Benigno "Noynoy” Aquino III, the former Philippine president who oversaw the fastest period of growth since the 1970s and challenged China’s expansive territorial claims before a United Nations-backed tribunal, has died. He was 61.

Aquino, who served as the nation’s president from 2010 to 2016, was rushed to a hospital in Quezon City where he died after heart failure, the Manila Bulletin reported on Thursday, citing his family.

A bachelor with a weakness for cigarettes and computer games who had spent much of his life in the shadow of his parents — icons of Philippine democracy — Aquino had said he didn’t aspire to lead the nation.