
Benigno Aquino III (8 February 1960-24 June 2021) was President of the Philippines from 30 June 2010 to 30 June 2016, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and preceding Rodrigo Duterte.
Biography[]
Benigno Aquino III was born in Manila, Luzon, Philippines in 1960, the son of liberal politicians Benigno Aquino, Jr. and Corazon Aquino. His family was exiled to the United States by Ferdinand Marcos' authoritarian regime, and his father was assassinated on his return home in 1983. However, his mother was elected President following the 1986 People Power Revolution, and the young Aquino survived an assassination attempt during Gregorio Honasan's coup attempt on 28 August 1987, before coming to work in the sugar industry. Aquino served in the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2007 and in the Senate from 2007 to 2010, affiliating himself with the Liberal Party. Following Corazon Aquino's death in 2009, many people called on Benigno Aquino III to run for President in the "Noynoy Phenomenon", and Aquino won with 42.08% of the vote. However, his presidency was marred by tragedies such as a hostage crisis on 23 August 2010 in which a disgruntled Manila policeman killed 8 Hong Konger tourists whom he had taken hostage before being shot dead, the government's slow response to Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013, and the costly 25 January 2015 operation to kill Zulkifli Abdhir in what became known as the "Mamasapano massacre"; young activists invented the term "Noynoying" to refer to lazing about, criticizing Aquino's work ethic. He also oversaw an escalation in tensions with China over control of the South China Sea, asserting his own country's claims in the sea. He died in 2021 at the age of 61 after battling diabetic kidney disease for two years.