Read Part 1: ?People?s President? embraces destiny

(Last of two parts)

If the presidency were his grand, consuming ambition, he could have kept the blood-stained, tattered polo shirt we had been reminding him to keep for posterity.

When we asked Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III about two months ago where the shirt was, he sounded disinterested and said it must have gotten lost or thrown away as he and his mom were preparing to leave the Arlegui House (the official residence of the Cory Aquino administration) to return to Times Street (the family home in Quezon City).

But why, when it?s a dramatic piece of your life?

?It stinks!? he said, simply put.

A regular guy who?s not full of himself?that?s a side to Aquino the public hardly knew in the three decades that his family has lived on the national stage, perhaps because he never deliberately hopped on that stage.

Had he been a ?trapo? (traditional politician), he could have paraded the shirt around for maximum media mileage and votes.

That was the shirt he was wearing one late night in 1987 when he was ambushed by renegade military forces in a coup attempt against the Aquino administration, one of eight. With his security detail, he was on his way back to Arlegui from the south of Manila. His bodyguards, except one, were killed in the ambush.

Barely a week after that bloody night, he asked us over to the Arlegui House to recount in graphic detail his near-brush with death. His left shoulder was on a sling, his neck bandaged and his head tilted to one side. (A speck of a shrapnel?he believes a grenade was used, apart from other firepower?remains lodged beneath his left ear to this day.)

?They would not leave us alive,? we remember him saying about what seemed like an endless wait for rescue. He spent an insufferable length of time pinned to the floor of the Mercedes Benz, his dying bodyguard, crumpled on top of him to protect him, muttering intermittently, ?Okay ka ba, sir??

The shirt he wore was soaked in blood?his and his bodyguard?s?and torn in shreds in some portions. It was even ?redder,? we noted then, than the safari jacket of his father, political martyr Benigno Aquino Jr.

Life under siege

While he had a second lease on life after that night, his also became a life lived under siege. This was the same young man who, flying in from Boston in August 1983 where the family lived in exile, stood for the first time before the coffin of his assassinated father and, even before he could break into tears, turned around to face a reporter waiting to attack with a question??So how did your dad get the false Marcial Bonifacio passport??

?I probably looked naive then, and clueless, jet-lagged, that the reporter thought I?d take the bait,? he recalled his early vulnerability. (He didn?t answer the reporter.)

Living under siege entailed having a mind for military intelligence while his mother was president. He picked up target shooting and indulged his love of guns?a hobby he hasn?t stopped pursuing.

In this presidential campaign, an aide noted how, during a land travel late in the night, when their convoy was passing through deserted fields, Aquino would just ask that one gun from his security staff be handed over to him which he would then place on his lap, at the ready, just in case.

Yes, the incoming president can be a good shot.

While his mom was the President, he was preoccupied trying to ensure her personal safety and that of the rest of the family. He?d often say that he could sleep well at night only when he was certain that everyone was home safe, including his only nephew then, Jiggy, who had begun to go to school.

His mom?s presidency, he now stresses, gave him an insider?s pass into the workings of government. ?I was the bringer of bad news to her,? he?d often say.

It?s no exaggeration to say that as the President?s only son and being the man of the house, he subsumed his life to that of a presidential mother. Perhaps this was why his campaign drew mothers in droves; time bore out that he had been not only a protective son, but also a good son?even in his love life.

Regularly dated and dieters

Being the President?s only son also impacted on his personal relationships. He regularly dated and had a string of girlfriends. It?s known among his friends how conservative Aquino can be when it comes to the women he dates. Like many Filipino sons, he likes them to have the simple traits and old-fashioned values of his mother.

He likes them simple, especially in dressing, low-key because he himself values privacy. She should be someone he can have great rapport with?and pretty. (If we say model-pretty, he might protest.)

Talk about simple, not ?ma-arte.? He once had a date who seemed to be always on a diet; he found it a turnoff because it spoiled his appetite.

Not only should the woman be the type one could bring home to mother, she should also not bring embarrassment to his mother?s stature.

Vultures and virtues

Above all, she must share his (and his mother?s) values?if he was to be serious in the relationship. He could be uncompromising when it came to this. If one needed proof of how firm or even stubborn he could be?and how he?s not the type to be easily swayed?one needed only remember how he handled his relationships, and even his associations (male and female friends alike) when his mother was the President. He didn?t particularly relish ?users.? One couldn?t find a better proof of character than that. And one hopes he replicates this now that he himself could be president who will inevitably attract vultures.

Asked why he?s remained a bachelor (time was when he resolved to marry before age 30, then 40, and so on), he?d always say, ?As you can see, it?s not for want of trying.?

Indeed our regular butt of jokes is how his mother?s former designer Auggie Cordero had tried designing already a bridal gown for Aquino?s intended, ages ago, and how today?fashion being a cycle?the design is in vogue again, and the fabric already ?yellowed.?

Love takes backseat

?Picky? is an understatement when it comes to him and his relationships. Whether intentional on his part or not, his priority seems to have always been his family?s unique place in contemporary Philippine history. His love relationship takes a backseat?as if that isn?t obvious by now. And getting hitched has always been a movable target.

His current girlfriend Shalani Soledad, the very pretty Valenzuela City councilor, seems to have an edge over his past beaus in that she?s also a politician and seems not the clingy type. But when asked about wedding plans, he shows single-mindedness??Focus!?, meaning focus on the task at hand, the presidency.

While he relented to a makeover for his presidential campaign, he?s not the type who?ll lose sleep over it. Even fashionistas agreed that sister Kris has done a very good makeover of her brother. His shirts and pants are well fitted, neither too loose nor snug, and thus make him look younger. Kris has tapped the services of both the seasoned and young designers?JC Buendia for his shirts, Joey Samson, Randy Ortiz (suits), Paul Cabral.

His hair is short cropped?enough to camouflage the thinning. But a friend of the family said that not even Baby James? repeated cries of ?botox, botox!? could convince his not-vain uncle to undergo the beauty procedure.

Tap Cabinet wives

Since the presidency of his mom, he?s known the rise and ebb of power and, it seems to us, not blind to the transient hangers-on of power. He?s kept the same set of friends from his school days, and these friends didn?t necessarily hover over him when he was in Congress or in the Senate. They?re just there when he needs them, like in his presidential campaign.

But he said on the last day of the campaign, not all of them may necessarily be around when he goes to Malacañang. ?One is even planning to migrate,? he said of a close friend.

His siblings, of course, will be around him when he assumes the presidency, but he said, he may not necessarily pass on the First Lady duties to them. Bringing them deeper into the presidency, he said, is ?like setting them up for target. I have asked enough of them already.?

He said he might tap the wives of his Cabinet members to stand in on some ceremonial chores?similar perhaps to what the Cabinet Ladies Foundation did in the Ramos administration.

What will his celebrity sister Kris do in his presidency? ?Probably nothing,? he said, ?She will have to make up for time lost (in her career).?

Long drives relaxing

The past months, just about the only normal enjoyments he?s had were to soak himself one night in his mother?s jacuzzi, and to drive from Manila to Tarlac one no-traffic night. Long drives are his form of relaxation. (He can say goodbye to those now.)

In the next six years, he must prove that he is no mere beneficiary of fate.

And he?s raring to assume the presidency to bring his philosophy of leader-servant to it. ?I will not enrich myself,? he said, ?and I aim to bring my methodology of politics to it. As the campaign showed, one doesn?t have to buy (the presidency), you can go direct to the voters, the people.

?When it gets to the point that we turn politics into a pigsty, when the politician takes power, he becomes a pig.?

And he wasn?t smoking when he said that.