PHILIPPINES: Bureaucrat-capitalist Villar not from ranks of dirt poor (tags)
IT WAS ALMOST LIKE HEARING Pol Pot talking when Apo Alvarez, formerly of Anakbayan, wrote that the May 10 elections would symbolize a “clash of classes”—Benigno Aquino III of the elite, and Manuel Villar of the impoverished. (Inquirer, 4/12/10)
Reform: The Making of a Philippine Presidential Campaign (tags)
There is real possibility for a significant leap in the reform process in the Philippines after the 2010 elections. If, as seems likely at this time, Noynoy Aquino wins the presidency, a number of converging developments could produce the conditions necessary for change. The first is Noynoy himself, who has successfully embodied the political legacy of his mother Cory, and his father Ninoy. This, in turn, has introduced a new dimension of enthusiastic voluntarism to the election campaign. Finally, the people running Noynoy’s campaign constitute the leading core of an enlarged reform constituency.