Just as Palace aides earlier noted, President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III turned 53 without much official fanfare Friday.
Militant groups have given him a loud birthday greeting however, as they trooped to Mendiola Bridge near Malacañang.
Related story: Aquino to punish members backing opposition bets
Aquino is getting older but not wiser when it comes to running the
country, they claimed, while urging him to junk the Visiting Forces
Argeement with the U.S. and push for genuine agrarian reform.
But the government portal, the Official Gazette, also prepared something for the occassion.
In
a post titled "Ten facts about President Benigno S. Aquino III," the
website offered netizens a closer look at the life of the country's 15th
president.
Aquino, who is the 5th leader of the Philippines' 5th Republic, is the first bachelor to ever take on the position.
He is also the only president who is the third of his name, as no other president was a "junior" or a "third."
Unknown
to many, Aquino walks around with fragments of a bullet still lodged in
his neck, reminders of a failed coup plot against his mother in August
1987, where he was shot five times.
Aquino is the namesake son of martial law martyr and former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.
He was catapulted to the presidency by the death of his mother, former President Corazon Aquino.
Aquino declared his candidacy on Sept. 9, 2009 (09-09-09).
Among the country's 15 presidents, Aquino was only the 6th to be elected to a six-year term.
The
others were Manuel Quezon in 1935, Aquino's mother Corazon in 1986,
Fidel Ramos in 1992, Joseph Estrada in 1998 and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
in 2004.
Aquino is also only the 10th Philippine senator to become president.
On June 30, 2010 he became the 7th senator to be inaugurated at the Quirino Grandstand.
He is meanwhile the fourth president who was not sworn in by a chief justice.
The
President preferred to be sworn by an associate justice, Conchita
Carpio-Morales, instead of then Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Aquino later on appointed Morales as Ombudsman, replacing Merceditas Gutierrez, who had been linked to Arroyo.
On
the other hand, in May last year, and with an apparent administration
push, Corona was impeached with an overwhelming Senate vote.
Aquino
is also the first president to have graduated from the Ateneo de Manila
University, but the second to be an Ateneo alumnus, after former
President Joseph Estrada.
He is also the eight president to receive an honorary degree for New York's Jesuit university Fordham.
Related slideshow: President Aquino
