.

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Soon after Aquino rose to the presidency, Ramos became the military chief of staff and afterwards protection secretary, productively defending her from various violent coup makes an attempt.

In 1992, Ramos received the presidential elections and became the mainly Roman Catholic nation’s 1st Protestant president. His phrase was marked by significant reforms and attempts to dismantle telecommunications and other organization monopolies that activated a rare economic boom, bolstered the graphic of the impoverished Southeast Asian state and drew praise from enterprise leaders and the worldwide local community.

A single of his legacies was the 1996 signing of a peace pact involving his federal government and the Moro National Liberation Front, the most significant Muslim separatist team at the time in the risky southern Philippines, homeland of minority Muslims.

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Ramos’s quiet bearing in occasions of crises earned him the moniker “Steady Eddie.”

A son of a longtime legislator and international secretary, Ramos graduated from the U.S. Military services Academy at West Point in 1950. He was a aspect of the Philippine combat contingent that fought in the Korean War and was also associated in the Vietnam War as a non-overcome civil navy engineer.

Ramos is survived by his wife, Amelita Ramos, a faculty formal, pianist, sportswoman and an environmental advocate, and their 4 daughters. Their next youngster, Josephine Ramos-Samartino, died in 2011.

Funeral arrangements were being not promptly introduced.

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