Martial law made him ‘become a man faster than most of us’

IN THE summer of 1977, when college life meant fun, freedom, and shiny shirts and bell-bottom pants, the young Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III would try to live the life of a regular young adult whose family was caught in a very irregular circumstance, Aquino’s classmates recall.

“You know that the number one victim of martial law was his family. While we were reading it in books, they were living it on a day-to-day basis,” says Galland Diaz, now an attorney and a volunteer in the Aquino presidential campaign. “He became a man faster than most of us.”

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Diaz would know. He was Aquino’s classmate from their short-pants days in preparatory school to graduation from the university.

“Noynoy was the quiet, well-off kid who tried just a little bit harder than the rest to get better grades, or be more successful, or be more honest than the rest,” Diaz says.

High school life appeared to have been a simpler time for the young Noynoy. The write-up in his high school yearbook described him as the “successor of Ricky Avancena [grandson of President Manuel Quezon] as president of the class… coolest guy with the hottest temper.”

“His hobby: collecting late slips. Pepsi fanatic who hates water,” the write-up says of the young Aquino. The fact that he drove his own car while in high school spoke volumes of his economic and social standing.

Carrie Torres, another batchmate at the Ateneo, adds that Noynoy was politically active in college, although not in a radical way. It was an activism that was more involved with engaging fellow students to participate in school processes.

“Having martial law during most of our teenage school life made us complacent,” she says.

“Bahala na sila mag-decide was the attitude. Senator Noy was part of that rally to end the apathy and complacency.”

Meeting Gloria

It was also in the Ateneo where Aquino bumped into another personality who would later figure prominently in his life: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was an associate professor in the Ateneo and taught microeconomics.

Since Noynoy was majoring in economics, he naturally ended up taking the class of the future president of the Philippines.

Noynoy would get a B+ from Professor Gloria Arroyo—not bad, says Diaz, who passed the course by the “skin of my teeth.”

The man remembered so fondly by his classmates would not join them in their graduation march. Noynoy would leave with his family for Boston in March 1980 after President Ferdinand Marcos granted Ninoy permission to seek medical treatment.

It was the start of a three-year exile.

“When we (in Batch 1981) were practising for our graduation march, he (Noynoy) snuck into our line, in front of me. I told him to get to his line and he told me that he wasn’t attending the ceremony and that he was leaving for Boston (soon) to be with his family. I never saw him so happy.” Interns Camille de Asis, Ivan Lim and Mark Tare, Interns, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)