Philippine former President Benigno S. Aquino III (R Front) inspects the honor guards as he arrives for the 27th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Sepang, Malaysia, on Nov. 20, 2015. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

Former Philippine president Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, the reserved 61-year-old bachelor from one of Asia's most famous political families, died Thursday, the country's foreign minister and several officials said.

Aquino, who ruled the archipelago nation from 2010 to 2016, was the only son of the late former president Corazon Aquino and her assassinated husband, senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, both revered for leading the struggle to restore democracy in the archipelago nation. Aquino was rushed to the Capitol Medical Center in Manila early Thursday, local media reported.

The unmarried politician "died peacefully in his sleep," said Pinky Aquino-Abellada, one of Aquino's four sisters. 

"No words can express how broken our hearts are and how long it will take for us to accept the reality that he is gone," said Abellada, reading from a statement outside the mortuary where her brother's body had been taken.

"I'm out of Twitter from grief over the death of a sea-green incorruptible," Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted.

Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen, who was Aquino's former peace adviser, expressed his "profound sadness" over the former leader's death. 

"I knew him to be a kind man, driven by his passion to serve our people, diligent in his duties, and with an avid and consuming curiosity about new knowledge and the world in general," Leonen said.

Aquino waged an anti-corruption agenda during his term and ushered in key economic reforms.