As the United States celebrated former United States President Jimmy Carter’s centennial on October 1, many Filipinos wondered who among the former Philippine presidents lived longest.

Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had reportedly hoped he would become chief executive of the Philippines but lost the 1998 presidential race to then Vice President Joseph Estrada.

Enrile, currently the presidential chief legal counsel, turned 100 seven months after Carter celebrated his.

Estrada, the 13th president, is presently the oldest living former president of the country.

His successor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is now 77 but remains active in politics. She has filed her certificate of candidacy for a third and final term as congresswoman of for a third and final term as congresswoman of Pampanga’s second district.

The oldest Philippine president to have lived was Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo who died on February 6, 1964 at the age of 95. Born on March 22, 1869, the president of the Philippine revolutionary government became president from 1898 to 1901.

The second oldest was President Fidel V. Ramos, who, like Aguinaldo was a military general who rose to become the chief executive of the Philippines. Ramos was 94 when he passed on July 31, 2022.

Ramos and Enrile were both hailed as heroes of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that toppled the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, who was an Army lieutenant during World War II.

Marcos, father of the incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., died while on self-exile in Hawaii on September 28, 1989. He was 72.

FVR, as he was fondly called, Ramos succumbed to complications triggered by COVID-19 Omicron variant. Many believed he would have become a centenarian had he not become a COVID victim.

Unlike Aguinaldo, Ramos had already retired from the police-military service when he became president. He succeeded the first woman president Corazon C. Aquino who died at the age of 76 on August 1, 2009.

Another Philippine president, Manuel L. Quezon died of tuberculosis on the same day Aquino’s death anniversary is being commemorated. Quezon passed at age 65.

The youngest Philippine president to meet his Maker was Aquino’s only son, former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III who was 61 when he diedon June 24, 2021.

Noynoy succumbed to renal disease secondary to diabetes.