Manila - Senator Benigno Aquino III, son of Philippine democratic icon and former president Corazon Aquino, filed on Saturday his candidacy for president in next year's elections. Aquino, 49, accompanied by vice-presidential running mate Manuel Roxas III and some Liberal Party senatorial candidates, filed their certificates at the Commission on Elections headquarters in Manila.
Noynoy, as Aquino is fondly called, was the frontrunner in all presidential surveys by a wide margin over rivals including real estate magnate Senator Manuel Villar and convicted former president Joseph Estrada.
Still a bachelor, Aquino was not considered as a presidential candidate until his mother died in August, when nostalgia led many people to clamour for him to run for president.
The multitudes that gathered at Corazon Aquino's wake and joined her 14-hour funeral march thought her son could be the best antidote to ambitions of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her allies to continue their hold on power beyond 2010.
