PNoy remembered on 5th death anniversary: ‘Nasobrahan sa broken heart’

MANILA MEMORIAL PARK—The rain poured just as Fr. Jett Villarin, SJ started the Mass commemorating last June 24 the 5th death anniversary of Benigno Simeon “PNoy” Aquino III, the 15th president of the Philippines whose transformative governance ironically, people are beginning to know about, appreciate and miss now.

With the set-up tent being weighed down by the continuous downpour and the wind, Father Jett, in his homily, recalled that rainy day in 1983 when the multitude braved the weather to line up on Manila’s streets and witnessed the funeral procession of the assassinated senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., father to the man who would be elected president in 2010. Father Jett was a seminarian then, one of the religious who held hands and formed the phalanx that protected the flatbed truck bearing Ninoy’s coffin from the swelling crowds. “It was the longest holding hands in my life,” said the Jesuit, eliciting muffled laughter from the assembly.

From then on, the light humor turned into deep soul-searching and poignant reflection on PNoy, the man and his honest governance that made the Philippines the Rising Tiger of Asia and that made constitutional democracy work even in a fractious Philippines. Father Jett began by saying how we are “fighting not to forget, struggling not to lose hope.” In the darkness we have only “one light of our faith, in God, in ourselves, in our people”—he reminded that the day was the feast of St. John the Baptist, calling to mind the straight path in the way of our Lord, the “tuwid na daan” that became PNoy’s vision of a nation. 

He spoke of the disparate voices in the country, the voices of anger. He spoke of “walang wang wang” that became the early mark of the Aquino presidency—“walang wang wang ang tunay na kabutihan.”

Father Jett, who was PNoy’s batchmate at Ateneo and his good friend, recalled his online chat with PNoy on May 18, a month before his death, about the results of the latter’s angiogram. Beyond medical results, however, the former president of Ateneo bore witness to PNoy’s “broken heart”—“Ang pangulo na kung ilang beses nang nakatikim ng talo (the President who had suffered many defeats).” 

This Mass must have been one of the few occasions that PNoy’s close friends, like Father Jett, talked at length about how the relatively young president nursed a broken heart over a people that didn’t seem to have valued the great strides made by his administration—until they suffered a lot worse after him—and a people that readily fell victim to fake news and mind conditioning by trolls.

“Ang dalamhati ng bayan, dala rin ng taong ito (A nation’s anguish, this man carries),” he said. 

Father Jett summed it up quite frankly: “We remember a leader, a Filipino, whose heart was broken for the love of us.”

It is ironic how five years after his death, people, especially the netizens, are beginning to see and value the gains of PNoy’s governance, what he had done against all odds—a stark contrast to what happened after this term.

Remembering PNoy: A Selfless Leader and Public Servant

One of my regrets in life is that I was not able to talk to PNoy more after his term ended because of the circumstances beyond my control.

I was unjustly detained in 2017 based on trumped-up charges filed against me by the… pic.twitter.com/xxh68LfUKC

— Leila de Lima (@manayleila) June 24, 2026

 

 

 

The rain had stopped by the time Father Jett began his homily. The dark clouds had vanished and the sky began to clear. But not so for the Philippines.