I’m hearing it said, and it’s true: Noynoy Aquino would not have won this time around had his mother not died last year.

It’s that guilt vote. Catholicism,guilt,  family ties mean something in the RP.  If voting machine and counting snafus could be averted, then it was in the bag. But who had the crystal balls to predict that?

One thing is sure, an Aquino candidacy was unlikely had Cory lived on. Noynoy was too happy as the idealistic gadfly oligarch.

The political wags in Manila are already saying that in a “Non-Noy, No Aquino race,”  the convicted and pardoned former ex-President Joseph Estrada would have won easily over the scandal-tainted Manny Villar, the Meg Whitman-Ross Perot like politician who had lots of money to burn.

Add to that the tremendous victories from the surviving Marcos family, all of them, allowed to run and win in their Ilocos region. What do you get?  A recycling of corruption seems imminent.

Says a lot for the Filipino voters and the future of democracy there, where crooked politicians are cherished and revered.

But why shouldn’t some scalawags and scalawagas be given a fifth or sixth chance? 

It’s the Filipino way.

In America, you get dumped for lying about your Vietnam status. Or you get dinged for having an affair (which is strange. Don’t politicos get into the business to get chicks?)

But that’s politics in America.  All that is just a starting point for political success in the Philippines.