Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos, Jr., Governor of Ilocos Norte, considers his mother as the best politician he knows, with flair and mass appeal, but he would rather have his father's brains than her charisma.

"My father lived in his brain while my mother lives in her heart," says Bongbong. "So, I'd rather have the Marcos brain than any charisma."

No wonder Bongbong is still living in his father's memory. He said, "I guess I'm following my father's advice: I'm keeping my options open."

This was in response to queries whether there was truth to rumours that he would be running for president in 2004.

He also has other plans like running for Governor again in the Marcos' bailiwick or going national and run for the Senate.

Being the only son of former strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos, Bongbong admits to being a spoiled brat but quickly adds that his parents, especially his mother, tried to impose some limits. He remembers how she would make him and his two sisters, now Ilocos Norte, Rep. Imee Marcos and Irene Marcos-Araneta, sit and listen to long political speeches while he knew that his friends were out playing.

His father, on the other hand, had instilled the values of frugality and good education in him and his two sisters. Marcos had once sent them abroad to study a year before he declared Martial Law on September 21, 1972, but would scrimp on their allowance.

As usual, it was his mother who would come to the rescue. "That's because you don't know whom to ask money from," Imelda Marcos would say.

"My mother was really the one who spoiled us. (But) she was a very real person."

He adds that in some ways his mother was even better than his father. While his father was a master at dealing with the crowd, his mother was best in dealing with people on a one-on-one basis.

Years later, armed with degrees from Wharton Business School and Cambridge University, Bongbong came home with grand plans to join politics and be the dashing man in town.

But then came the people's revolution in February 1986 that ousted his father and drove the whole Marcos family and their cronies into exile in Hawaii.

Has this soured him on his political ambitions? No. The present political landscape, perhaps? "With the present-day politics that we have, it seems that being a political scoundrel is the order of the day."

He would even steer his three young sons, Ferdinand Alexander, Joseph Simon and William Vincent, away from politics as quickly as possible. "I'll be telling them how difficult it is to be in politics. The values in present-day politics are the wrong ones."