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‘People’s President’ embraces destiny
ON A BRIGHT MORNING IN JUNE 1992, right after Fidel Ramos was sworn in as President at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, erstwhile First Son Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was grinning from ear to ear as he walked away from the crowd.
He could now breathe easy, he would tell us after the inaugural rites, because he didn’t have to be as fearful for the safety of his mother, he could lead an ordinary life, say goodbye to Malacañang, and perhaps have a normal love life at last, away from the prying media.
He could not have known then that 18 years later he would be preparing for his own swearing-in, and a potentially controversial one at that.
Noynoy’s likely ascendancy to the presidency, in what is shaping up to be an overwhelming mandate from the people, comes as a total surprise not just to the holders of power in this country, but even more so to himself.
“But I can’t wear my torn T-shirt there, or my threadbare pants ... I really need only two rooms,” Noynoy was telling friends over dinner last Saturday, the eve of the election, on why he wanted to continue to live in his family’s Times Street residence, and not in Malacañang, if he should win.
A close friend then suggested, not entirely kidding: “So how about if we do an exact copy of your bedroom, so you’ll feel at home?”
Embracing destiny
“Hay, normalcy …,” Aquino muttered under his breath. He obviously didn’t care to pursue the topic, knowing that he was in for more ribbing.
The senator seemed at peace with himself that night, less than 48 hours before the polling was to open. He was calm, not seeming to be afraid or worried.
“A man who has totally embraced his destiny, not just his parents’ legacy,” is how one volunteer, who was with the campaign since it started, puts it.
“I believe I’ve done everything I can,” he said, gulping down his nth soft drink of the day.
“Now, leave some to God. I think it was Cardinal Sin who said that once,” he said.
He had just finished a motorcade and rally in Tarlac’s second district and Tarlac City. By now, an eight-hour motorcade no longer left him tired or fatigued.
And now, with the campaign at an end, he just wanted to have a good Chinese dinner with his staff, a few volunteers and friends. He was looking forward to a dish of sweet-sour pork.
A bonus from God
Although no one at the table said it, everyone knew how special this moment was. Aquino was at a crossroads. He had just ended a grueling campaign. The last of the presidential candidates to get started on his campaign, he worked at least three provinces a day, losing perhaps 15 pounds in the process, and with hands bruised from pressing the flesh.
(Amid the misgivings of his security people who were apprehensive of the dark, Aquino broke away from the motorcade in Tarlac City at 7 p.m. and went onstage to address the huge crowd that had been waiting for him for hours.)
And now he stands at the threshold of being proclaimed the 15th President of the Philippines.
For now, however, he’d rather joke and banter, recalling the miracle that was his campaign.
Does he think he’ll win, we asked. “It’s done,” he said.
“That’s not to sound mayabang (smug) … what I mean is, if our purpose was to bring our people together to express the need for change, we’ve done it. If I win the presidency, that’s just a bonus from God, that I’m given the chance to still do more, to deliver on a promise,” he said.
Not about himself
He wasn’t just trying to be philosophical or spiritual, he was just being his true self, a guy who’s not preoccupied with himself at all.
The guy who didn’t fanatically seek power for himself will be the President of the Philippines any day now. Don’t you see the irony of your life? we pressed on. We felt we had to ask him because not only have we known him for 26 years—“since 1984, to be exact,” Noynoy calculated—we’ve also tracked that life during those decades.
He merely looked at us, half-shrugged and proceeded to talk about other things. Obviously, to him, even his date with destiny was still not about himself.
No wonder he seemed calm. He wasn’t thinking of himself, not even about what could be his last weekend as a private person, no matter that the muckraking campaign didn’t spare anything of his person, certainly not his always shiny pate.
On that Saturday in Tarlac, the last day of the campaign, children could be seen racing alongside the motorcade as it negotiated the narrow road in Victoria. People young and old, men and women, half-run on both sides of the truck that he was riding as it inched along. They were crying out his name: “Noynoy! Noynoy!”
Eye contact with crowd
Amazingly, Noynoy exchanged banter with the crowd as his motorcade moved, from his perch on the truck about 2 feet from the ground. From time to time, he would shout at the children, warning them to stay away from the moving truck lest they hurt themselves. Or he would tell more aggressive ones to stop snatching the baller IDs from the elderly who were not fast enough at catching the wristbands being thrown at the crowds. He actually kept eye contact with the people even as his truck was in motion.
At one point, he pointed at a frisky hardheaded boy tailing the motorcade, singled him out, and shouted: “Hindi tayo naglalaro! … H’wag … baka masaktan ka!” (This is not a game. Don’t, you might hurt yourself!)
The boy froze on his tracks, his jaw dropped, and he stared at Aquino. He obviously couldn’t believe that, Aquino, the object of the crowd’s frenzy, had spotted him.
Amused by the sight of the stunned boy, senatorial candidate Dr. Martin Bautista said to the senator: “I think that boy will grow up a good boy, because he has just been admonished by the President (to-be) of the Philippines. He’ll always remember this day.”
Indeed, on this last day of the campaign, the crowd was no longer shouting “Cory!” or “Kris!”—the two authentic celebrities in the family who are believed to be propelling his campaign. They were now shouting, “Noynoy!” or “Noy!”
No faking it
His candidacy was triggered by the people’s clamor following the death of his mother, the icon of democracy and revered former President Corazon Aquino. Yet city slickers have hardly caught a glimpse of how this “people power” candidate is truly at home with the people, and they with him. He doesn’t have to fake it.
From where we stood behind him on the truck, we could look down at the faces of the people, a moving mosaic of raw emotion, their eyes misting up with hope. For it was hope that we saw, not the cheering or adulation, but hope that their lives would somehow be better.
“This raw emotion is far better than what numbers could show,” said Chris Tio, a volunteer who left his family and thriving retail business in Cebu to join the campaign, referring to candidate preference surveys, as he looked at the crowd backdropped by ramshackle homes. (When Aquino first ran for a House seat in the 1990s, he visited every one of these houses.)
Believe in people power
Whenever he talked about the campaign at the end of what seemed an endless day, Aquino was always at a loss for words trying to describe the response that he got from the crowds.
He recalled how at the start of the campaign, he found himself wondering what he would do for funds or resources.
“But when I went to Masbate and saw the people who stayed with us throughout, then I began to believe,” he said.
“They said people power is long gone, but what I had seen was actually people power every day, wherever I went … it was dark, the streets were not lit. But people beamed their flashlights at the motorcade so they could see us. Or they’d stay for hours under the pouring rain.”
Nor did he always have the show biz celebrities with him on these sorties. According to one volunteer, he realized who the crowds were really coming to see when, in Cagayan, they swarmed and banged on the car that Aquino was riding, shouting: “Pakita niyo si Noynoy!” (Show us Noynoy.) Aquino and his companions had to roll down the tinted windows.
After such days, Noynoy always says that it is the people who keeps him going. “Now you know how exhilarating [it can be], the people recharge you,” he said.
“It’s like a runner’s high … the adrenalin … then you stop, you feel it. When I ran for the Senate, when the campaign ended, I felt the sudden dip in adrenalin and mood. I was watching a comedy yet found myself sad, even crying,” he said.
(Curiously, in that Tarlac motorcade, the chain-smoking candidate perhaps smoked less than six sticks the whole day, at least until after dinner.)
People campaign
While he didn’t plan it, Aquino was on his way to becoming a People’s President. Volunteerism and donations made up his people campaign. (The array of merchandise—T-shirts, baller IDs, caps—that came from every kind of donor was bewildering. And because all of it was volunteered, there was no uniform design, except that they all stuck to the yellow color theme.)
“This wasn’t man alone … everything, the confluence of events, we couldn’t have done it alone. Diyos yon (It was God),” he would say over and over.
Indeed, on his path to the presidency, people everywhere came to define Noynoy as the People’s President. It was a campaign that drew mobs, with or without the presence of show biz celebs, unlike those of his opponents.
“At the start of the campaign, people were really looking for Kris. But midway into the campaign, people were already clamoring for Noynoy and would stand there, listening to him speak,” said another volunteer.
It was at this point that he decided to take charge of his campaign, deciding which sorties to make and issues to tackle.
“He has come into his own. The people, the crowds meeting us everywhere have buoyed his confidence so much,” said one volunteer.
He also plunged into a diligent study of the issues and the demands of governance. Right after announcing his candidacy, Aquino set out to study the budget deficit and other pressing problems.
Speed reading
Not many know that Aquino can speed-read. He was on the plane when the Supreme Court handed down the decision that the incumbent President has the power to appoint the next Chief Justice, and he knew the media would be asking for his comment as soon as the plane landed.
According to an aide, he had the Supreme Court decision downloaded and proceeded to read the entire manuscript, go over it with his lawyers and mentally mark the salient points.
“It was then we realized how he could speed-read and that he has a photographic memory,” the aide said.
His is a People’s Presidency in an era where the masses of Filipinos have been used by demagogues as props in a circus or as a sucker-of-an audience to a game show.
Transform, not just reform
His governance will have to transform, not just reform.
Will Aquino be able to lead a new generation of leaders that will finally deliver the country from the morass of corruption and decay that has condemned it to also-ran status in a region of ascendant powers?
This he must do with enemy fire, even friendly fire, directed at him in the days and years to come.
“If he stems corruption and brings back a sense of decency in government, that is good enough,” said a matron who voted for Aquino.
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