MANILA, Philippines?Presumptive president-elect Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III Monday rejected calls to quit smoking, saying his habit would help him deal with the severe pressures of his new position.

Aquino, 50, brushed aside calls from health groups that quitting smoking would set a good example for the country.

?People knew when I ran for president that I smoke,? Aquino said in reply to a nongovernmental organization who had asked him to be its antismoking poster boy.

?So as long as I don?t violate any laws and I don?t disturb anyone [I should be free to smoke]. This is one of my few remaining freedoms,? he said.

Aquino was back in the Senate Monday after three months of campaigning.

The senator, however, promised he would kick the habit?eventually.

?At the appropriate time, I will quit smoking,? he said.

Pressed to reveal why he was not ready to give up smoking just yet, Aquino said his new job would see him facing many ?pressures? and by quitting now he would be adding an ?unnecessary pressure.?

?It might even affect my decisions,? he said.

Told that giving up the habit would be for his own good, Aquino said he accepted this as true but insisted that ?bad stress would be added? if he tried to quit now.

Later, in a chat with the Philippine Daily Inquirer and another reporter, Aquino said he preferred to smoke Marlboro Lights Menthol.

He said that during the critical snap presidential election in 1986, he smoked three packs of cigarettes?the most he had ever consumed in a day.

Smoking is one habit that Aquino shares with Barack Obama, who is still struggling to quit, according to his first medical examination in early March since becoming US President.

Obama, 48, promised his wife Michelle when he ran for president that he would quit. He was then smoking about eight sticks a day. Last year, he told reporters he had quit smoking but still had an occasional cigarette.

Aquino has a wide lead in the unofficial tallies of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Congress is slated to start canvassing the votes for president and vice president this week and intends to proclaim the winners before the second week of June. With a report from Agence France-Presse