Senator Noynoy Aquino Time Magazine Cover

Benigno Aquino III graces the cover of the latest issue of Time Magazine.

Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is on the cover of Time Magazine’s April 25 issue that hit the newsstands last night.

Sen. Noynoy Aquino’s campaign seems to have scored another PR coup for being put on the cover of TIME Magazine’s April 26, 2010 issue headlined “The New Aquino…Can Noynoy Save the Philippines?”

The feature is significant for several reasons:

1. It plays up his image before the international community;
2. It is a recognition from the international media, especially a renowned magazine like TIME which is a lot less likely to be biased and partial than the local media;
3. It follows past TIME covers/articles about the Aquino family figurehead, the late President Cory Aquino and
4. The article succeeds in letting us believe that Aquino III will be undisputed frontrunner in the May 10, 2010 elections, barring grim scenarios like blackouts and computer breakdowns.

Time had also thrice featured on its cover Mrs. Aquino. The first was in 1986 when she was named Woman of the Year, the second in 2006 when she was named among 60 Asian Heroes, and the last after she died in August 2009 when she was declared “The Saint of Democracy.”
(Read “Corazon Aquino 1933-2009: The Saint of Democracy.”)

Frozen in Time
Yet, for all the zeal he inspires, aquino himself is also a product of the status quo. Both his parents, Ninoy and Cory, came from pedigreed stock — landed, aristocratic families that have long been part of the ruling establishment. Similarly, Aquino’s vice-presidential running mate, Mar Roxas, is the grandson of Manuel Roxas, the country’s first President. Arroyo, their erstwhile foe, is the daughter of Diosdado Macapagal, another President from the early days of the republic. And though they eventually faced each other as enemies, Ninoy and Marcos were members of the same fraternity at an elite Philippine university. Like a pantomime of ancient Rome, Manila’s political landscape has been shaped for generations by the intimacies and vendettas of an entrenched rank of patricians.
See “Corazon Aquino – Person of the Year 2009.”

See the world’s most influential people in the 2009 TIME 100.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1982219,00.html#ixzz0lkt33xcT