Philippine democracy scion, ex-leader Benigno Aquino dies

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, the son of pro-democracy icons who helped topple dictator Ferdinand Marcos and a defender of good governance who took China’s sweeping territorial claims to an international court, has died. He was 61.

Aquino’s family told a news conference that he died in his sleep early Thursday due to “renal failure secondary to diabetes.” A former Cabinet official, Rogelio Singson, said Aquino had been undergoing dialysis and was preparing for a kidney transplant.

“Mission accomplished Noy, be happy now with Dad and Mom,” said Pinky Aquino-Abellada, a sister of the late president, using his nickname and struggling to hold back her tears.

Condolences poured in from politicians, the Catholic Church and others, including President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and Sen. Imee Marcos, a daughter of the late dictator. Philippine flags were lowered at half-staff on government buildings.

“We are saddened by President Aquino’s passing and will always be thankful for our partnership,” U.S. Embassy Charge d’ Affaires John Law said in a statement.

“For beyond politics and much public acrimony, I knew Noynoy as a kind and simple soul. He will be deeply missed,” Marcos said in a statement, using Aquino’s nickname.

Aquino, who served as president from 2010 to 2016, was the heir of a family that has been regarded as a bulwark against authoritarianism in the Philippines.

His father, former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., was assassinated in 1983 while under military custody at the Manila international airport, which now bears his name. His mother, Corazon Aquino, led the 1986 “people power” revolt that ousted Marcos. The army-backed uprising became a harbinger of popular revolts against authoritarian regimes worldwide.

A scion of a wealthy land-owning political clan in the northern Philippines, Aquino, who was fondly called Noynoy or Pnoy by many Filipinos, built an image of an incorruptible politician who battled poverty and frowned over excesses by the country’s elites, including powerful politicians. One of his first orders that lingered throughout his presidency was to ban the use of sirens in vehicles that carried VIPs through Manila’s notorious traffic jams.

Aquino, whose family went into exile in the U.S. during Marcos’s rule, had turbulent ties with China as president. After China seized a disputed shoal in 2012 following a tense standoff in the South China Sea, Aquino authorized the filing of a complaint before an international arbitration tribunal that questioned the validity of China’s sweeping claims in the strategic waterway Beijing claims virtually the entire South China Sea on historical grounds.

“We will not be pushed around because we are a tiny state compared with theirs,” Aquino told The Associated Press in June 2011. “We think we have very solid grounds to say ‘do not intrude into our territory.’”

The Philippines largely won. But China refused to join in the arbitration and dismissed as a sham the tribunal’s 2016 ruling, which invalidated Beijing’s claims based on a 1982 U.N. maritime treaty. Aquino’s legal challenge and the eventual ruling plunged the relations between Beijing and Manila to an all-time low.

Born in 1960 as the third of five children, Aquino never married and had no children. An economics graduate, he pursued business opportunities before entering politics.

During his mother’s tumultuous presidency, after democracy was restored, Aquino was wounded by gunfire during a failed 1987 coup attempt by rebel soldiers who attempted to lay siege on the heavily guarded Malacanang presidential palace. Three of his security escorts were killed. A bullet had remained embedded in Aquino’s neck.

He won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1998, where he served until 2007, then successfully ran for the Senate. Aquino announced his presidential campaign in September 2009, saying he was answering the call of the people to continue his mother’s legacy. She had died just weeks earlier of colon cancer.

His won with a battle cry “without the corrupt, there won’t be poor people.” He called ordinary Filipinos his “boss” and offered himself as their servant. Friends said he often carried a copy of the Philippine Constitution in his pocket, a reflection of his steadfast belief that no one is above the law.

His victory was also seen as a protest vote due to exasperation with the corruption scandals of his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. She was detained for nearly five years before the Supreme Court cleared her of the charges. Arroyo later served as House speaker under Duterte.

Public expectations of Aquino were high. While he moved against corruption — detaining Arroyo and three powerful senators — and initiated anti-poverty programs, the deep-seated inequalities and weak institutions in the Southeast Asian nation wracked by decades-old communist and Muslim insurgencies remained too daunting.

Under Aquino, the government expanded a program that provides cash dole-outs to the poorest in exchange for commitments by parents to send children to school. Big business, meanwhile, benefited from government partnership deals that allowed them to finance major infrastructure projects such as highways and airports for long-term gain.

One of Aquino’s major successes was the signing of a 2014 peace deal with the largest Muslim separatist rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It eased decades of fighting in the country’s south, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.

Opponents pounded on missteps, including a Manila bus hostage crisis that ended with the shooting deaths of eight Chinese tourists from Hong Kong by a disgruntled police officer, and delays in recovery efforts in the disastrous aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

Aquino came under heavy criticism in 2015 for his absence in a ceremony at a Manila air base for the arrival of the remains of police commandos who were killed by Muslim insurgents during a covert raid that killed one of Asia’s most-wanted terror suspects. Aquino proceeded with a scheduled inauguration of a car manufacturing plant, triggering criticism that he lacked empathy.

Aquino retained high approval ratings when his single, six-year term ended in 2016. The rise of the populist Duterte, whose deadly crackdown on illegal drugs has killed thousands of mostly petty drug suspects, was a reality check on the extent of public dissatisfaction and perceived failures during Aquino’s reformist rule.

Aquino campaigned against Duterte, warning he could be a looming dictator and could set back the democracy and economic momentum achieved in his own term.

Time magazine named Aquino as one of 100 most influential people in the world in 2013, praising him for stabilizing a sputtering economy and for bravely confronting China over the South China Sea disputes.

After leaving office, Aquino stayed away from politics and the public eye.

He is survived by four sisters. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced by the family.

Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.

-Associated Press

Eating red meat linked to kidney failure risk

Red meat may take a toll on the kidneys that increases risk for kidney disease and eventually kidney failure, a large study suggests.

The authors also found that replacing some red meat in the diet with other types of protein – whether chicken, fish, eggs or vegetable sources – might dramatically reduce that risk.

“There is an increase in numbers of individuals developing chronic kidney disease worldwide, and many progress to end-stage renal disease, which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant,” Woon-Puay Koh told Reuters Health by email.

“Current guidelines recommend restricting dietary protein intake in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease to help reduce symptoms and slow progression to end-stage renal disease,” said Koh, a researcher at the National University of Singapore and the study’s senior author.

Though limiting protein staves off progression of existing kidney disease, little is known about whether protein, and meat in particular, contributes to the risk for developing kidney disease, Koh’s team writes in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Globally, an estimated 500 million people have chronic kidney disease, the researchers note.

The National Kidney Foundation says that approximately 660,000 people in the U.S. are being treated for the end-stage kidney disease, kidney failure. Of these, nearly 470,000 are on dialysis and 193,000 have had a kidney transplant.

Since there is little evidence that overall dietary protein restriction or limiting specific food sources of protein intake may slow kidney function decline in the general population, Koh said, “we embarked on our study to see what advice should be given to the general public worried about their kidney health regarding types or sources of protein intake.”

The researchers examined data on more than 60,000 adults living in Singapore and participating in a long-term health study. They grouped the participants according to how much protein they ate, and after 15 years of follow-up, found that about 1,000 people had developed kidney failure.

The study team found that participants who ate the largest amount of red meat had about a 40 percent greater risk of developing kidney failure compared with people consuming the lowest amounts of meat.

However, the researchers didn’t find any associations between kidney health and intake of poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products or legumes. In fact, they calculated that substituting some other source of protein for one daily serving of red meat reduced the risk of kidney failure by up to 62 percent.

“Our findings suggest that individuals can still maintain their protein intake unless their kidney function has been severely compromised. However, to reduce the risk of end-stage renal disease, it is best to eat red meat in moderation,” Koh said.

It’s not necessary “to avoid red meat like poison,” she added, but best not to make it the single meat item at every meal, or main protein source every day.

The study doesn’t prove that eating red meat causes kidney disease, Koh acknowledged.

“Future studies are warranted to confirm our findings and to investigate the underlying mechanisms as to how the chemicals present in red meat may aggravate the progression of chronic kidney disease,” Koh said.

Even so, Lauren Graf, a clinical dietitian specializing in pediatric nephrology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, said, “this is such an important study and is consistent with a large body of evidence suggesting that excess protein from meat can be damaging to the kidneys.”

Graf, who was not involved in the study, said the kidney damage might be due to the higher acid-forming effects of meat protein in the digestive tract compared with plant protein.

“The kidneys are responsible for removing extra acid consumed from the diet and meat protein, therefore, creates a greater workload for the kidneys,” Graf said. “Plant-based diets that are rich in vegetables and fruit have the opposite effect.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2a4r4ZZ Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, online July 14, 2016.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com