What's with the pretty maids in a row?

The latest buzz is that our soon-to-be-52-year-old bachelor president Noynoy Aquino has another pretty girl in the twinkle of his eye. The lucky/unlucky girl is said to be Korean Grace Lee, who has a budding TV career going in the Philippines.

Let me explain the “lucky/unlucky” qualifier. Grace would be lucky if Noynoy gets around to deciding it is time to settle down. To become the wife of a president is not an opportunity that falls on the lap of every girl in town.

On the other hand, if Noynoy has no intention of marrying her and is just using her as yet another prop in what I am beginning to suspect is a grand charade, then Grace must be very unfortunate indeed.

To be sure, male-female relationships do not necessarily have to end in marriage. People may hit it up for a while and then go their separate ways. No big deal. That is as natural as relationships go.

But to have a relationship with someone like a president, even if it is just at the dinner-date stage, attracts the kind of attention that whips up public interest and imagination. Questions fly that, even without meaning to, intrude into lives more than they should.

For instance, if Noynoy and Grace do not make it beyond dinner-dating, the poor girl will be subjected to so much scrutiny that could lead to unfair conclusions. The bar is so much higher when you date someone like a president that when you fail, you fall with a thud.

What to other, more ordinary mortals would seem like a normal going of separate ways will be seen, in this case, as an utter failure of Grace to measure up. She will be seen as inferior and unfit to become first lady.

Of course, millions of women are inferior and unfit to become first lady. But they are not the ones on the spot, as Grace is now. And that is the reason why I consider her as one who is lucky/unlucky, depending on how this latest episode in Noynoy’s romances turn out.

But frankly, if you ask me, I have a gnawing suspicion that all of this public parading of pretty maids in a row, over so short a period of time, is a secret ploy to either project Noynoy as a hot hunk pretty girls could not resist, or as a smokescreen for something sinister.

For example, and I beg your indulgence for this, I do not think that even the presidency can hide the fact that Noynoy does not have the looks to make women drop their pants. So it just does not add up that all the girls linked to him should all look so drop-dead gorgeous.

Come on. It all looks so contrived. Let’s tick them off: Shalani Soledad (who has since moved on to marry Rep. Roman Romulo only last January 22), stylist Liz Uy, stockbroker Maria Elena Lopez, schoolteacher Mary Louise Calica. There was even talk of actress Iza Calzado.

All of these are beautiful and highly-qualified in their own way. I don’t know the bar Noynoy has set for himself, but I would presume a lot of men would promise the universe to marry any of them. That a president took an interest in them indeed makes them a cut above the rest.

But they all fell by the wayside. In so short a time they were paraded, and in so short a time they simply vanished. What is this? Have they served some purpose we do not know of but can only surmise?

That I suspect this is all a ploy to project/protect Noynoy got a boost when Noynoy’s talkative sister Kris nearly precipitated an international incident by tactlessly tweeting that Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was a perfect match for big brother.

Not only was Yingluck a guest of the Philippine government at the time, she had also just been to Malacanang for dinner. Besides, her personal circumstances (she has a son by a common-law husband) made the tactless propositioning by Kris highly distasteful and inappropriate.

Was that a miscue by some director? Is Noynoy really in charge of his own love affairs or are purely beautiful women simply being thrust into his company for whatever they are worth in the photo ops? Left to his own devices, I do not think Noynoy would be so perfect in his choices.