9 were to be
executed – but there was a surprise
last-minute reprieve for Philippines woman Mary Jane Veloso after the
Indonesian attorney general responded to calls from Manila that she should be
spared to act as a witness against the woman expected to be charged with
trafficking her. Even as Australia made an 11th hour plea for clemency for the Bali nine pair,
Philippine President Benigno Aquino ramped up lobbying to save the life of a
Filipina maid at a summit of South-East Asian leaders in Malaysia. Mr Aquino met his Indonesian counterpart Joko
Widodo during a three-day summit of leaders of the 10-nation Association of
South-East Asian Nations, which began on Sunday. A huge campaign to spare the life of
mother-of-two, Mary Jane Veloso, the only woman among those slated for
execution, had been under way in the Philippines for days. Veloso, 30, has
consistently maintained she was duped by an international syndicate to smuggle
2.6 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia in 2010.
Benigno
Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III is the 15th
President of the Philippines since June 2010. Aquino is a
fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano
"Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his
grandfather, Benigno Aquino, Sr., served as Speaker of the House of
Representatives of the Philippines from 1943 to 1944; and his parents were
President Corazon Aquino and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr.
Born in Manila,
Aquino joined his family in their exile in the United States; returned to Philippines
in 1983 shortly after the assassination of his father and held several
positions working in the private sector. In 1998, he was elected to the House
of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac province. Following
the death of his mother on August 1, 2009, many people began calling on Aquino
to run for president. In 2010, Aquino was sworn into office as the fifteenth
President of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In 2013, TIME named him one of the 100 Most
Influential People in the World.
Although the
official residence of the president is the Malacañang Palace, Aquino actually
resides in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace
grounds. An interesting piece of info is that he in the ranks of Atal Behari
Vajpayee and Abdul Kalam. When the
Philippines elected Benigno Aquino president in
2010, many predicted the country’s most eligible bachelor would soon claim his
next big prize: A first lady.
It didn’t happen
with then girlfriend Shalani Soledad, a local politician he dated for two
years. Nor would it be his stylist Liz Uy, television host Grace Lee, or any of
the string of other women to whom Aquino has been romantically linked. When the
South China Morning Post asked the 55-year-old Aquino whether he was still
hopeful of settling down with someone, he said: “A little less now than I was
before.”
Aquino with TV host Grace Lee
He said three of
his friends now have daughters old enough to be dating. Aquino said he told
them: “You know, by the time I have a daughter who’s gonna … be going out on
dates, I’ll probably be senile and won’t understand any of it anymore’. So God
has a perfect plan for all of us.” The state of Aquino’s love life has long
been tabloid fodder. One gossip columnist claims to have counted 18 girlfriends
– and that was before Aquino even became president. Lately, he has been linked
to 25-year-old Filipino-German beauty queen Pia Wurtzbach, who described the
balding bachelor as “very fun to talk to.”
Aquino points to a
childhood experience seared into his memory. His senator father, after whom he
was named, was jailed by the Marcos dictatorship on charges of committing
murder and subversion when Aquino was 12. “There was somebody who was detained
in the same facility as my father – and he never got any visitor for a period of
five years, apart from those who visited his cellmate. So when you talk about
[being abandoned], that guy represents to me what it meant to be abandoned and
still stand up to your beliefs.” He said the story taught him to look for
“somebody [who] will stand by you regardless of what or whatever.”
“Ours was not gonna
be a simple life. So not just anybody can withstand the pressures of it,” said
Aquino, who was 23 when his father was assassinated, 26 when his mother Corazon
was pressured into the presidency, 27 when he nearly died himself from gunshot
wounds, and 50 when he was catapulted into the presidency after the death of
his mother.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
29th Apr
2015.
Partly sourced from http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/
