Benigno Aquino III, Philippine president from 2010 to 2016, died last week. His namesake father was a democracy icon who was gunned down on his return from exile in 1983, igniting the so-called people-power revolution that brought down Ferdinand Marcos and installed Corazon Aquino, the newly deceased president's mother, as president in 1986.
The son ascended to the presidency after his mother's death in 2009 set off an emotional outpour that catapulted him into a presidential race just months away. His death — uncannily again months away from another presidential race — may set off another emotional roller-coaster.
Will it galvanise a currently fractious opposition by propelling another Aquino into the Philippine presidency?
The "revolution" that the Aquinos set in motion in 1986 was a misnomer; it was rather a restoration of the political order before Marcos defeated Diosdado Macapagal in 1965 and went on to rule for almost 20 years, the latter half of those years under martial law.
Thus, post-Marcos, the Philippine presidency has been occupied by two Aquinos, a Marcos relative (Fidel Ramos), a movie star (Joseph Estrada), Macapagal's daughter (Gloria Arroyo) and the current incumbent (Rodrigo Duterte).
Political and economic dynasts are the bane of Philippine politics. Duterte, a political outlier, may be the latest to start a new dynasty: his daughter, Sara, currently tops the charts for the next president. Marcos's namesake son is another serious contender.
If another Aquino enters the presidential fray, who might that be? Some speculate that it would be the departed ex-president's youngest sister, Kris, an actress. A more sober possibility is a cousin and ex-senator, Bam Aquino.
It is such a musical-chair quality among dynasts about who gets to be president that is likely at the heart of what ails the Philippines. A corollary may be another post-Marcos legacy: saddling the country in the straitjacket of a non-renewable six-year presidential term to avoid another dictatorship.
It had meant the promising reforms under Ramos were undone by the disastrous Estrada. The generally good work under the second Aquino presidency was upset by Duterte's antithetical temperament.
Contrast that with Singapore, which was transformed over three decades under Lee Kuan Yew's uninterrupted leadership. Or our own Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, dragging the nation kicking and screaming from an agrarian-based economy to a newly industrialising one over two decades.
Similarly, it took three decades under Suharto for Indonesia to attain previously unimaginable economic heights, dramatically reduce poverty levels and achieve rice self-sufficiency, all the while hounded by serious crony capitalism charges, to be sure.
Even Thailand progressed creditably under prolonged military rule. Vietnam is closely cloning China's governance system and making economic strides approaching the latter's.
Aquino, the son, made some headway in his campaign against corruption, quixotically under a slogan suggesting "no poverty without corruption". If his country's neighbours (Singapore excepted) are any guide, it seems possible, unfortunately maybe even inevitable, for corruption and economic progress to coexist. The hope, of course, is that the further and deeper economic progress makes inroads, the greater will popular intolerance of corruption make a strong remedial impact.
The Philippines as a poster child for democracy in the developing world, therefore, bears a responsibility to itself and to others who similarly yearn for freedoms to right its own ship and find some balance between political and economic freedoms. Failure will be a tragedy well beyond the country's shores.
As it is, the circus-like political theatre playing out every six years only serves to perpetuate the interests of political dynasts and economic oligarchs, to the unending detriment of ordinary Filipinos, many of whom are forced to eke out a living through often unedifying personal sacrifices and compromises either within or without their country.
Already, political polarisation has reached dangerous levels. Should another Aquino or an Aquino-endorsed candidate become the next president, many of Duterte's supporters (including a legion of them working abroad, a vital economic lifeline) may become disenchanted.
Sara Duterte as the next president may have to contend with the same sniping from the urban middle class and powerful economic interests that now bedevils her father.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak