I remember when Noynoy Aquino first got his plus-50 ratings. His supporters were meeting every week, asking themselves how they might consolidate his lead. I said this was all very well, but surely before you asked yourself how to consolidate his lead, you first had to ask how he got it?

That seems obvious. Yet the obvious is often the hardest thing to see, which is why the best place to hide things is in the open. In fact that was the one question the Aquino campaign failed to ask. Either the lead was assumed as given, or it was attributed in some vague way to the ?Cory magic.?

Of course, it had to do with the Cory magic. But I don?t know that people really looked a little more closely at what the Cory magic was, or how it worked.

How can anybody possibly assume Noynoy?s lead as given? How can anybody possibly not want to know how he got it at all? It?s the most astonishing thing in the world. It didn?t just defy the odds, it defied reason. If you cannot understand how it happened, how can you hope to consolidate it?

I myself thought, and wrote, at that time that as a result of the reawakened spirit of People Power, Noynoy would eventually seize the lead. The operative word was ?eventually.? I figured he would start out below, or maybe somewhere in the middle, and work his way up. The fact that he not only zoomed to the top but left everybody biting his dust was mind-boggling.

You have to stand agape at the impossibility of it. Until August last year, Noynoy wasn?t even a blip in the presidential radar. Though bright and personable, he had never made it a point to stand out in the Senate. Though honest and decent, he had never made it a point to proclaim his virtues. Though born of parents who were seen as heroes, he had never made it a point to be larger than life. Then overnight, even before he said he would run, he got ratings that went through the roof.

And you?re going to ask how to consolidate that without first asking how he got it?

That alone would have shown, one, that his numbers had to do with something bigger, vaster, grander than him. It would have shown that he was not a ?presidentiable,? he was a symbol. It would have shown that he personally had not become larger than life, he had come to represent something that was larger than life.

If so, then logic would dictate that you conduct a campaign that highlighted the fact. That dwelled on the legacy he represented rather than the virtues he possessed. That subsumed his identity, however it required humility of heroic proportions, to the cause his family fought for and died for. That made out his reason for being, and for becoming president, that he was the katiwala of that legacy and mapagkakatiwalaan to perpetuate it.

The campaign did not. I don?t know how much that was the effect of the bait (it was a bait) of being challenged to ?be your own man.? But soon enough the campaign was dwelling instead on what Noynoy personally would do for education, for housing, for the poor. It?s one thing to have your wings clipped, it?s another to agree to it, gleefully.

Just as well his numbers alone would have shown (two) that this was no ordinary elections and he was no ordinary candidate. Ordinary elections do not have someone bolt out from far afield to lead the pack by a mile. Those numbers would have shown, as I kept saying then, that the public was not seeing the other candidates, and it wasn?t seeing them simply because it was not seeing this as an election. This was not a choice between presidential bidders, this was a choice between life or death. This was not a choice between Noynoy and Villar, this was a choice between Noynoy and Arroyo.

If so, then logic would dictate that you do everything in your power to not turn this into just another election, into just another choice between candidates, into just another pissing contest between platforms, programs and promises.

The campaign did not. Which could only have been the product of bad advisers, of people devoid of insight. The campaign dwelled on Noynoy?s platforms, programs and promises, albeit trying to show they were superior to the others. Thereby turning him into just another presidential wannabe. Thereby making all the other wannabes visible as though a spotlight had suddenly been trained on them. Thereby allowing Villar to come tearing across in a sport he knows so well, in a game whose rules he could bend, brook, or buy.

Challenged to keep the campaign high, the campaign responded by making it low. Challenged to make the campaign lofty, the campaign responded my making it dull. Challenged to make the choice sublime, the campaign responded by making it paralytic.

But like I said yesterday, it?s not the end of the line, it?s just the beginning of things. It?s just a question of going back to roots, of knowing where you came from so that you can get to where you?re going.

It?s just a question of the Aquino campaign seeing not with the smugness of still attainable victory but with the shock of remembrance that this is not a battle to win the presidency, this is a struggle to liberate the country. It?s just a question of the Aquino campaign realizing not with the fear of a rival closing in but with the ardor of a heart inflamed that this is not a battle to reverse the tides of fortune, it is a war to change the earthly lot of the Filipino from the hell that is to the heaven it can be. It?s just a question of the Aquino campaign rediscovering not with the eyes of the exalted but with the grace of the humble that in the end, it is not just bearing on its shoulders like Atlas the legacy of Cory, it is carrying on its shoulders like Aeneas the trust and faith and mandate of a people.

It?s just a question of showing the trusted can be trusted.