SunStar
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June 27, 2021
“Former Philippine president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III died on Thursday, June 24, at the age of 61.
Aquino had been suffering from various illnesses since 2019. He had been undergoing dialysis for at least five months and had recently undergone a heart procedure.
He served from 2010 to 2016, riding on a wave of goodwill after the death of his mother, democracy icon Cory Aquino, and on the promise of leading the nation to prosperity through “Daang Matuwid” – or the straight and honest path” (Rappler, June 25, 2021).
It is said in Filipino that “ang masamang damo, matagal mamatay.” Or in English, bad weeds take a long time to die. Well, if this is true, then surely the late President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was a good one, leaving this life at the unripe young age of 61. At least he “outlived” his father, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on his return to the Philippines, during the regime of the late deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Historical revisionist claims notwithstanding, his father certainly was a good weed, leading the fight against the Marcos dictatorship as an exile in the United States. Had he not been mercilessly gunned down on returning to the country, he would most certainly have succeeded the dictator Marcos, something that his reluctant wife, the late President Corazon “Cory” Aquino eventually managed to accomplish in 1986.