Do we need the son as much as we needed his parents?

I REMEMBER being on assignment for the Cory Aquino funeral. I was standing in front of the memorial park where she would be laid to rest, awaiting the arrival of the funeral march.

I talked to a few people there, like the loquacious Imelda Palar. At the time of the funeral, Palar was 32 years old, meaning she was around nine when the events that triggered the EDSA uprising—which eventually shaped Cory Aquino into the sainted icon of democracy—unraveled.

“I fought with my husband so I could come here,” said Palar. “I wanted to see her one last time. She was a good president. Nobody came close to her. She was clean.”

Cavite resident Carmela Bascon, 46 at the time of the funeral, was in her 20s during EDSA I and was a little bit more aware of the significance of that historic 1986 moment than Palar.

“I was very much aware of the change that swept our country,” said the mother of two. “Everyone was at peace with each other after EDSA. We owe President Cory a big debt of gratitude.”

Businessman Antonio Razo, 51, also marched in 1983, the year Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. It was the martyred former senator’s death that is usually pointed out as the event that lit the wick of the ’86 uprising. He never thought he’d bury another Aquino.

“The difference between then and now was that in 1983, emotions were running high in the sense that people were mad,” said Razo, who seemed to know a lot of people in the sweaty crowd. “Now, it seems like the people feel sad because part of us is now gone.”

“No matter how many mistakes we committed after EDSA and how we never seemed to learn from them, we always felt somehow safe because we had Tita Cory,” he added.

Noynoy Aquino is hoping the people still feel the same way. He is an Aquino, after all, and in these treacherous times of powerful political clans committing mass murder with the nonchalance of a gardener pulling out weeds and of a presidential family with a gluttonous appetite for wealth and power, the senator is hoping to send one message across.

You’ll be safe with me. I am the son of my parents. And you can trust me as much as you would’ve trusted them. They wouldn’t steal from you. I will not steal from you. They didn’t abuse you. I won’t abuse you.

The moment he declared his candidacy, Noynoy was an instant hit. It seemed that the swell of emotion during Cory’s funeral was bottled up for that moment when he would announce his candidacy. I mean, 35 percentage points ahead of his nearest pursuer in surveys? That was September, though.

It is now February. And it seems that somebody knocked the bottle of Cory magic down with the cap loosened. The last credible survey showed him to be in a statistical tie with Manny Villar.

Because we no longer feel safe with him? Because his message of good governance is no longer believable?

“Our platform is still the same,” said Aquino in a talk with the Inquirer recently. “It is still anti-corruption. We just have to change the way we preach it so that it will become fathomable to daily wage earners.”

People say that it is his lack of political production that has slowed him down. That he hasn’t crafted that many laws to justify his being the best choice for the post-Gloria reconstruction the country badly needs.

But when you really think of it, as he says, “aside from Erap, I have the most experience when it comes to being in Malacanang.” Why of course. He is a former presidential son and he swears his mother ran to him for help when she needed to feel the pulse of the PSG during the successive coups that rocked the Aquino presidency.

Noynoy thinks everything has to do with the difference in campaign war chest.

“Our finances are okay,” he said. “But not as okay as that of our competition, obviously.”

Of course. Manny Villar is running a campaign funded, it seems, by a bottomless cash source. Aquino, on the other hand, is running mainly on celebrity sister Kris’ fat bank account and donations from the public—some of whom are even too young to vote.

“During one campaign sortie, a kid gave me this bamboo bank filled with coins,” he said. “I was surprised how heavy it was. And he said to me ‘this is for my future.’”

Add to the fact that he censors campaign contributions: “If we are not so sure of the source, when there are bad associations or when there is doubt, refuse.”

That’s his motto.

And the ability to spend for campaign ads, he says, is crucial.

“Well, for every time I tell you I am handsome, he can tell you the same thing ten times. The more he repeats it, the more you believe him,” he explained.

Witty, but I’m not convinced.

In fact, I can put that premise to a test.

Take a look at this guy:

Now imagine him whispering to your ears a thousand times: I am handsome.

Sure, when something is repeated to you several times, you’re bound to believe it.

But take a look at this guy and tell me how many times does he have to repeat “I’m handsome” before you believe him:

photo courtesy of gossipcheck.com

My point exactly.

In fact, Noynoy has had a greater platform on which to preach his message, an even more trustworthy and more credible one than the paid-for ads Villar is numbing the nation with.

He has the media, which has so far dealt with his campaign with kid gloves—especially the biggest print outfit of them all.

“There are days when the Inquirer has been more than fair with its coverage with me,” Noynoy said. Asked by an editor if he ever though the paper was pro-Noynoy, he answered: “There are times, yes.”

You can bring up Hacienda Luisita and the SCTEX, but for every argument against him when it comes to both issues, he has a credible defense to win you over.

So why is his being the favorite for May 2010 losing steam, so fast?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Noynoy’s hot start was a product of its milieu—Cory Aquino’s death and emotional funeral, the griping against the GMA presidency and to a certain extent, even the Maguindanao massacre that managed to link itself to GMA.

Clearly, his being a favorite was born from our eagerness to replace the current Palace tenant, because we were very much aware then of the evils of another Arroyo presidency, or a manufactured Arroyo leadership past 2010. More ZTE scandals, more Garcis, fatter FGs.

But in a country noted for its ability to forget the lessons of history, that milieu is slowly fading away.

Sure, Noynoy says. I will not steal. Which candidate will admit that he or she will raid the public coffers?

And yes, we will be safe with him. He is, after all, an Aquino—a son of his parents.

But how safe do we really need to feel, if we keep forgetting we are in danger in the first place?

Tie a yellow ribbon in your mind's oak tree, perhaps?

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