Here’s another reason why Noynoy Aquino is “like Cory”: He apparently lets professional party operators take care of his politics, leaving him free to cultivate an image of being above the political fray.

This seems to work just fine for the “mafia” that is running the Liberal Party, as a bitter Serge Osmeña describes the group that makes the important political decisions in Aquino’s camp. But unless Noynoy Aquino seizes the reins and cracks the whip on the politicians to whom he seems to have entrusted his campaign, the whole effort to elect him to the presidency may collapse even before election day in May because of the heavy-handedness of these political gangsters.

The resignation of political maverick Osmeña last week from the LP’s Senate slate highlights a festering problem inside the jerry-rigged organization that wants to take Aquino to Malacañang next year. This much can be gleaned from Osmeña’s declaration that he had no choice but to quit the lineup after his vehement opposition to the inclusion of former Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto in the slate was ignored by the party leadership.

Osmeña accused the members of the LP mafia of brokering a two-for-one deal involving Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos and her husband Recto, who were both sworn into the party early last week. The former senator from Cebu said Recto was a bad fit for the LP because of his previous ties to the Arroyo administration, which Osmeña said Recto had not denounced even if he did resign from the Cabinet.

Osmeña implies that the party mafiosos operate independently of Aquino, whose presidential ambitions he says he still supports. Apparently, these political operators found the prospect of converting the popular Santos to the cause more important than Osmeña’s own ability to get the vote, thus the snub.

But being overruled on the matter of the Recto couple seems not to have hurt Osmeña as much as the manner in which his views were simply ignored. And Osmeña is one of the Noynoy originals, the man who commissioned the ground-breaking survey of the so-called “Pangasinan corridor” conducted by the Social Weather Stations that had Aquino leading for the very first time, even before he declared that he was seeking the highest office in the land.

“They kept me in the dark,” Osmeña said ruefully. “I’m fed up with the infighting, with the mafia in the Liberal Party.”

Osmeña’s case is not unique, unfortunately. This shadowy cabal of political operators in the LP, which is composed of campaign manager Butch Abad and former Senator Frank Drilon, among others, is also believed to be responsible for the party’s current problems in vote-rich Cebu City, where another reported snub of another Osmeña who is seeking the mayorship took place during the recent swearing-in of new party members there.

Longtime LP member and former Senator Sonny Osmeña said Abad didn’t even tell him that he would be asked to withdraw from the mayoralty race to preserve the unity of the LP-allied Bando Osmena-Pundok Kauswagan, a local party. Sonny Osmeña was aghast to learn from the local newspapers the day after the swearing-in ceremony that the LP wanted him to withdraw from the race and had picked his younger cousin, outgoing Mayor Tomas Osmeña, to be LP chairman for the province.

“I was there [at the LP oath-taking] and he [Abad] did not even say, pwede ba mag-withdraw ka na lang?” Sonny Osmena told the Cebu Daily News.

But it was leftist Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo who publicly aired the sentiment that Aquino himself may have abdicated the role of managing his campaign in favor of Abad, Drilon and other members of the LP mafia that Serge Osmeña was denouncing. During a meeting with Aquino last week, Ocampo said he came away with a distinct feeling that Aquino did not really have a major say on the question of who the party would field in the Senate race next year.

Speaking at the Serye forum in Quezon City, Ocampo said there were many groups surrounding Aquino, each of which has a say on the matter. Ocampo and Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza, who are both seeking Senate seats next year, were basically told by the LP to look elsewhere for inclusion in a senatorial lineup.

“They [Aquino and the LP leaders who met with them] said those falling in line were more than twice the number of slots, and that there were special groups lobbying to be accommodated,” he said. “[Aquino] was silent about whether we would be included among those [the LP] would consider [as senatorial candidates].”

No one without the LP mafia’s blessing, apparently, need apply to the party. And appealing to Aquino himself would be futile, because he can’t decide—even if he is the party’s nominal head and standard-bearer in the coming elections.

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The LP mafia is the same one, we’ve been told, that virtually held a gun to the head of Mar Roxas to make him step down to the vice presidency, after the death of Cory Aquino unleashed a tsunami of feel-good political nostalgia that benefitted Cory’s only son. A source in the party says the clique decided on its own that Aquino was to be the presidential candidate, instead of Roxas, who had declared for the party’s nomination ahead of Cory’s demise.

Because Roxas had not been rating well in the surveys (and after the recorded surge in Aquino’s rankings in the SWS survey commissioned by Osmeña), Mar was basically presented with a fait accompli. In so many words, this source says, Mar was “ordered” to slide down to the vice presidency or risk being disowned by the party, which was throwing its support behind Noynoy.

Publicly, Roxas never spoke of the alleged unilateral decision by the LP mafia to threaten to pull the nomination rug out from under him unless he “voluntarily” gave way to Aquino. But those close to Roxas admit that it was truly difficult for the senator from Capiz to slide down, especially since he had invested so much money and effort already in seeking the LP nomination.

(The LP mafia’s decision to make Roxas step aside without even bothering to consult him was aggravated by prominent non-inclusion of Mar in the star-studded music video produced by Kris Aquino to boost her brother’s candidacy. But it’s unfair to blame Drilon, Abad and company for that slight, since the video was made by another cabal that surrounds Noynoy—the Aquino family clique, which didn’t even coordinate the mega-production with the group of Campaigns and Grey’s Yolly Ong, who is supposed to be in charge of “selling” Noynoy to the public.)

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with Aquino seeking the counsel of the various groups that surround him, especially politicians like Drilon who have a lot more expertise in these matters compared to Noynoy. But Aquino must understand that by basically letting the LP mafia do whatever it wants on his behalf, he is alienating other people who may help him get elected—and doing so merely on the say-so of his advisers, who have no qualms about trading on his name to advance their own political interests.

Besides, Aquino should realize that, as far as his own campaign is concerned, the buck stops with him, even if he has seconded the “dirty” job of actual politics to other people. As the public face and greatest asset of his party, Aquino must take a more active hand in the matter of forging political alliances and making other such day-to-day decisions because in the end, it is still his call whether he makes it or not.

But Noynoy Aquino has already been repeatedly warned about the professional politicians who have latched on to him now that his star is on the rise—the same ones, by the way, who swore allegiance to Mar Roxas when he was the LP’s top dog. If Aquino takes the position that people saying such things are just out to bring him down (because, after all, those who aren’t with him must be against him, right?), then this could prove to be his undoing down the road.

And that will show once again that Noynoy Aquino isn’t really that different from his mom, whose good name was the stock in trade of all those who perpetrated all sorts of shenanigans (not just political) during her administration not too long ago.