Benigno Aquino Jr.

Shot on 21 August 1983 at Manila International Airport moments after returning from exile in the United States to oppose President Ferdinand Marcos.

Overview

Benigno Ninoy Aquino Jr. was the leading opposition politician in the Philippines and a likely presidential candidate before Marcos declared martial law in 1972. He was imprisoned for nearly eight years and allowed to leave for heart surgery in the United States in 1980. On his return he was shot as soldiers escorted him from the plane, and a man named Rolando Galman, blamed by the government, was killed on the tarmac. A court later convicted sixteen soldiers in 1990. Millions attended his funeral, and outrage over the killing fed the movement that brought down Marcos in the People Power Revolution of 1986, when his widow Corazon Aquino became president. The airport now bears his name.