Bittersweet Noynoy. Singing lessons from Charice

Revised 8 September at 0703 hours

MANILA - Be sure to read this one with Charice singing 'I Will Always Love You' in the background and into your ears. 'Music hath charm that soothes the savage breast' - didn't Shakespeare say that? Charice sings beautifully. They call her a diva; well, Charice sings divinely.

And me? While I'm writing this, I'm watching her video and listening with a headphone, over and over again, 50 times – would you believe 30? Because the best writing is rewriting, rewriting, rewriting over and over again. (Click here to watch and listen to Charice entertaining Ellen Degeneres and her audience on worldwide TV; for a full version of the song, click here for the studio version: 'I Will Always Love You.' In any case, the full text, the complete lyrics, you can see below.)

You should see my desktop background on a Hanns-G LCD 17"; it's a collage of the faces of Charice, singing of course. At 69, I'm a new fan of Charice, but not Noynoy. They're known by their first names now, which basically means they´re the center of attention, and whatever they do now, means a lot to the people who love them – Charice´s fans, Noynoy´s admirers.

He has been vacillating; she has been rolling with the punches of fate, including her father nearly killing her mother before her very eyes when she was only 3. I rather think Benigno ´Noynoy´ Aquino III, the new political sensation, has a lot to learn from the international singing sensation Charmaine Clarice ´Charice´ Pempengco. He´s 49 (08 February 1960); she is 17 (10 May 1992). In the light of wisdom, age doesn´t matter - the old can learn from the young.

I now have a collection of 99 videos downloaded from YouTube, all Charice, and all of 1.9 GB; downloading is a delight when you have an Intel Core i7 ('The fastest processor on the planet') with 3 GB of memory and 320 GB hard disk space and a fast Globe Broadband (when it's working). My favorite Charice images are those when she was 12 or 13 years old, when she sang ´I Will Always Love You,´ recorded by one of her favorites, Whitney Houston. The image I show here is 1 of 57 images I caught in the act of Charice singing in that video of that portion of ABS-CBN´s Little Big Star – it´s the last portion of the song, ´I will always love you´ uploaded to YouTube by Aldueza). I deliberately captured the fading in/fading out of the images so that her Mommy Racquel is right behind Charice as she sings the last notes of the song. Her mother has always been her source of strength, from beginning to end; isn't Charice lucky she has a mother like that! (And isn't she lucky she had FalseVoice uploading her first video to YouTube where she was discovered by the world! Will the real Noynoy Aquino impress the audience like Charice does?)

That song is heaven-sent today. If you didn't know, it begins with these words:

I Will Always Love You

If I should stay
I will only be in your way
So I'll go!

It´s curious how after several days of one-on-one with Senator Noynoy Aquino, Senator Mar Roxas gave way to the ambition and/or aspiration of Senator Noynoy, Mar derailing his own presidential campaign and advocating instead Noynoy´s. A King's Sacrifice. That's foolish, right? You can sacrifice the Queen, but not the King. Chess is a male-chauvinist game. Right. That's why it's not really a King's Sacrifice. It was only made to look that way.

But I know
I'll think of you
in every step of the way.

In his press conference, Mar Roxas said they agreed that whatever Noynoy decides, to run or not to run, they will talk again. Mar Roxas is still thinking of his own presidential ambition. If politics is addition, you need all the friends you can get. If politics is subtraction, you need to eliminate all your enemies. You need to think of all of them in every step of the way to the presidential palace by the Pasig. Charice kept winning, and losing. A contest is a gamble, Mommy Racquel kept on telling Charice, when her confidence was flagging. Running a race is a contest; you either win or lose. Can you suffer another loss?

And I...I will always love you, ooh
I will always love you,
You, my darling you, you!

Mar Roxas is still in love with becoming President of this country. Is Noynoy Aquino now in love with becoming President of his country? You know, love can come when you least expect it, and it came when Noynoy Aquino wasn't looking. Suddenly, the love for the Aquinos erupted when his mother died. And many people were thinking, because of the massive, positive attention people gave the death and funeral of Cory Aquino, that Noynoy should inherit the mantel of Presidency of his country.

That's falling in love with winnability. Charice fell in love with singing when she was 4 years old; the winnability came later, after the sacrifices, after the heartaches. Ellen Degeneres told Charice not to stop doing what she lvoes to do, which is singing and, in the process, becoming a star in her own right. The problem is that Noynoy has never been in love with the idea, which is becoming President and, in the process, becoming his own man, and even if he learns to love it, it's doubtful that he will always love her. You can't win with half a love. You can ask Charice that!

Bittersweet memories
That is all I'm taking with me.

And the lack of love is not surprising. Remember, his father Benigno Aquino Jr was assassinated because of it, after his mother Cory became President and had her hands tied throughout her presidency because of repeated attempts at coups by enemies of the state. This is not to mention conflicting interests and lack of management skills. In her later years, Cory Aquino became embittered with alleged corruption in high places. Then she forgave the one whose ouster as President for corruption she took active part in, and yet, even when she knew she was dying of colon cancer, she could not forgive the current leader whom she also condemned for corruption. The Eternal Question: Can we love our enemy? The Eternal Answer: That depends on the enemy.

So good-bye
Please, don't cry
We both know I'm not what you
You need.

As a little girl, Charice had dreams of singing with Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, and being a guest of Oprah - and she went all-out for those dreams to come true. She perfected her singing, with her mother as coach. Noynoy is our modern Hamlet. What he needs is to grow up, and fast! Noynoy isn't so lucky he still has a mother. Now he can't decide what to do without consulting saints and sinners from Aparri to Jolo, and he calls it discernment. I heard him say on TV long before the hullaballoo that he was not interested in seeking an office higher than Senator, and in fact that was the wish of her mother Cory Aquino. I do recall our 19th-century Messiah, Jose Rizal, whose own mother, Teodora Alonzo told her husband Francisco and son Paciano, words to this effect: 'Don't send him to Manila, please. If he learns more, they'll cut off his head!'

Now then, with the clamor of some people who see in him the defeat of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's anointed, and/or the victory of those out of power, they are calling Noynoy the Messiah. They forget that a Messiah is not without honor except in his own country. When he went to Davao the other week, what did they tell Noynoy Aquino? In so many words, these: 'You better think some more about running; you know, we in Mindanao don't give a damn about your imperial noise in Manila.' (How did I know that? A little bird told me.) I take that to mean they don't care about reflected glory. I think that applies to people in Northern, Central and Southern Luzon too. One time when Mommy Racquel told her she was tired of it and wanted to stop, Charice told her mother in that case she would go to the contests alone. She knew her earnings in singing contests meant food on the table for her, her brother Carl and their mother. Charice is her own man; is Noynoy his own boy?

And I... will always love you, ooh
I will always love you, ooh.

Say goodbye, Noynoy! Say goodbye to your dream of Emperor. It can't be serious; it wasn't love at first sight. Then we can always love you. If we love our country, we all must sacrifice little and big. We wish you love, Noynoy.

I hope
Life treats you kind
And I hope
You have all you've dreamed of
And I wish you joy
And happiness
But above all this
I wish you love.

We wish you happiness. Noynoy, the Philippine presidency is not your best suit. But if you want to be unhappy the rest of your life, go ahead and run.

Now, if you decide to go get enough rope to hang yourself, if you insist on running, will we love you just the same? Of course, we will. To love is to be a fool. We will support you if you decide to run anyway. We lovers suffer fools gladly.

And I...I will always love you, ooh
I will always love you
I will always love you, ooh
I will always love you, ooh
Always, I will always, I will always love you
Always, I will always love you
Always, I will always love you
Always, I will always love you
You, Darling, I love you,
I love you, ooh
I will always, will always love you, ooh!

Now, Noynoy, do you realize that the question of love is in your hands? Actually, love begins with you. Can you love the enemy? If you ask your enemy, the enemy is you. You have to love others as you love yourself. Do you?