MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines’ middle-aged bachelor president Benigno Aquino III said Sunday he was still hoping to find a wife, saying it would make him a better leader.
Aquino, who turned 52 this month and recently confirmed he was dating a South Korean woman, said he had been looking for a wife for years but he had never found anyone.
“I have been planning this for a long time, since college even. But I just have been unlucky,” he told reporters.
“Given the burdens of this office, if there was someone you could confide in, someone you could talk to, someone who would tell you, ‘you are still doing okay’, then of course, that would a key to your inspiration,” he said.
In recent years, the balding, bespectacled president, a member of one of the country’s richest families, has been linked to several much younger women.
Earlier this month, he confirmed he was seeing a South Korean media personality, Grace Lee, 29.
Lee, who moved to the Philippines as a child, co-hosts a popular music radio program in Manila as well as several television shows.
Aquino said last year that he was resigned to the idea of staying single until his term as president ended in mid-2016 because the demands of his job were too great.
But one of his sisters told local media in late 2010 that he had dated at least three other younger women, including his personal stylist, in the hectic period after he was elected to the presidency in May that year.