In the past, it was the well-defined way of the House, the Senate and the Vice Presidency, not necessarily the full route though, thus:
Manuel L. Quezon, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and the Senate.
Sergio Osmena, speaker of the House and vice president to MLQ.
Manuel A. Roxas, speaker of the House and senator.
Elpidio Quirino, Ilocos Sur representative and vice president.
Carlos P. Garcia, Bohol representative and vice president.
Disodado P. Macapagal, Pampanga representative and vice president.
Ferdinand E. Marcos, Ilocos Norte representative and Senate president.
Joseph E. Estrada, mayor, senator and vice president.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, senator and vice president.
Benigno Simeon Aquino III, Tarlac representative and senator.
Not all who took that path though reached the presidency, thus:
Salvador Laurel, senator and vice president.
Ramon Mitra, senator and House speaker.
Jovito Salonga, Senate president.
Raul Roco, congressman and senator.
Manuel Villar, House speaker and Senate president.
Those are but the names that flash on instant recall.
Not even being “only a heartbeat away from the presidency” is sure warranty of priority, of the equity of incumbency, thus:
Fernando Lopez, vice president to Elpidio Quirino and FM.
Emmanuel Pelaez, vice president to DM.
Salvador Laurel, vice president to Cory.
Teofisto Guingona, vice president to GMA.
Noli de Castro, vice president to GMA.
Watch out, Jejomar Binay.
Shades of wisdom there from John Adams, who upon being elected vice president to George Washington exclaimed: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
The Department of Defense portfolio served as an expressway for two:
Ramon Magsaysay who arrested the Huk rebellion. (“The Guy” was also Zambales representative twice).
Fidel V. Ramos who remained Cory’s choice after he lost in the LDP convention and formed his own Lakas-Tao party.
Following their footsteps, Juan Ponce Enrile and Renato de Villa, miserably lost their way to Malacañang in 1998; and Gilberto Teodoro in 2010.
Presidential endorsements come into play here: Ramos, on Cory’s support, won. Teodoro, backed by GMA, lost.
PNoy-endorsed Mar Roxas, beware.
A totally different trail was blazed by housewife Corazon C. Aquino. It was paved and smoothened by the blood of her martyred husband Benigno Jr.
It was the sainted Cory’s turn to die, peacefully, in 2009. Notwithstanding the absence of any of the high-drama attendant to Ninoy’s death, hers had enough emotional gravitas to set the path for her son the BS in 2010.
Now, for the third time in this Republic, necropolitics looms as the fastest way to the presidency.
But for the death of her adoptive father who was “cheated” of the presidency in 2004, Grace Poe would have remained an obscure teacher in the country of her choice, the United States of America.
Look where she is now.
Destiny, ‘tis often said of the presidency.
Yeah, as in death destines the choice of presidents? The highest probability there, given the current crop of candidates, the freaky ones excluded.
So whatever happened to the long-held truism: “Character is destiny”?
How Heraclitus must be turning in his grave.
