Manny Villar?s appearance in the Senate last Tuesday did not lack for cleverness.

It was never meant to address the Senate, it was meant to address the media. Or more accurately, to address the public through the media. The conventional wisdom in national elections, more so now than ever, is that nothing you do or say means anything unless it is reported by the media. Jamby Madrigal might have screamed duwag, and Juan Ponce Enrile might have howled takot after Villar left before he could be challenged, but what did it matter to him? He had gotten maximum media exposure, he had pleaded his case before the public, he could leave his friends and allies in the Senate to pick up where he left off.

A lot of analyses has been offered about why Villar appears to be catching up with Noynoy Aquino, none of them seeing the obvious. The explanation is simple: Noynoy has disappeared from the news, his disappearance being as sudden as his appearance. He was front-page newspaper and prime-time TV stuff nearly every day in August and September last year, but was barely reported afterward, having said and done little to sustain media attention. It?s hard to keep the fires burning while absent. Villar on the other hand has been there since, not least through a sheer preponderance of ads. That?s where his billions helped.

Arguably, his appearance in the news has been ?negative.? But nothing really becomes ?negative? in the media or in life?which is why I put it in quotation marks?until it is articulated, or given shape and form by word, by a credible source. No articulation, no reality. No credible source, no negativity. So long as it?s a Johnny-and-Jamby show, or a show by people whose capacity to lecture others on greed is suspect, so long can Villar afford to turn his back on them, as he did at the Senate. A credible source does not hammer home the evil, at the end of the day no one will remember what the issue was about, only that the limelight was on Villar. That can?t be bad for him.

It?s Noynoy who is in the best position to do so, who can show the evil for what it is by drawing a contrast between light and shadow, who can turn the spotlight that has been trained on Villar into an interrogation lamp. I hope he does. As I write this, he hasn?t?yet. Maybe he?s just the kind of guy who doesn?t want to kick the other guy while he?s down. Maybe he?s just the kind of guy who doesn?t want to weigh down his campaign with ?negativity??still in quotation marks, I?ve always thought negating corruption, or plain thievery, was positive in the extreme. Mabait lang talaga, which is good and bad.

But it?s Noynoy who can raze down everything Villar said at the Senate last Tuesday without effort, or with the kind of lightness and humor he is more given to. He has the moral ascendancy.

He?s the one who can point out the fallacy of Villar?s claim that his enemies are full of crab mentality by reminding him that crabs normally try to bring down the one on top and not the one near the top. Villar is not the one on top, however he is trying to project himself as so. He is merely the one who was once on top but has fallen down. The one on top remains Noynoy. If anyone is showing crab mentality, it?s the ones who are trying to pull him down. Chief of them, Villar.

He?s the one who can advise Villar to drop the act of depicting himself as ?mahirap?; it reminds people not of Diosdado Macapagal, the ?poor boy from Lubao? who made good, but only of his daughter who has always meant the opposite of what she says. Or of Marcos, who got from Hitler, or Goebbels, the theory that if you repeat a lie long enough, it?s bound to be believed. People who burn money in lieu of gas to fuel a campaign are mahirap only in the sense of mahirap paniwalaan. They?re not just full of crab mentality, they?re full of it.

Noynoy is the one who can preach that corruption is not a legal issue, it is a moral one. In this country more than anywhere else, where law is merely an extension of power, if not money. The fact that the Department of Justice ruled Villar innocent doesn?t make him so, it indicts him all the more. The DoJ has also always found Arroyo pure as the driven snow. It only makes her black as sin.

However you slice it, diverting a road to run through your properties, thereby enriching you, is corruption. And corruption kills. It is the food that should have been put in the mouth of the hungry but is not there. It is the book that should have been in the hands of the unlettered but is not there. It is the medicine that should have been injected into the arteries of the dying but is not there. Corruption has never been known to pluck a nation out of poverty. It has always been known to put a nation there, and keep it there.

Noynoy is the one who can remind the voters of what he said at Club Filipino when he announced his candidacy: The point is not to settle for the dubious, the pwede na rin, the one that has figured in scandals but has been absolved by the courts, it is to insist on the right thing, the best person, the one who has never figured in a scandal to begin with, never mind being cleared. That is so in choosing presidents above all. The point is not to go for the mahirap na, the point is to go for the matino talaga.

I truly hope Noynoy does it. Not out of a need to campaign, not out of a need to catch the media?s attention, but out of a sense of obligation. To spare us the thought, and possibility, of having a president whose presidential seal will proclaim: ?What is good for me is good for the nation.? Or ?What enriches me enriches you.?

Who knows? Maybe Noynoy can even say, ?Money is the root of all evil.? Pronouncing ?Money? with a completely Filipino accent.