BENIGNO “Noynoy” Aquino III knows that when steps down from office today (Thursday), his parents, democracy icons Ninoy and Cory, will be smiling.
Mr. Aquino told the INQUIRER he is certain to get one today, as their stamp of approval for the job he has done as the 15th President of the Republic of the Philippines.
A smile, he said, was the “highest compliment” his parents gave to him and his siblings.
“Yes, I think both of them are smiling right now,” said Mr. Aquino, their only son.
Mr. Aquino has always worn the yellow ribbon on his barongs – some actually have the ribbon embroidered on them – a symbol of his parents’ legacy, which he has strove hard to preserve.
It is not easy to be the son in a brood of five, where your family struggled to survive much like the hundreds of other families who defied the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Mr. Aquino’s tendency to steel himself was something he had learned early on in life – not by choice, but more by circumstance – to allow himself to make sound decisions. But while he was President, people interpreted it as lack of empathy.
When you listen to Mr. Aquino tell his life story, you will realize that his father had twice given him – 10 years apart – the monumental task of taking care of his mother and sisters, and by extension, the country.
The first time was when he was a 13-year-old boy and his father was in jail. This, President Aquino had narrated many times.
The second time was a story Mr. Aquino had not spoken much about, at least publicly.
It was in Boston, the moment father and son were getting ready to ride the car to the Logan Airport for the elder Aquino’s final trip back to the Philippines.
“The extent of all his habilin was just a nod of his head. With that one nod, (he seemed to say) ‘Alam mo na lahat ng inaasahan ko sa ’yo, lahat ng mga obligasyon sa pamilya…’ Parang napaka-pregnant (with meaning) with that one nod. I am not sure if naki-nod ako or sinabi ko ‘Oo, dad.’ Yung ‘Oh’ (the sound a Filipino makes when he nods his head)… andun na lahat,” Mr. Aquino said.
Noynoy Aquino, 56, never planned or aspired for the presidency. But he was prepared for it, even if many insist he was not.
He may have had a less than stellar career as a legislator, but his personal journey as the son of Ninoy and Cory, the child who preferred to stay in the background, yet absorbed every bit of the country’s struggles, honed him for the presidency.
He was ready to become President in 2010 when he won with the biggest percentage vote in history.
The straight path President Aquino promised the Filipino people turned out to be a rough road.
But in all, he brought stability to the country, in great contrast to the tumultuous nine years of Gloria Arroyo and the truncated term of Joseph Estrada.
Come to think of it, it was an entire generation between the presidencies of Fidel Ramos and Noynoy Aquino – the only times, post martial law, where there had been no military intervention amid a political crisis.
While his administration was far from perfect and critics insisted he had a lackluster performance, President Aquino had the most consistently high trust ratings, ending his term with a 49 percent rating in March 2016, according to Pulse Asia.
Mr. Aquino will leave office with the highest net satisfaction rating compared to his predecessors, including his own mother, Corazon Aquino.
SWS figures showed that Mrs. Aquino had a +7 net satisfaction rating in April 1992; Ramos with +19; Estrada, +9; and Arroyo, -17.
Mr. Aquino has a +27 net satisfaction rating in April 2016.
Except for the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) debacle and the pork barrel scam where some of his allies were implicated, there was hardly any corruption issue against the President himself.
But Mr. Aquino had a penchant for taking the bullet for his men, which earned him the ire of the people who wished he just fired incompetent government officials, especially those responsible for the lousy metro train system and horrendous traffic.
That the President was largely untainted by graft, and with such high credibility, the economy surged at a 6.2 percent growth rate, the fastest since the late 1970s.
Even as his administration was hit for its underspending that led to a slower growth rate, the Philippines was christened Asia’s Rising Star.
If Filipinos were difficult to please, it was a different story on the global stage.
Mr. Aquino’s high esteem can largely be credited to the reputation of his revered parents. But he stepped out of their shadows and made the world take the Philippines seriously.
He received standing ovations abroad; the country took center stage at the biggest global environment summit in Paris last year.
President Aquino will certainly be remembered at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), where he fought for the Philippines’ national interests amid China’s aggression in the South China Sea.
He led the campaign for the adoption of a legally binding Code of Conduct among claimant parties, despite it being an uphill battle. The Philippines stood up to China quite a number of times – whether at sea with a brilliantly executed Ayungin shoal mission or bringing China to court for arbitration.
Mr. Aquino does not like travelling, but chief diplomat, he made a total of 46 foreign trips in six years, which included 11 state visits, 10 official visits, four working visits, and 21 summits. The United States was his most visited country, going there seven times.
As commander-in-chief, President Aquino led the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as it pivoted back to its original mandate of external defense.
The Defense Department spent P65.89 billion for the modernization program that at least gave the military a minimum defense capability after decades of neglect.
For the Philippine National Police (PNP), government in 2015 released a P2.83 billion fund for the facilities and equipment of the police force.
If there was one thing he learned about himself as a leader, President Aquino said he was now “more cognizant” of his limits.
But he held on to the “Filipino belief that God would not give you a burden that you cannot handle.”
The year 2013 might as well be the annus horribilis of the Aquino administration for all the natural and man-made calamities that it saw – from the Atimonan massacre to the revival of the Sabah claim by the Sultanate of Sulu; the severe weather disturbances that lashed at the country one after the other.
In September that year was the Zamboanga siege, and the next month, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Bohol.
In November, supertyphoon “Yolanda,” the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall, killed over 6,000 people.
Mr. Aquino said that he felt many of the challenges his administration faced was to prepare them for Yolanda, which he considers his biggest test because of the sheer devastation it brought.
With less than two years left in office, Mamasapano happened and it was a tragedy that Mr. Aquino himself said he would carry to his grave.
It cost him the passage of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), envisioned to finally bring peace and development in Central Mindanao.
In the legislative front, Mr. Aquino will be best remembered for signing the Reproductive Health Bill despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church and the Sin Tax, which levied higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol products, despite the strong lobby against it.
He vetoed a number of populist bills despite the backlash.
But he will also be remembered for his failure to push the Freedom of Information Act, a promise he made in 2010.
Mr. Aquino’s testy relationship with the judiciary brought some of the most exciting episodes in his term.
Despite all the challenges, the President said the six years were worth it. “I can shower you with statistics,” he said.
Perhaps a little known fact is that the number of negotiators for many trade agreements actually “quintupled” because, the President said government “received requests from our foreign trade partners to expedite the process.”
There were also low-key but successful programs that directly helped the people in the countryside, such as the sitio electrification projects meant to energize the countryside and the Trade Department’s Shared Service Facilities program to help micro-entrepreneurs.
The figures also include:
– 6.1 percent unemployment rate as of April 2016 compared to the 6.8 percent of the same period in 2010;
– 93.9 percent employment compared to the 92 percent in April 2010;
– 26.3 percent poverty incidence in the first semester of 2015, down from the 28.6 percent in the same period of 2009;
– six million foreign tourists;
– 55 million domestic tourists;
– an expected $6.3 billion foreign direct investment this year;
– a prediction to become a $1 trillion economy by 2030, bringing the country to First World status;
– nine million TESDA course graduates;
– 1.51 million of the 4.2 million households enrolled in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) improved their status to “non-poor;
– 18,000 kilometers of national tourism roads and farm-to-market roads completed.
Ask him what government departments such as Health, Science and Technology, and Environment have done, President Aquino can bring out a list of accomplishments and discuss them in detail.
He was particularly happy with the trust people now have in the state weather bureau.
“PAGASA’s credibility is very high,” Mr. Aquino said.
With all the statistics as well as anecdotal testimonies, Mr. Aquino was obviously piqued by allegations that he had done nothing in the past six years, calling them “a generic claim.”
“I want to find out who these people are who say that they didn’t feel (the growth). I’d like to ask them, could you just put yourself in the first half of 2010? What were your concerns then? What are your concerns now? And if we went to a more thorough interview with these individuals, I think we can point out what the differences are for everybody. And we can go on and on,” Mr. Aquino said.
Does he think he would have a quiet life as citizen Noy?
“My motto has always been prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We did disturb a lot of rice bowls. Going through the philosophy that we just took turns riding the merry go round that led to nowhere, we should not have accepted this position,” Mr. Aquino said.
When he ran for President in 2010, the goal was “to effect changes in society.”
“And part and parcel of that is to do away with the culture of impunity. Some people think it is their right to do harm to our people while they are in office and to the extent that we could, based on the evidence we managed to unearth, we went after these people,” Mr. Aquino said.
And so the Aquino administration filed cases against an ex-president, three senators, and many other government officials – something that was unheard of before.
Mr. Aquino’s critics have been saying that cases would soon be filed against him as he finally loses his immunity from being charged in court.
But the outgoing President is confident he has done right by his country, saying: “If there is justice in this world, I believe we can defend everything that we did.”
Noynoy Aquino steps down from office with his head held high.
The son rose and soared, to dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe, bear with unbearable sorrow, and run where the brave dare not go.