SOMEONE ASKED ME RECENTLY: ?DON?T you think that transforming the choice into a moral one is a little too high for the masa to grasp? Don?t you think the better tack would be to talk about gut issues (malapit sa bituka)??

Not at all.

To begin with, you would not be transforming anything. You would not be raising or reducing or reshaping anything. That was exactly how the masa saw the choice from the very start, when Cory died and Noynoy Aquino announced his intention to run: the choice was a moral one. It was not a gratuitous choice between presidential candidates, between Noynoy and Villar (Villar never even figured in the equation), between what the candidates had to offer. It was a desperate choice between the GMA curse and the Cory legacy, between Noynoy (or what he represented) and Gloria (or what she is), between life and death.

It was a choice between Good and Evil.

The fact that Noynoy got more than 60 percent showed this wasn?t merely a middle-class or elite sentiment. Not even Erap got those numbers at the height of his popularity. That is a cross-section of the populace speaking. No, that is the people shouting at the top of their lungs.

You hear the word ?moral,? and you think ethics, you think refinement, you think dark nights of the soul. It is nothing of the kind. It is life and death, it is eating and starving, it is breathing and being shot in the head. It is as bituka as it comes. Good vs. Evil?it is more powerful in Tagalog, mabuti laban sa masama?is there suffusing everything.

It is the hero vs. the villain, the daughter vs. the madrasta, Erap vs. Eddie Garcia, the prosecutors vs. Erap (in his impeachment trial), Ang Panday vs. the kampon ng kadiliman, the action hero vs. the unsavory goons, the old lady with the handbag vs. the mandurukot, the faithful vs. the faithless, the straight vs. the crooked, the matapat vs. the kurakot, the truth-teller vs. the liar, the honest vs. the cheat, the defender of life vs. the murderer (or the massacre-r), the people of the Philippines vs. the Ampatuans, Cory vs. Marcos, Obama vs. McCain, the will of the people vs. the lure of money, the people?s campaign vs. the campaign of Money/Manny, earning the presidency vs. buying the presidency, Aquino vs. Villaroyo.

It is the stuff of telenovelas, it is the stuff of movies, it is the stuff of politics, it is the stuff of life.

It takes two to tango, and nowhere more so than in this dance. The equation works only when both elements are present. The power of the paradigm lies in the contrast, not in the individual strengths of the elements. You don?t have to go very far to see that in political life. For a long, long time, GMA was seen as the worst leader this country has ever had after Marcos, or for some even before Marcos. Yet all that it elicited from the public was cynicism and text jokes. It was only after Cory died and Noynoy arose in her wake that the cynicism turned into a revulsion for an intolerable situation and the text jokes turned into an epic desire to change things.

For the Aquino camp, that means it?s not just enough to harp on the hell that the GMA curse is, or the heaven that the Cory legacy can be, it needs to harp on the hell that the GMA curse is and the heaven that the Cory legacy can be, at the same time. For the Aquino camp, that means that it?s not just enough to harp on Villar as the embodiment, continuation or extension of GMA (literally or in a kindred way) or Noynoy as the inheritor, keeper, and perpetuator of the Cory legacy, it needs to harp on the one as the disease and on the other as the cure.

From the start, this particular election was never about elections. It was about bondage and freedom, oppression and liberation, despair and hope. Why the hell should people see it as an election? An election presupposes a natural succession. How can you naturally succeed someone who has been ruling for a decade without a mandate? If this was an election at all, it was the same as the snap election of 1986, a choice not between the relative virtues of Cory and Marcos but a choice between light and dark, heaven and hell, hope and despair.

The situation remains the same. The Aquino camp can still go back to its roots, it can still stoke back the flame that roared into a raging fire last year but became a flicker from not being fanned at all. The people are angry, the people are gnashing their teeth, the people are seething with rage. The people are hopeful, the people are awakened, the people are demanding change.

Who cares about Noynoy?s plans for education? Simply removing the monsters whose very existence teaches the young that lying, cheating and stealing are rewarded and whistle-blowing, telling the truth, and being courageous are punished is an entire curriculum unto itself. Who cares about Noynoy?s plans for economic development? Simply stopping a reign of corruption stops poverty completely literally in that there is no mahirap where there is no korap, and completely spiritually in that nothing impoverishes a country more than an utter lack of moralidad. Who cares about Noynoy?s plans for national security? You arrest the usurpers who made the country home to desperation and insecurity, and line them up against the wall, or its legal equivalent since we don?t have the death penalty anymore, though we can always make an exception, and we will have more security than can be guaranteed by the armed forces or the insurance companies.

The choice is between life and death. The choice is between the vista of hell and the glimpse of heaven. The choice is between Aquino and Villaroyo.

The choice is between Good and Evil.