. delivering on his campaign promises. One of the biggest issues he'll face is rooting out corruption, and there's also rampant unemployment and spiralling Government debt to bring under control. Despite those hurdles and problems with voting machines on polling day, there's no doubt about his right to rule.
Presenter: Paul Allen
Benigno Aquino, Philippines Presidential Candidate; Earl Parreno, Political analyst; Josephine Bansuela, Manila Street Cleaner; Professor Mark Turner, specialist in Asia-Pacific Politics and Government at the University of Canberra
ANNOUNCER: Aquino - 12,233,002. Estrada - 7,749,597
ALLEN: With almost double the votes of his nearest rival, former President Joseph Estrada, Senator Benigno 'Noy-Noy' Aquino has won a thumping mandate.
While the final official result is yet to be announced, he's confident enough to begin the work of selecting his cabinet.
AQUINO: We are already doing our talent search for the cabinet positions the people who will be implementing our policy guidelines in the right directions. And the mechanism for that, setting up the people who will constitute the search committee, is already on the work.
ALLEN : Aquino says his team will lead by example. He says he won't appoint any relatives to his cabinet, including his celebrity sister, Kris Aquino, as he tries to gain the public's faith in their Government.
AQUINO: Well the first priority has to be to address the issue of corruption. Get Government's power back so that that they can empower the people, and empower them in so many areas-education, in health, in having a judicial system that works and so on and on forth.
ALLEN: It's not going to be an easy job. Aquino is under pressure to pursue corruption charges against former President Gloria Arroyo.
Political analyst Earl Parreno says he'll also face the usual challenges of trying to make reforms while surrounded by advisors with motives of their own.
PARRENO: I hope he will be consistent with his campaign promise of rooting out graft and corruption. That would bring more confidence on the people on the people and on the foreign investors. Aquino's advisors have conflicting interests. That's a main concern, how he's going to place for instance, leaders in charge of the economy and leaders in charge of politics.
ALLEN: The new Aquino adminstration will also inherit a crumbling infrastructue and an unofficial unemployment suspected to be hovering at about 40 percent. There's also a violent muslim insurgency in the country's south to deal with. At the same time, he also has to find a way to trim six-point-six billion dollars from the budget.
His record as a congressman and senator is far from glittering, but what he does have is political pedigree and huge public affection for the Aquino name. His father was assassinated while opposing the hated Ferdinand Marcos regime, and his mother Corazon Aquino went on to become President during the people-power movement that ousted the dictator. Manila street cleaner, Josephine Bansuela, sums up the public sentiment about the new President.
BANSUELA: (translated): He will be like his mother, who was a good leader.
ALLEN: Professor Mark Turner is a specialist in Asia-Pacific politics and government at the University of Canberra. He says while name recognition counts for a lot in the Philippines, it doesn't always mean the best person gets the top job.
TURNER: I think in the Philippines, politics is a lot about personalities and the family name counts a great deal. The son of Corazon Aquino who is the great champion of democratisation, also the son of the former opposition leader to Marcos, who was gunned down at Manila Airport. This counts a lot in Philippine memory. Also he seemed to be honest and straight forward - again that counts a lot. However, what often happens is that those people they consider best for society are not necessarily espousing a clear policy platform.
