November 18, 2009

Noynoy Aquino

The Liberal Party’s press conference on Monday to announce the senatorial slate was held in the morning, and yet the party’s standard bearer, the chain-smoking Benigno Aquino III, was already coughing and running out of breath barely mid-way into his brief address.

According to the grapevine, the harsh throat clearing and hawking—more than his mouth often being caught open on TV—had already been red-flagged by Aquino’s campaign advisers to no avail.

It was a good thing, or was it more than a coincidence, that Aquino’s running mate, Manuel Roxas II, had had to answer and had to take the heat off that morning from his principal and confront the media pests about the left wing noise on Hacienda Luisita.

Otherwise, the adoring and unquestioning 44 percent of the voters might have been jolted to the unpleasant reality: the son of a martyr and the Edsa I heroine apparently does not have the discipline and the fortitude to kick off an unhealthy habit that poses a threat not only to his candidacy but also, heaven forbid, to his possible presidency.