“SANA dalawin ka ng nanay at tatay mo ‘pag pinalagpas mo ‘to (I wish your parents would visit you from the grave if you let this chance pass),” said Senator Noynoy Aquino, quoting in a public assembly someone who was urging him to run for office in 2010.
It seems like he won’t be getting any visits from beyond the veil. The senator, wearing black for his mother’s 40th day of passing, put to rest one of the most hotly debated issues at the moment. “I am accepting the will of the people,” Noynoy said at Club Filipino, where his mother had taken her oath of office in 1986. It prompted cheers from those gathered, and even made some remark that this was déjà vu, a sign of how “Cory magic” is very much alive.
Indeed, we are a country starved for heroes.
And not the tawdry, centavo-a-dozen kind. Not the heroes who flex their muscles and show off their animal pelts, only to run at the first sign of battle. There is no place in our nation for those with brute force, who will rage like an Achilles and wipe out anything that stands in their way. The country needs real heroism, the kind that would not give in to cold practicality or hot idealism, the kind that would stop and think before swinging its sword. Noynoy Aquino?
He’s not the type to even wield a sword, but who knows. Only time will tell. The important thing is that he made “the big decision.” And inevitably, with that comes a whole slew of other issues—campaign funds, the issue of his bachelorhood, running partners, and other things that might make the good senator regret running in the first place.
Having spent time in the cloisters of the Carmelite nuns in Zamboanga must have given him the peace and quiet to think about things like these, and I believe that we are to take this declaration to mean that he has thought everything out, or at least up until the campaign period begins.
For now, the spotlight should be trained on the nature of Noynoy’s undertaking. Let us not forget what the senator had just proposed to do: he practically signed up for a living hell, (or heaven, depending on your morals, but that’s another story) just so the rest of the country can live out their lives.
Kind of makes me think of another reluctant hero. Noynoy to me seems like Tolkien’s Frodo Baggins—thrust into power with nothing but courage and the words of great people to light his way. Trusted with a “Ring of Power,” and trusted to bring it to its end when the time comes. Granted, Noynoy is a politician, not an ordinary person, and he is a public official; he would have to want the candidacy at some point. His speech smacks of his being a politico—from regaling the people with gratuitous anecdotes, to the numerous sound bites on his being fated to run for the office. This is a man who knows how important his words at this particular moment are. No one can blame him; he definitely makes the most out of it.
No one else at the moment, though, could offer to carry the weight of the “One Ring” on his neck, and to hurl it into the fire after bearing with its seduction, the act symbolic of the actual “cleansing” of the highest seat in office, which has been plagued with scandal. No one else can claim to enthrall the public with very little effort, or to have even cynics curious about what he can actually do.
After three rotten terms, the people are ready for an upheaval. And they look ready for people like Noynoy Aquino.
I hope he doesn’t falter in the face of power. I hope he does it for the country; for this country where people hang on to every splinter of hope, and anything akin to good news brings great optimism, because people always fear it will be the last of its kind that comes along.
