To the Top — Fidel RaMos As a young boy, Ramos watched his congressman-father chop wood and plant vegetables to feed his family. Once prominent in the northern province, the Ramos Ⅱough he was too young for military service the war touched Ramos when he helped shield his second cousin, Ferdinad Marcos, then a lieutenant in the underground guerrilla army, from the Japanese. Despite such distractions, Ramos remained a serious student, becoming president of his secondary school class. In 1945, one year before his country gained independence from America, he decided on a career. Engineers would be needed to rebuild his devastated country, he concluded. He took a competitive exam for West Point, the U.S. military academy, and won the one space reserved in each class for a Filipino. Following graduation. He trained as a civil engineer in Illinois. He learned to lead by example and soon recognized his own country’s need for a professional, nonpolitical military. His time in America, he says, reinforced his strong belief in free enterprise his strong belief in free enterprise, in the rule of law and in the value of rewarding merit. Ramos served with Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine special forces troops. As a major, he volunteered for Vietnam, where he realized for Vietnam, where he realized that the same conditions that fed revolution there also existed in his own impoverished country. As Ramos rose through the ranks of the Philippine military, he knew better than most the excesses of the Marcos regime. He had frequently thought of quitting, but had stayed out of loyalty to his men. “I have so many thousands of people to whom I am responsible,” Ramos told his friends. “I cannot just quit.” Besides, Marcos himself had promoted his savvy younger cousin to head the military-led national police force. Eventually, the break came. At 4 p.m. on February 21, 1986, Major-General Fidel Ramos was preparing to face a gathering of angry neighbors. Juan Ponce Enrile, the defense minister, was asking him to join an uprising against Marcos. Moments later, Amelita Ramos ushered the neighbors into their living room. The Philippines’s second-ranking military officer sat patiently as his friends pleaded. “Please, sir,” one of his neighbors implored, “for the good of the country, resign. Leave Marcos.” Like most Filipinos, they believed the recent elections had been arranged by Marcos, denying Cory Aquino her rightful place as the new president of the Philippines. As his neighbors left his house, Ramos was ready to join Enrile. Together they hoped to rally the philipine military to Aquino’s side, praying that enough popular support could be generated to keep themselves from being slaughtered by Marcos loyalists. Four days later, the massive demonstrations fueled by the defections of Ramos and Enrile had triumphed. Marcos and his notorious free-spending wife, Imelda, were forced to flee the country. Cory Aquino became the new president, and the People Power revolution quickly became a worldwide symbol of democracy. Ramos, Aquino’s first military chief of staff and later her defense secretary, was at one point urged by officers to join an attempted coup. But he held firm to his belief in the democratic process. In 1992, Aquino endorsed Ramos in the six-candidate race to succeed her. 拉莫斯還是小孩子時，他就注意到作國會議員的父親要靠砍柴種菜來養家餬口。拉莫斯一家曾在北部地區聲名遠揚，而在二戰日本佔領時卻深受其害。儘管他太小無法服兵役，可他還是接觸到戰爭，因為他曾幫助保護他的堂兄，費迪南德·馬科斯脱離日本人的魔掌，當時馬科斯是一名地下游擊隊中尉。 除了這次的干擾外，拉莫斯一直是個認真的學生，併成了他所在中學的班級主席。1945年，在他的國家脱離美國獨立的前一年，他選定了自己的道路。他悟出，人們需要工程師來重建百廢待興的祖國。 他參加了美國軍事學院西點軍校競爭激烈的考試，在每班留出的一名菲律賓人的名額中，他考取了這個名額。畢業後他在伊利諾伊州接受土木工程師的培訓。他學會了以榜樣來領導別人，不久就發現他的祖國需要一支專業的、非政治性的軍隊。他説，他在美國期間堅定了他自由經營、依法辦事和獎懲分明的信念。 朝鮮戰爭期間，拉莫斯服役於菲律賓軍隊而後返回家園抗擊農民暴動。任上尉時他就幫助建立並訓練了第一支菲律賓特種部隊精鋭營。任少校後他主動請纓前往越南，他意識到當地的革命氣氛同樣孕育在他一窮二白的祖國。 拉莫斯成長在菲律賓軍營，他非常清楚馬科斯政權的暴行。他常常想到離開軍隊，但出於對部下的忠誠，他留下來了。“我要對成百上千萬的人民負責，”拉莫斯對他的朋友們説，“我不能就這樣離開。”馬科斯還變本加厲地親自提升他詭計多端的堂弟統領軍事化的國家警察部隊。 終於，決裂開始了。1986年2月21日下午4點，費德爾·拉莫斯少將將要面對一羣憤怒的同僚。國防部長鬍安·龐斯·恩瑞爾請求他加入反抗馬科斯的起義。 過了一會兒，阿米利特·拉莫斯陪同眾弟兄進入他們的客廳。當他的朋友們發出懇求時這位菲律賓軍方第二號人物冷靜地端坐。一名弟兄哀歎道：“閣下，為了國家，請你辭職，離開馬科斯吧。”和大多數菲律賓人一樣，他們認為近期的選舉早已由馬科斯刻意安排，不會讓科麗·阿基諾取得成為菲律賓新總統的應得位置。 當弟兄們離開拉莫斯的房子，他就決意加入到恩瑞爾的行動中去他們希望能夠合力將菲律賓軍隊團結在阿基諾周圍，祈禱能得到足夠的支持以使他們自己免遭保馬科斯分子的殺戮。 四天後，拉莫斯和恩瑞爾的倒戈激起了大規模的示威遊行並取得了勝利。馬科斯和他聲名狼藉、揮霍無度的妻子伊梅爾達，被迫逃離菲律賓。科麗·阿基諾成為新總統，人民主權革命迅速成為全世界民主精神的象徵。 拉莫斯當上了阿基諾的第一位總參謀長以及後來的國防部長，期間曾經有官員要求他參與一次未遂的政變。但他對於自己走的民主道路沒有動搖。1992年，阿基諾在有六名競選人的總統競選中授權他接任總統。
