[4][5][6] Born in the Ilocos region of Central Luzon, in the 1950s Belinda Aquino left her hometown as a young college-aged girl to attend university in Manila.
After completing her undergraduate education, Belinda Aquino earned her Master's Degree in Political Science from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in the early 1960s.
[8] Belinda Aquino was part of the committee selected to look into this matter and advocated strongly for the creation of a Filipino studies hub on campus.
In particular, the endowment was designed to foster interdisciplinary and cross-cultural work which highlighted the Philippines as a "country in the Asia-Pacific region and a vibrant member of the international community.
"[9] The head of the School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Edward J. Schultz, noted that the endowment reflected the "increasingly important role" which Filipinos were playing on an international scale, particularly within the islands of Hawai'i.