Answer:
MANILA, Philippines — Former President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III has passed away, former Malacañang officials said Thursday morning. He was 61. Aquino died at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City, said a source who served as a senior Cabinet official during the administration of former president Corazon Aquino. Aquino was in office from 2010 to 2016 as the Philippines’ 15th president. The Aquino family has yet to release an official statement on his death. But his younger cousin, former Senator Bam Aquino, paid tribute to the former president, saying he was heartbroken over the older Aquino’s demise.
“Nadurog ang puso ko sa paglisan ni PNoy sa atin. Sa mga susunod na oras, maraming sasabihin tungkol sa kanya – iba totoo, iba hindi. Pero ito ang masasabi ko – lahat ibinigay niya para sa Pilipino. Wala siyang itinira,” said the former senator, the first relative to speak up on Aquino’s death.
(My heart was broken when PNoy left us. In the next couple of hours, many things will be said about him – some true, some not. But this is all I can say – he gave everything he can for the Filipino people. He did not leave anything for himself.)
He was the only son of former president Corazon Aquino and her assassinated husband, senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, both revered for leading the struggle to restore democracy in the archipelago nation.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted his “grief over the death of a sea-green incorruptible”.
He said Aquino was “brave under armed attack, wounded in crossfire, indifferent to power and its trappings, and ruled our country with a puzzling coldness but only because he hid his feelings so well it was thought he had none”.
Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen, who was Aquino’s former peace adviser, expressed “profound sadness” over the former leader’s death.
“I knew him to be a kind man, driven by his passion to serve our people, diligent in his duties, and with an avid and consuming curiosity about new knowledge and the world in general,” Leonen said.
Aquino, who was succeeded by President Rodrigo Duterte, waged an anti-corruption campaign during a term that ushered in key economic reforms.
