Noli went to pray at Lourdes before he made his decision

Don’t blink. This isn’t Noli de Castro propaganda.

I haven’t spoken with him since he "indianed" me twice – first at the dinner I gave for the Presidentiables and Vice Presidentiables at the Tower Club. Noli had told me in Malacañang that he would come, even if President GMA had politely spurned my invitation. The night before the event, he had also assured my partner and coordinator, STARGATE President Babe Romualdez, he was coming.

He was a "no show" – but, after all, this is the land where "yes" to an R.S.V.P. means "Gee whiz. Something came up, or the traffic was just too awful." Or "yes" means maybe.

The second cop-out was when I interviewed the Vice Prexy hopefuls, but it was understandable since it had entailed a last-minute switch in taping schedules.

Opposition KNP bet, fellow Senator (and ABS-CBN’er) Loren Legarda, got her licks in during that Impact show.

Loren had declared that, while she seemed to be running far behind Magandang Gabi Bayan Noli in the poll surveys, she didn’t believe the surveys. Loren had expressed the view the polls are being subtly manipulated, but didn’t say by whom. She asserted she would win in the end, with a smile that appeared to say, "virtue will triumph."

As for Vice Presidentiable Herminio S. Aquino, who’s contending on Ex-Senator Raul Roco’s Alyansa ng Pag-asa (Alliance of Hope) ticket, he got to introduce himself as not only former Third District Congressman and Vice Governor of Tarlac but former President Cory’s Deputy Executive Secretary and Minister of Human Settlements.

What’s more, he was revealed as the uncle of Ninoy Aquino, and Butz inevitably, and grand-uncle of Kris and Noynoy. Also he is the son of the late Revolutionary General Servillano Aquino – brother of Don Benigno Aquino Sr. – after whom Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac is named. (Hermie was born on April 25, 1949, when the old general was already advanced in years – boy, what a pedigree.)

In any event, I hope that after those revelations, it’s no longer a case of the public asking, "Hermie Aquino who?" but today, "Oh, THAT’s Hermie Aquino!"

Go for it, Hermie! Alas for him, Kris, Tarlac Rep. Noynoy and their auntie (my former Direk in the first Impact), the irrepressible Lupita Aquino, are for President GMA, ex-Senator Tessie is for FPJ, and Makati Congressman Agapito "Butz" Aquino, who else, is Presidential candidate, Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson’s chief drumbeater and LDP sponsor.

It’s typical of the Filipino family to be united at home, dysfunctional in politics (unless it’s involved in Dynasty-building, as so many clans are). This Republic is being run like a Mom and Pop store.

* * *

Coming back to Noli de Castro, there’s no doubt that right now he’s the front-runner, and may streak through indeed to the finish. However, it’s early days yet.

Look at Spain. When this writer arrived there on the evening of March 10, it looked that President/Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s ruling Partido Popular, although its lead was dwindling, was still a sure winner. True, PP had a somewhat colorless candidate, Mariano Rajoy (others with more verve and dash had been passed over by Aznar in making his choice of successor). Yet, Spain was at its all-time height of prosperity, since Aznar had balanced the budget, Spain had zero debt (wow!), and unemployment was dropping. Indeed, Spain was doing far better than Germany and France.

The only fly in the ointment was that Aznar had stoutly backed the Bush-Blair coalition for the invasion of Iraq, and had sent 1,300 Spanish troops into that thankless and perilous desert. I think Aznar did a brave thing, in fact by doing so he had propelled once-ignored Spain back into the councils of the mighty. In the final denouément, this was not appreciated by the Spanish people.

The morning after we got to Madrid the situation dramatically and painfully reversed itself. At 7:29 a.m., incoming trains enroute to the centrally-located Atocha station began blowing up – two near Atocha, one in El Pozo, a fourth in the Santa Eugenia depot. Those terrorist bomb-blasts shattered coaches, splintered bodies, and destroyed Aznar’s Partido Popular.

When I rushed over to the Estacion Atoche, which was near my own hotel, the Westin "Palace Hotel", it was a scene of carnage and chaos. Our street, which fronts the parliament (Congreso de los Diputados), was swarming with cops and Guardias Civil.

The Atocha, which is a graceful, immense baroque station – so commodious it houses a beautiful garden right inside it – looked like a battlefield after an enemy barrage. Red-Cross-shirted rescue teams, policemen, and ambulance emergency personnel were swarming all over – trying to bring out the grievously wounded, while preparing the sundered cadavers of the 200 dead to be "tagged" and transported to a makeshift morgue in a stadium. (They all had to move gingerly owing to unexploded bombs on the tracks or in the coaches.)

It was both heartbreaking and admirable – for the Spaniards responded magnificently to the emergency. Even the German fans who had come to cheer their Bayern Munich team (which lost to Real Madrid the night before) were lining up at vehicles marked Donaciones de Sangre (blood donations) or clinics to offer their blood for the 1,500 injured.

The government, though, bungled its political handling of the sorrowful affair. For days, PP Cabinet ministers and spin-doctors tried to pass off the atrocity as having been committed by the admittedly vicious ETA Basque terrorists, even as evidence began surfacing it had been Muslim terrorists, mostly Moroccans, linked to al-Qaeda and the Casablanca bombing-massacre.

Eleven million Spaniards marched Friday in anger and protest all over the nation – 2.3 million of them in Madrid alone, despite a heavy downpour (most of the three million population).

On Saturday, the news exploded that it had been al-Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorists who had rigged those Goma Dos bombs, not ETA – the indignant police (sore at being muffled) had leaked the news out the night previously.

On Sunday, 77 percent of the electorate turned out to reject the Partido Popular – poor striving Aznar! – and elect the Socialist PSOE contender, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, into office. The new Presidente will be "elected" Prime Minister in early April, as the schedule puts it – and has announced the coming withdrawal by June 30, of all Spanish troops from Iraq.

What a difference a day makes: in love, war, death – and politics!

Fate brought me to Madrid to witness all these things with mouth agape.

What about here – with our May 10 elections approaching?

* * *

On my journey, I also discovered a number of interesting – admirable things, I must say – about Noli. He doesn’t mention them, it’s clear, in his campaign sorties and interviews – but I got the information from the man who drove him and his wife, Arlene, around when they visited France a few years ago.

By sheer chance, we had contracted the same energetic gentleman, Mr. Peter Laus, to drive us in Paris. Peter was full of praises for Noli de Castro, whom he had driven for more than 12 days. (In a country where people speak ill of one behind his back, here was one driver who spoke glowingly of Kabayan behind his back, a truly edifying experience).

Peter said he had found De Castro soft-spoken, thoughtful and courteous in all the dealings he had seen.

When he had asked Noli why he didn’t contact the Embassy, or ring up Ambassador Hector Villaroel, since, after all, he is a Senator, Kabayan had replied he didn’t want to bother the Ambassador or the Embassy staff since he and his wife were only in France for a private vacation. They drove to Bordeaux and other places, but the high point of the odyssey was to drive to Lourdes, to the venerated shrine of our Immaculate Mother in the foothills of the Pyreness.

Noli, Peter revealed, had spent three days in Lourdes. Of course he was praying, Laus reported. Is this where De Castro had prayed for guidance in making his decision to join GMA and run for Vice President? You can draw your own conclusion. It must have been a very private pilgrimage, since, to my knowledge, he’s not been talking about it.

There’s something about Lourdes that is truly mystical and uplifting. We Filipinos already know the story well, it not from book, Catholic tradition, and legend, from that wonderful movie of Franz Werfel’s The Song of Bernadette, starring Jennifer Jones.

In 1858, a tiny young girl named Bernadette Soubirous went to the hills and saw a Beautiful Lady suddenly appear in a grotto. The vision turned out to be Our Blessed Mother. Need I explain further? Anyone who’s made that pilgrimage to the Shrine, where millions have worshipped and been healed, in spirit if not always in body, can bear witness to the upliftment, the joy that transfixes the pilgrim, when she or he arrives there. The "healing" water is so miraculous, many will attest, that it dries on your skin almost instantly, after you immerse yourself in it. But it’s not those physical aspects that are the important transformation. No one, cynics and skeptics included, who’s gone to Lourdes can be facetious about it.

In any event, Noli and Arlene were afterwards driven by Peter across the Pyrenees to Zaragoza, Spain, then on to Madrid. What happened when Kabayan got home, you already know.

This is one alert, entertaining driver’s testament. I think it’s pertinent, at this stage, to pass it on to you.