Manila: Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III was buried in austere state rites during the pandemic Saturday with many remembering him for standing up to China over territorial disputes, striking a peace deal with Muslim guerrillas and defending democracy in a Southeast Asian nation where his parents helped topple a dictator.
Aquino died Thursday at age 61 of kidney disease arising from diabetes following a long public absence, after his single, six-year term ended in 2016. Family and friends sang a patriotic song after a silver urn with Aquino's remains was placed beside the tomb of his mother, former President Corazon Aquino. Military honors included a 21-gun salute in a private cemetery in Manila.
Aquino's family did not want him or parents buried at the national Heroes' Cemetery, where past presidents and top officials had been laid to rest, including dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino's mother and his assassinated father, an anti-Marcos opposition senator, helped lead a resistance that sparked a 1986 army-backed people power revolt, which ousted Marcos. In his journey beyond, his two heroic parents will be there to embrace him, Archbishop Socrates Villegas said during Mass.
Villegas praised Aquino for living up to an image of a humble and incorruptible politician who detested the trappings of power. Fighting back tears, Villegas said he envied Aquino because he was now in a place where God's commandments are no longer transgressed and God's name is no longer blasphemed, where vulgarity and brutality and terror are vanquished by compassion.
The remarks, which was beamed live by TV networks, were an oblique criticism of the current populist president, Rodrigo Duterte, whose brash style, expletives-laced rhetoric and tirades against the dominant church in the Philippines stood in sharp contrast to Aquino.
Although Duterte has publicly ridiculed the opposition Aquino was associated with, he called for the outpouring of sympathy for Aquino to be turned into an opportunity to unite in prayer and set aside our differences.