MANNY VILLAR HAD SOME INTERESTING things to say last week at the Manila Overseas Press Club. “I’m not perfect. But when you look at me, you are looking at Manny Villar, what you see is what you get. You’re not looking at my mother, my father or the tycoon behind me.”

That’s an obvious dig at Noynoy Aquino and Chiz Escudero. Well, Chiz has solved that problem not just by quitting the race but by cutting ties with “the tycoon behind me.” While at that, Chiz had a few choice words of his own in announcing his decision. He is not an hacendero, he is not an heredero, and he is not a bilyonaryo, he said. It’s an obvious dig too at Noynoy (hacendero and heredero), Villar (hacendero and bilyonaryo) and possibly Gilbert Teodoro with the suggestion of the billions in taxpayers’ money behind him.

What can one say? All’s fair in love and elections. Does Noynoy have to solve the problem of “you’re looking at my mother and father” too?

Not at all. In his case it’s not a loss, it’s a gain.

Villar misses the point. Not least in his choice of words which are quite unfortunate. “What you see is what you get” is usually not used as a pat on the back but as a putdown. It implies people who lack depth. When you say about a quiet person, “what you see is what you get,” you mean that he is quiet because he has nothing to say. When you say about a showbiz guy, “what you see is what you get,” you mean that he is handsome but shallow. That has no small amount of repercussion for a campaign trying to project the image of being pogi.

Quite apart from that, Villar misses the point when he rubs family in the face of Noynoy Aquino. The sensation is not unlike throwing a turtle into the sea to drown it, as the folk tale about the feuding turtle and monkey tells.

For good and bad, Filipinos have a tendency to look at family when making choices. That is the first thing parents ask their kids when they are about to propose (mamamanhikan). Does the partner have a history of having a crackpot in the family? May sira ba sa lahi nila? The worry being that, if there is, you have a good chance of producing offspring with some mental infirmity. Like I said, that is good and bad, the bad being that Filipinos, like Greeks, to go by “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” end up marrying families instead of individuals. But that is the culture.

What’s true for choosing spouses is true for choosing presidents. Or truer, the bad being less manifest there. You can’t go very wrong asking yourself what the antecedents of the candidates are. Whether being loony is hereditary or not is debatable, but whether being crooked is imbibed or not is not. People do share values within a family, making allowances for differences in personalities and capacities for rebellion. I doubt many people would look kindly on Erap’s kids today. I doubt many people would look kindly at Gloria’s—and Mike’s—kids after she’s gone. Or never mind after she’s gone, at this very moment. The sins of the fathers—and mothers—are visited upon the children.

So is the opposite: The graces of the fathers—and mothers—are visited upon the children. Noynoy is not made bereft in the eyes of the voters by having his immediate forebears dredged up by his opponents, he is made full by it. The first thing you think of when Cory and Ninoy are mentioned is that Noynoy cannot afford to tarnish their names by going wayward. The second thing you think of is that he cannot afford not to try to be as good as, if not better than, them. Either way, it cannot hurt his capacity to govern, or the public’s perception of it, that he falls under that shadow. It is not a burden, it is a gift.

Even more, Villar misses the point about the mood of the citizenry, or what matters most to voters today.

With him, he says, what you see is what you get. Unfortunately, what the public sees in him, more than anything else, is Ping Lacson’s C-5 exposé. The Senate hearings never proved wrongdoing, of course, but it cannot help his cause that he was championed there by Juan Ponce Enrile, Miriam Santiago, and Joker Arroyo, the same people who insisted Jun Lozada was never kidnapped. I did say then that his image of being neutral, or indeed of being acceptable to administration and opposition alike, had just been shattered. The defense of the Three Stooges drew him to GMA’s camp. With all its suggestion that birds of a feather flock together, or a family that preys together stays together.

True enough, Noynoy has never been in the spotlight. But he has never been in the spotlight for being accused of, or caught, stealing. He has never been in the spotlight for being accused of, or caught, saying one thing and doing another. He has never been in the spotlight for calling up a Comelec commissioner or having lugaw with the Comelec chief, and materializing as winner.

He has never been in the spotlight for spending a million bucks on a meal while his countrymen groan from the effects of disaster. He has never been in the spotlight for interrupting Manny Pacquiao’s training to have a photo-op with him or barging into his sister’s talk show to score pogi points. He has never been in the spotlight even when everyone was egging him to run and he wanted only to withdraw, or retreat, into the quiet of the wilds or his conscience. He has never been in the spotlight for abusing power. He has never been in the spotlight for never wanting the spotlight to leave him.

The point is simply this: What the voters today want—which has given rocket fuel to Noynoy’s bid even before he bid—is someone they can trust. Under GMA’s shadow, that trust is no longer earned by what public officials do but what they do not. What you see is what you get?

What you do not see is what you want to get.