"I had to ask him the hard questions and bare the imperfections of the system and the realities of corruption during his term."
In 2010, my home network ABS-CBN assigned me to cover Noynoy Aquino’s presidential bid for the award-winning show, “The Correspondents.” I have covered national campaigns for different news and current affairs programs, but that specific show proved to be one of the most memorable. One main reason was being able to produce an emotional, once-in-a-lifetime story featuring a then-senator (the son of whom Filipinos also regarded as modern heroes) about to become the country’s most powerful man.
The documentary was titled “Ang Laban ni Noynoy.” Among all my stories and reports I did on Aquino and his administration, the episode turned out to be my favorite. I’d like to believe I really got up close and personal with Noynoy that time, not just as a politician. I also got to know his different personas — as a family man, a student of life, a dreamer.
There’s a funny part in that interview, where I asked the then-aspiring president to answer a slam book. After teasing me with “Ikaw talaga! Pang-high school ‘to, eh!” Aquino happily obliged. He revealed chicharon as his favorite food, war films as his favorite movie genre, and being a soldier and a businessman as his ambition. He didn’t answer much of it, really, probably because he found it too cheesy. Yet, in his thin, almost illegible handwriting, he would strike me with what he wrote for his life motto: “To leave the world better than I found it.”
The quote was derived from Robert Baden-Powell’s “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.” Lord Baden-Powell, a British army, founded the Scout movement worldwide in the early 20th century.
The slam book Pnoy answered in his own handwriting (2010)
Yet with this motto as his everyday inspiration even then as a legislator, Aquino had doubts. If ever he became president, would he be able to finish his term with flying colors? Would he even have a legacy to leave? He said he had a tidal wave of problems to face head on, and as early as that time, he already admitted to not being able to solve it all. Aquino also bared the pressure of carrying his family’s surname. His name had become synonymous to “people power,” that one great thing that freed the Filipino people from dictatorship many decades back. Was he only going to disappoint?
Yet Aquino vowed to do his best if ever he won. And what would make him feel accomplished in his eventual exit from the post, he said, was the people missing him. That would be the best measure if he did a good job at all, he said. Considering how he patterned his choices after Baden-Powell’s poignant quote, he said the opposite would only be a tragedy.
Aquino always had the passion in him to help his countrymen, a trait he took after Ninoy, his sister Ballsy would tell me. He would exhibit it further once he won the elections and took over. After his proclamation, in a simple gathering of his family and friends, he revealed assuming a new nickname to help him on his mission of reaching out more to the masses: “PNoy.”
“It might bring me closer to the people who ultimately I have to be really in touch with, if I am to serve them effectively,” he told me in a TV Patrol interview.
I would see more of Aquino trying to apply his boy scout inspirations onto his presidential career for the next six years. As I was taught to be objective about our reports, especially when it came to the government leaders we covered, I was also as critical of him. I had to ask him the hard questions and bare the imperfections of the system and the realities of corruption during his term. I had to clamor with the people for accountability and good governance from the statesmen he led.
Even as president, PNoy was warm, friendly, and, mind you, corny. One embarrassing story would be that interview when I dropped my notebook, whose pages were wedged with my kids’ doodles. He had to help me pick up all those papers that had been sent flying in the air and down on the floor. He was laughing the entire time.
In times of #realtalk, PNoy was intense. He could talk for hours about something he was really passionate about. He boasted of a sharp memory when it came to numbers, data, dates, and other nitty-gritty he would use in our phone arguments. He explained his side regarding decisions and issues rather lengthily, so much so my phone would die exhausted just from our conversation.
When it was my turn to hit him about issues, PNoy would jokingly tell me to call it a day for our sake. That I had to dedicate the rest of my time to my three daughters, who were then in their formative years. That I had to value quality family bonding before time passed me by as a parent. In retrospect, I now think PNoy might just have imparted genuine advice having gone through a difficult childhood himself.
Aquino, in the same “The Correspondents” episode, spoke about his father writing to him from jail. With uncertainties hounding Ninoy’s fate, Noynoy, at 13, was asked to take on the padre de pamilya role as soon as possible.
“I readily answered to my dad’s admonition to take care of my mom and siblings,” Noynoy narrated to me. “I was about to graduate grade school at that time, but I already viewed that as a serious commitment.”
Such commitment transcended over time as Noynoy, a bachelor, would father a nation at 50 years old. In all those years covering his career, I know he wasn’t the perfect president. But knowing him for that much of a time, something that went on even after his presidency, I know he was a good person. That he was a decent, honorable man—an honest leader who, with all his might, really did leave the world better than he had found it.
My husband, Nonong, and I paying our final respects to former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
To end this tribute, I’d like to send my gratitude to PNoy’s family -- his sisters Ballsy, Pinky, Viel, and Kris, plus their husbands and children, who have all been patient with me as I dug deeper all those years on what made Noynoy their man. Thank you for trusting me with private details about the family that helped me in my stories. More important, thank you for the friendship. It’s both an honor and a blessing to have known PNoy — his simplicity, commitment to service, and love for country inspire me to this day. Thank you for introducing us to a leader who had always believed that the Filipinos are worth fighting for. I also thank the Lord that my children got to know first-hand someone like PNoy who truly knew what it meant to be a Filipino.
In our former president’s remembrance, I am posting a series online featuring PNoy’s family, friends, and the rest who have worked with him closely in his well-lived life. The five-part series—a personal project—is viewable on my Facebook (fb.com/TitaJingCastanaeda) and YouTube (youtube.com.JingCastaneda) accounts.
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