DURING one recent forum where I spoke about "New Politics" I was asked this question: "You are calling for New Politics but the candidates you are batting for, Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas, are old politicos. Aren't you contradicting yourself?"

No sir, I am not. Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas may be old politicians; in fact while he was still eyeing the presidency Mar. Roxas was moving like the traditional politician that he was . . .but Fate intervened.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

When Cory Aquino died, something grand happened to the Filipino - he regained his political bearings. Suddenly, the erstwhile uninvolved and politically silent citizen remembered how moral, transparent and people-conscious the Corazon Aquino administration was.

Suddenly, we remembered the death and the martyrdom of Ninoy Aquino, and how he and his wife loved the country so much they willingly put their lives and their family on the line for Her. And just as suddenly, we looked and gazed at our present political leaders with a new vision and discovered, to our dismay, how much we had allowed them to sink us into the morass of greed, corruption, immorality and crime . . . and we hated it.

We looked around for a leader who could bring us back to a moral and honest government - and found very few volunteers. Brother Eddie Villanueva of the Jesus Is Lord Movement; J.C. de los Reyes of the Ang Kapatiran Party were part of the brave handful willing to give and to offer us an honest government administration, but up to that point in time the light of the sacrifice that they offered did not produce the spark that could galvanize the politically-uninvolved among us.

And then Noynoy's name was floated as a possible candidate. And then Mar Roxas stepped back and announced that he was giving up presidential plans if Noynoy would accept a nomination from the Liberal Party to be its standard bearer. Suddenly, the nation became electrified. We found ourselves staring at a presidential candidate who never aspired to be one, and at another who desired to be President but who, in an act of supreme unselfishness, gave up the dream for the sake of a united country.

Never mind if they were old politicos; their ascendancy into the positions as presidential and vice-presidential candidates were not of their own making; their political party was not the reason why they suddenly became so popular they zoomed like comets into the top positions in political surveys. They became the darlings of the public because we - not they or their party - willed it so.

They literally became the candidates of the People; and that has changed the politics of this country, hopefully all the way to May 2010. If Noynoy and Mar do make it as president and vice-president because of the voters' will, we would have changed the rules of the election drastically. More important, we the citizens would have come to realize the truism that sovereignty (and the power that goes with it) does reside in us, and not in our leaders. With that change, Democracy, the real one, may hopefully descend upon our country at last.