Noynoy Aquino for president?

The latest survey on the standing of presidentiables shows Senator Noynoy Aquino on top, besting Senator Manny Villar who used to lord it over other aspirants in previous surveys. This is remarkable, considering that up to this date Cory’s son has not yet declared his intention to run. What would be the picture once he formally announces his candidacy? It’s a sure bet that more groups would rush to his side and declare their allegiance.

This is likely to happen especially because Senator Mar Roxas has decided not to run to give way to Noynoy’s candidacy. Now Senator Villar and the other hopefuls will be facing a formidable contender.

With the passing away of his mother, former president Corazon Aquino, Noynoy’s political stock has shot up like a meteor over the country’s depressed landscape. Not that he has done something spectacular on his own. But his mother has just been acclaimed as a spectacular leader, a saint of democracy whose stature has been equated with that of India’s Indira Gandhi or south Africa’s Nelson Mandela. That acclamation, mind you, has come not only from local decision makers but also from others all over the world, people who have seen the far-reaching impact of the social revolution brought about by Cory’s people power in 1986.

For more than 15 years the Filipinos relegated Cory’s status merely in the periphery of their consciousness. Although she would occasionally come out to publicly declare her advocacy of certain issues, she was treated only as a venerable elderly whose views were not always taken seriously. But her death changed all that. It was like a lightning volt that jolted the Filipinos out of their complacency and made them realize the magnitude of Cory’s greatness as a leader. Thus the up swelling of sympathy and praise culminating in the move to declare her a national hero. Yet even a declaration as such would not stifle the Filipinos’ sense of remorse. Something has to be done to keep her ethics of public service alive. Somebody has to catch the torch, so to speak, and wave it high. Who could rightly do this?

Can Manny Villar do it? The senator is a very wealthy man. Wealth, they say, can serve as a buffer for corruption because why would one steal when he has the dough already? Yet others also say that the more one has the sharpest is his appetite to have more and they cite the martial law dictator as an example.

Can Vice President Noli de Castro do it? A former media man, he is reputedly sincere and well-meaning yet there’s something missing in his person which makes him an unlikely advocate of the Cory type of leadership.

Can Joseph Estrada do it? For heaven’s sake, no more of his kind. He headed the country for two years, got ousted in another people power, got convicted for plunder, and now he wants a replay of his shenanigans? No sir, Cory and Erap are several oceans apart – the former was saintly, but the latter?

Most probably there are many who have internalized Cory’s quality of public service but circumstances have kept them from reaching the starting line of the presidential race. They don’t have the name, for one thing, which in Philippine politics means many things. The ranking contenders may have the name, but these days they pale like the moon with the rising of the sun which is Noynoy Aquino.

A tree is known by its fruit, the Bible says. In like manner, a fruit is known by the tree which bore it. So who’s the most trustworthy exponent of Cory’s values? Of course, her son Noynoy.

Noynoy has been in public service for almost two decades now, as a representative and as a senator. He has been rather “quiet” as such, perhaps trying to avoid the glare of his mother’s fame and has made it a point to avoid grandstanding as he does his thing in Congress. In a political arena where the loudmouth is king, the Aquino sibling seems to be a nonentity, a non-siquitor in the drama of horse trading and power broking.

Yet perceptive Filipinos realize that our measure of what makes a good president - a brilliant mind, eloquence, can-do profile and leadership tradition - have proven to be non-responsive to the demands of a third world country which is trying to keep its place among civilized countries in a contemporary world.

On the other hand, leaders with these qualities have presided over the making of the Filipino as corrupt and self-centered from among whose kind are bred other leaders whose shining moments dwell in secret deals and economic plunders and callous disregard of the poor.

With Noynoy aspiring for the presidency, will the Filipinos wake up to the need for a new brand of leadership?

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