The Supreme Court has unanimously denied for lack of merit a petition seeking to nullify the renaming of Manila International Airport to Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

Lawyer Larry Gadon filed the petition last month, arguing that Republic Act 6639, which renamed the MIA after former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr, was “patently illegal” because it had violated the guidelines of the National Historical Institute.

NHI mandated that no public place should be renamed after any person within ten years of their death. NAIA was named after Aquino in 1987, 4 years after he was shot dead in its tarmac, said Gadon in his petition.

Deputy Speaker Paolo Duterte in June filed a bill seeking to rename NAIA as “Paliparang Pandaigdig ng Pilipinas.”

“With the proposed name, the airport will be easily identified as the international doorway of the country, in view of it being in Filipino language and branding it as the international airport of the Philippines,” read the explanatory note co-authored by Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco and ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap.

The airport was renamed NAIA a year after the People Power Revolution that installed Aquino’s widow Corazon as president and toppled the Marcos dictatorship.