Manila: Every Filipino should awaken the hero in them, President Benigno Aquino said in his address to commemorate the 30th death anniversary of his father, Senator Benigno Aquino.

Aquino senior’s assassination by security forces at Pasay City’s international airport in 1983 resulted in rallies that were capped by a people-backed military mutiny that finally resulted in former dictator Ferdinand Marcos being ousted in 1986.

“Let the heroes in each of us thrive in our everyday words and action, in services of the greater good, exercise the freedom we enjoy today to spark a revolution for positive change and cast our stake in forging our destiny as a nation,” said President Aquino in a message.

“As we celebrate his courage and patriotism, may we be reminded that individual choice can change the course of our history, and that each and every Filipino carries the potential to bring about lasting transformation in society,” said the president, who visited flood victims in southern Luzon.

After he was forced by Marcos to live in exile in the United States for three years, from 1981 to 1983, the older Aquino decided to return to the Philippines to confront Marcos, who was then reportedly ill with a kidney problem, and to lead the opposition.

Extolling his father’s heroism despite living in exile, President Aquino said: “No exile could lull him into comfort amid the pleas of his kababayans [countrymen] for a peaceful life; no distance could make him neglect the duties he swore to his motherland.”

Shot by security forces

Senator Aquino’s death was later blamed on the security forces that escorted him from his seat aboard the China Airlines plane to the service stairway where he was shot. The mastermind was never convicted in court.

Senator Aquino’s legacy lived on when his wife Corazon Aquino was elevated to the presidency with the help of the influential Catholic Church in a people-backed military mutiny in 1986.

President Beningo Aquino III became the second Aquino to head the Philippines.

Right now, he and another presidential son, Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr, are being compared.

Earlier, Mrs Aquino was also compared to former First Lady Imelda Marcos when the latter was allowed to return to the Philippines in 1989. Mrs Marcos failed in her bid to run for the presidency in 1992, but was later elected as a congresswoman representing her hometown in central Philippines. She currently represents in Congress the hometown of her husband in northern Luzon.

Image tarnished

In an editorial, the Inquirer said that 30 years after the death of Senator Aquino, his image is being tarnished in social media. “The charges range from historically and insupportable details that Ninoy and Marcos were in fact in close contact with each other throughout the martial law years so that the former’s [Aquino’s] struggle for freedom against the dictatorship was [allegedly] a sham,” said the Inquirer.

“[There was also a] risible gossip that Ninoy and Cory were about to get a divorce, and Ninoy was suffering from some ailment, so his return to Manila and eventual death at the hands of Marcos’ soldiers was [allegedly] no act of martyrdom but a staged suicide,” said the Inquirer.

In comparison is the relentless “airbrushing” of the memories of Marcos, the dictator, said the Inquirer, adding that criticism against Senator Aquino has been accompanied by a glorified image of the Marcos era.

“It is claimed [by these critics] that the Philippines had the best economy under Marcos, and that it was an orderly society where corruption might have existed but not to the present extent, and where law and order could be felt by ordinary citizens,” said the Inquirer, adding: “That nostalgia typically slides into a specific call for action: to bring back the ‘glory’ of the Marcos years and elect his son and namesake to the presidency.”

The young Marcos is expected to run for the presidency in 2016.

Short memory blamed

Taking cudgels for the young Aquino, the Inquirer blamed the short memories of Filipinos because “Ninoy Aquino is now routinely matched up with and mentioned in the same breath as the Marcos dictatorship”.

The Inquirer did not take into mention why the Liberal Party led by the young Aquino and Marcos’ Nacionalista Party forged a coalition in the 2013 mid-term polls.

In reaction, Jose Alcazar, a student, said: “We should not expect heroism from politicians.”