PEOPLE'S judgment of the quality of a candidate can be nothing but perception, unless of course one is a relative or a close friend. Perception, meanwhile, can be shaped by a political personality’s p.r. machinery or the lack of it. But perceptions change, or can be made to approximate the objective by exposing more the candidate to public scrutiny.

Which became the function of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s recent visit to Cebu. For a while everybody, especially Noynoy’s detractors, had a field day shaping people’s perception of his persona. Lack of information allows the imagination to run wild which, in the case of Noynoy, made claims that he is a moron seem credible.

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Noynoy is not, say, Francis “Chiz” Escudero, a media darling whose every statement and move as a congressman and then senator has been well-documented. He is not Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro, whose profession (he is a lawyer) makes people believe he is intelligent. He is not Manny Villar with his “infomercials.”

The most that Cebuanos knew about Noynoy was that he is the son of Cory and Ninoy Aquino, who both have claims to heroism, and brother of actress-host Kris. Thus, it was easy for a Cebuano party-list congressman to attract attention and sound believable by claiming Noynoy had zero bills or laws filed as solon and later senator.

That was exposed as a miserable claim as more information about Aquino’s record as a legislator surfaced, prompting his detractors to shift gears. But Noynoy, they protested, is “talagang walang alam” (TWA), a dig at his supposed lack of intellectual depth and a phrase used by the Marcos dictatorship to belittle Cory’s candidacy in 1986.

That claim, too, was being chopped piece by piece as Noynoy got out of his shell, spoke in public forums and answered questions about governance and other profound issues. His visit to Cebu, together with his running mate, Sen. Mar Roxas, exposed how wrong the TWA claim is. It showed that Noynoy is as capable as the next presidentiable.

A Noynoy supporter, obviously affected by criticisms hurled at his “idol,” took time to observe Aquino’s interaction with his supporters and other sectors in Cebu. He went home, his belief in the man intact, voting how Noynoy enthralled the audience not with bombast but with the ideas that seemed to stream non-stop from his mouth.

Which reminds me of the other underhanded attack by his detractors, the one about Noynoy being autistic. That the definition of autism and the symptoms of the illness can be had with just a click of a mouse shows that either Aquino’s detractors are lazy or they intended to lie. I mean, there are hundreds of articles on autism in Google.

I checked the autism symptoms from the serious to the mild kind and got even more convinced of how bankrupt of anti-Noynoy issues his detractors have become. “Autism” is to Noynoy what “brenda” (brain damage) is supposedly for Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. The issue seems more like Noynoy detractors grasping at straws.

Of course, Aquino’s weaknesses, as much as his strengths, will surface or be made to surface (by his detractors) soon, especially during the campaign period. He is, for example, from a land-owning class and therefore carries the negative traits of his class. But certainly he is not incompetent, moron or autistic---the issues raised so far by some sectors to pull him down.

(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)