A check of Internet search engines for “two Americas” will direct you to the 2004 vice-presidential acceptance speech of Sen. John Edwards who declared then that there exists “one America that does the work, another that reaps the reward; one America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks; one America - middle-class America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America - narrow-interest America - whose every wish is Washington’s command.”

But if you Google the Internet for “two Philippines”, you will get nothing metaphorically equivalent. And yet this is the only way to truly understand why Sen. Noynoy Aquino and Sen. Manny Villar are in a virtual dead heat three months before the May presidential elections according to the recent poll survey results of Pulse Asia.

This is after all a country that toppled a brutal and corrupt dictatorship without firing a single shot through a People Power revolution that inspired the world from South Korea to Romania. But it is also a country with a deeply imbedded culture of impunity that allows a convicted plunderer the full opportunity to run for president.

This is a country that has produced a Gawad Kalinga (GK) army of selfless volunteers building homes for the homeless in thousands of GK communities throughout the Philippines with each GK community promoting health, education and home industries that provide income opportunities for their residents. But it is also a country that has 132 private armies at the beck and call of provincial warlords capable of inflicting Ampatuan-style atrocities on our helpless people.

In the 1960s a young politician who was embarking on the national stage observed this “two Philippines” phenomenon from up close: “Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. . .Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite.”

The young politico was Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. who later spent nearly eight years in solitary confinement after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in September of 1972, shutting down the courts and the Congress, and imprisoning thousands of his political opponents.

Marcos ruled over two Philippines during martial law, over those who willingly kowtowed to the strongman including many who profited from it, and over those who refused to yield to the dictatorship including many who resisted it at great personal sacrifice.
One of those in the latter was Ninoy Aquino who refused to participate in the kangaroo court that Marcos had set up to try him on trumped-up charges of subversion. His refusal, he explained in a letter to his son, Noynoy, “is an act of conscience. It is an act of protest against the structures of injustice that have been imposed upon our hapless countrymen. Futile and puny, as it will surely appear to many, it is my last act of defiance against tyranny and dictatorship.”

In that 1973 letter to his son, Ninoy wrote that “the only valuable asset I can bequeath to you now is the name you carry. I have tried my best during my years of public service to keep that name untarnished and respected, unmarked by sorry compromises for expediency. I now pass it on to you, as good, I pray, as when my father, your grandfather passed it on to me.”

His military captors promised Ninoy that if he renounced all opposition to Marcos, he would be freed immediately. But, he told his son, “this I cannot do in conscience. I would rather die on my feet with honor, than live on bended knees in shame.”

Ninoy believed that it only “takes little effort to stop a tyrant. I have no doubt in the ultimate victory of right over wrong, of evil over good, in the awakening of the Filipino.” Ninoy was right but it would take 14 long years before the dictatorship was toppled and Ninoy had to sacrifice his life for it to happen.

Now, 27 years after his father’s assassination, Noynoy Aquino is running for president with the legacy of his father’s name on the promise to eliminate corruption with the firm resolve that if there is no corruption, there is no poverty. (“Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap”).
But he is running against Sen. Manny Villar, a formidable opponent who has risen from poverty to incredible wealth, amassing a personal fortune estimated at $940-million (40 billion pesos), much of it after he was elected Congressman, then Speaker of the House, Senator, then Senate President.

Twelve of his fellow senators charged that Villar earned at least 6.5 billion pesos of that fortune by causing the government to spend billions on a C-5 extension project and an eight-lane Daang Hari highway linking Cavite to Laguna that snaked through 23 Villar-owned or controlled subdivisions.

If he loses the elections, Villar may be required to return billions of pesos back to the government. But if he wins, there will be no return of funds. So Villar can spend at least that amount and more to buy the presidency. And he can recoup it all back and more if he wins.
Villar’s wife, the powerful Congresswoman Cynthia Villar, said that the Villars have never lost an election “and we certainly have no intention of losing this one.” They are prepared to spend whatever it takes to secure the presidency and all the spoils that go with it.
And what spoils there are to be taken. If the Ampatuan warlords can own palatial homes in Davao and Makati and dozens of luxury cars by just being governor of the second poorest province in the country, imagine how much more when one becomes the president of the entire Philippines.

At an open forum where a panelist voiced concern about the obscene amount of money he was spending to buy the presidency, Villar snapped back, “What are you complaining about? It’s my money.” But is it really his money? Is the presidency for sale to the highest bidder?

The two Philippines will collide in the May elections. Stark choices for the Filipino people– forward to the future or backwards to the past?

(Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127. For past columns, log on to Rodel50.blogspot.com).