MANILA, Philippines -- Feelings of nostalgia or euphoria are not enough to win elections, according to Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno.

Puno, who helped three presidents get seated in Malacañang, was assessing the chances of Liberal Party presidential candidate, Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III, in the 2010 elections.

In Tuesday night?s appearance before the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC) at the Hotel Intercon in Makati City, Puno said that from experience, strong emotions such as nostalgia, arising from the passing of Noynoy?s mother, former president Corazon "Cory" Aquino and the 26th death anniversary of her martyred husband, former Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., would not last until election day.

He added that the euphoria people felt remembering the people?s triumph in the 1986 Edsa Revolution, three years after Ninoy?s assassination, would not be enough to keep Noynoy buoyed until election day.

?A word on the euphoria?those things are not enough to win an election. You will have to deal with the issues that the people are concerned about. Those have to be dealt with over a long period,? said Puno, who has been aspiring to snag the vice-presidential slot under the merged administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD party.

Puno is widely believed to be the architect of the electoral victory of three recent presidents, Fidel Ramos in 1992, Joseph Estrada in 1998 and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004.

?If you?re going to ask me if the same kind of mood of exuberance and opposition is going to be present eight months from now, I can tell you that from my entire experience, nothing lasted that long,? Puno said.

He said that during the campaign, candidates would be doing a ?lot of talking? and they will have to be consistent about a lot of things. ?You are going to face a lot of questions from everyone, and you cannot please everybody.?

Nonetheless, Puno said understanding the ?Noynoy phenomenon? would be key to the success of the administration party ?because we have to deal with it and we have to deal with the root causes that any people feel about this government.?

Puno also recognized that popular support for Aquino may have been fueled by a degree of discontentment with the Arroyo administration, saying there was a ?miscommunication about what the government does or intends to do.?

?This has resulted in a lot of confusion and when our people are confused, they tend to get very negative. They tend to lose faith and confidence in the government if they cannot understand what they are doing. So the first thing we need to do is to understand where this is all coming from, what is fueling this apparent discontent that has taken over the minds of people, according to their surveys, 50 percent of our population.?

In the next eight months leading up to election day, Puno said the candidates would have to prove that ?they are up to the promise that the people hold in their hearts for these officials. We will have to explain to the people how they will deal with the hurts they feel, problems they experience everyday, the poverty they have been mired in.?

These questions would have to be answered, not just by the administration candidates, but the opposition as well, Puno surmised.

?Which is why I believe that any campaign that will be premised on acts of retribution, on going to the past, is not going to succeed. I believe, over and above, in proving our sincerity to be in public office. We have to prove and show our people that the direction in which we wish to take them is the correct one, that their future and the future of their children are safe in our hands. If we cannot do that, then we deserve to lose.?