Benigno Aquino III

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. The son of assassinated politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and 11th president Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. Benigno Aquino III previously served as a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he eventually won. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Under Aquino's presidency, the nation's economy grew at the highest rates in decades, and the country was dubbed a "Rising Tiger" economy. Known for his confrontational foreign policy, his administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and assert the Philippines' claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. His term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project; he was later acquitted of all charges filed against him regarding the Mamasapano incident. Aquino died from diabetic kidney disease on June 24, 2021, at age 61.