But after the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino in August 1983, she stepped resolutely into his role as political leader of my country’s democratic opposition to an entrenched despotic regime. Devoid of histrionics, without pretension – "simply by telling people what the dictator has done to this country" – she touched the hearts of freedom-loving Filipinos everywhere, the pain of the traumatic murder by the regime of her husband evoking in them memories of their own suffering and thwarted hopes.