BORN on February 8, 1960, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III spent his 25th birthday amid mounting people-powered street protests that would force the then-strongman Ferdinand Marcos to abandon Malacañang barely two weeks after Aquino’s next birthday in 1986.
Sandwiched between four sisters, President Aquino was born as the third child—and only son—of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. and former President Corazon Aquino, who rose to power in the aftermath of her husband’s assassination on August 21, 1983.
Nicknamed Noynoy, Aquino, barely 30 years old, first served as Tarlac congressman in 1989, before being elected in 2007 as senator, like his father; then as President, like his mother, following his election to the top post in the 2010 presidential polls.
At 25, Aquino was working as Nike Philippines’s retail sales supervisor and youth promotions assistant, until he was promoted assistant for advertising and promotion for Mondragon Philippines in 1985. A year later, he was named vice president of the family-owned Intra-Strata Assurance Corp.
Cory’s bodyguard
That stint was marked, however, by the times he had to devote as de facto “bodyguard” to his mother, who was swept into the vortex of fast-changing political events following the assassination of her husband, the senator Ninoy, as he returned from US exile in 1983.
The subsequent nationwide protests after August 21, 1983, culminated in a call by the dictator for snap elections in February 1986. Soon, the various opposition groups decided to rally behind just one candidate, who they thought stood the biggest chance of unseating the strongman. That person was Cory Aquino.
When she was catapulted to the presidency following the four-day February 1986 Edsa revolt, her only son, Noynoy, became even more involved in her day-to-day activities, giving him a ringside view of both the powers and the crushing burden of the presidency. Little did he know at that time that such an experience was meant to prepare him for his turn to preside over the country his parents had served with a passion.
Bullet in his neck
Noynoy, the son, divided his time between helping out his mother and doing his day job; serving as vice president and treasurer of a security agency owned by a relative. Working for his uncle, Antolin Oreta, apparently gave him more leeway to be by his mother’s side whenever necessary, impelled by a protective instinct for a mother who had to face down seven coup attempts. In one such attempt in August 1987, he was a collateral damage, as rebel soldiers encircling the Palace fired at his convoy on their way back to Malacañang. To this day, he points out occasionally, a bullet is lodged in his neck owing to that ambush.
Having witnessed at age 25 how the irresistible force of the people’s anger can, in due time, dislodge even the seemingly immovable object that an entrenched dictatorship represented, the lessons of power and responsibility are etched indelibly in Aquino’s mind as a reminder of the pitfalls one should watch out for from the dizzying heights of the presidency.
Only a few people turning 25 have such a challenging life as Noynoy Aquino had at that age, when most others would be starting to peak in their career. But in all interviews and forums where he talks about his life then, the only son of Ninoy and Cory makes it clear the experience was both a blessing and a burden. History was being made as he marked his own quarter of a century, and the man doesn’t sound like he had any regret about having his life hijacked, as it were, by history.
Recalling the four-day peaceful uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, Aquino singled out “an image from the Edsa People Power Revolution that has been branded into our national consciousness: Nuns on their knees, who, despite being worried at the sight of guns, continued to display faith and compassion. Through the rosaries and flowers we handed to armed soldiers, through the human chains we formed to stop the advance of tanks, we were able to prove: Compassion is the most powerful response to anger; there is no greater weapon than love.”
Image credits: Romy Mariano, Bloomberg