... was one of the leaders of the opposition to Ferdinand Marcos, the dictatorial president of the Philippines who was in power from 1965 to 1986. Aquino was arrested and imprisoned in 1978. He formed his own party, and ran for election as president in 1978, but (along with all members of his party) he was not elected.
In 1980 he was allowed to travel to the United States for medical treatment, and he was assassinated at Manila International Airport in 1983 upon returning from self–imposed exile. The airport was renamed in his honour in 1987. His assassination catapulted his widow, Corazon Aquino, into the political limelight, and she served as president from 1986 to 1992; their son, Benigno III, served in the same office from 2010 to 2016.
© Haydn Thompson 2017