Category: gibo

election eve

despite the surveys calling it a sure win for noynoy, the other camps continue to be really upbeat,each one thinking that their candidate still has a good chance of pulling off a surprise win from behind.   which is as it should be.   after all, marami diyang puwede pang magbago ang isip.   marami ring undecided pa at magde-decide lang pag kaharap na mismo ang balota at mga bilog na hugis itlog.

pero kung mababaw ang kaligayahan ko and i were wavering between noynoy and gibo, the miting de avances would have decided me.   caught gibo’s final sugod speech on channel 4 (thanks to a carlosceldran tweet) and he was, wow, sorta outstanding, looked and projected great, toweringly tall, high energy, and whether that was an extemporaneous or a memorized speech, the delivery was awesomely passionate and must have swayed undecideds some.   noynoy’s came later, aired on anc, and in comparison, he was okay lang, i guess because he was reading his speech (well at least for those moments that i turned to look at the tv screen).   no contest.   had to remind myself why i’m not voting for gibo — the VFA — which tells of a limited vision for country, forever chained to mighty america.   looks like it’s jamby’s platform for me pa rin.

as for surveys, i look forward to a presidential campaign na walang surveys.   it would be a totally different exercise.   until then, national artist f. sionil jose‘s  words apply:

Nothing is going to change…. I am 85. I have seen three generations of Filipino leaders fail. They have never been able to transcend themselves, neither their class nor their ethnicity.

Did you read The Economist obituary on her? (referring to Aquino). It said her greatness ended when she became president. Many people were angry. But for those of us who had eyes wide open, her rule was a disaster. She promised land reform. She didn’t do it. She restored the oligarchy. I never forgave her for that.

manila times columnist elmer ordonez is only a little hopeful, and only because of the few partylists that truly represent marginalized sectors.

This election, if it goes through on Monday, whether automated and/or manual, has no special appeal for me. As I wrote earlier, the outcome will be the installation of another faction of the landed oligarchy or that of the relatively new business rich—in power. All within the ruling class.

Opinions about contenders are generally based on survey results and anecdotal information. In the absence of other “scientific” indicators, it is easy to succumb to what may be called survey fetishism, a reliance on statistical counts conducted particularly by two outfits (SWS and Pulse Asia) that seem to have the allegiance of media and the general public.

An alternative survey, conducted by IBON Foundation, using the same tools learned in schools of economics like UP’s, has been red-baited out of circulation by stakeholders in SWS and Pulse Asia. And critics of the latter are called “ignorant” or “incompetent” about the arcana of what the late Dean Jose Encarnacion would call a “quasi-science.” As are all social sciences.

There are charges of “trending’’ and “bandwagon effect” because of the surveys, as people talk freely about “leading” or “front-running” candidates. I myself paid scant attention to those who are in the “cellar”—all of whom seem imbued with idealism, or practice new or nonpatronage politics. Can they look forward to a level playing field through electoral reform?

The winners will of course be known after May 10 but the social change that discerning voters hope for will not come about. Those elected will perpetuate themselves in office through the vast resources and the ideological/coercive agencies under their control—with cronies and “kamag-anaks” waiting in the wings. What else could be new?

….Is there hope for us in this election? Yes, some. For one, the party-lists that represent truly marginalized sectors—like Bayan Muna, Akbayan, Gabriela, Anakpawis and Kabataan are leading in the surveys and are assured of seats. New party-lists like ACT Teachers (unlike one that represents school owners), Agham (science for the poor), and Ang Ladlad (representing gays) are likely to win at least one seat each. These party-lists deserve support from voters turned off by traditional or oligarchic politics. At least they can provide a strong voice in Congress dominated by the establishment.

Satur Ocampo and Lisa Maza of the Makabayan Party had already served ten years as pro-poor party-list representatives in Congress (Bayan Muna and Gabriela) and are running as NP guest candidates to continue their advocacies in the Senate. I am confident they will acquit themselves creditably in their undertaking.

The senatorial lists of all parties include names who will work for the interests of the underprivileged and the dispossessed. I would include (besides Ocampo and Maza), Pia Cayetano, Mario Bautista, Susan Ople, Gwendolyn Pimentel, Adel Tamano, Alex Lacson, Danilo Lim, Teofisto Guingona III, and Sonia Roco in my ballot. A few more are already in the top twelve of the surveys. eaordonez2000@yahoo.com

my list : satur, liza, danny lim, miriam, jpe, lozada, pia, neric, adel, serge, guingona, and either toots or ruffy.

homestretch blues

dismaying but interesting.   our minds and communications are on mercury-retrograde mode for the next three, four weeks, right smack in the last three weeks of the presidential campaign, which means that instead of moving on to other important issues we’ll be going back over old ground, which means more of hacienda luisita, alleged psychological incapacity, lack of experience, etc. with regard to noynoy, and more of c-5-at-taga, landgrabbing charges, and the poverty spin with regard to villar.   we will see how low either camp would stoop to discredit the other all the way to election day.  mas madaling magsiraan (hindi mauubusan) kaysa magmagaling (mauubusan).

are we going to see survey kulelats gordon, bro.eddie, jc, perlas, jamby giving up the fight to endorse either noynoy or villar, erap or gibo?   i seriously doubt it just because, if memory serves, it hasn’t happened in recent multiparty history.   to the very end they all think they have a chance, surveys are questionable, anything can happen, never say die, not even when llamadong llamado ang mga kalaban.   a pinoy macho thing, i suspect ;)) but hey i’d love to be disproven on this, just because it could tip the balance one way or another, make for a most definite win for the lucky one.   and then, again, maybe not.

what we ARE likely to see, i’m afraid, even now, are all kinds of glitches with machines, esp. those that have to do with communications and transportation, anything that moves people and ideas around, including the machines for automated counting of votes and conveying of results.   sana hindi.   sana suwertehin tayo, for a change.   but the odds are against us, so dapat ay paghandaan by having plans B and C, just in case.

meanwhile i still don’t have a president.   and i haven’t stopped wishing, how retrograde of me, that it were mar running for president and noynoy for vp.   i disagree with the notion that if noynoy had run for prez later rather than sooner, he could not have counted on the same phenomenal love and energy a la edsa generated by (ninoy’s) cory’s death that birthed the clamor for the unico hijo’s candidacy last august.

i don’t see why not.   i think that noynoy as vp (mar would have won easily, with noynoy behind him) could have used the next six years to clean up his act, do the morally, and politically, correct thing with regard to hacienda luisita, AFTER reading of course ninoy’s testament from a prison cell and other writings that might enlighten him a little about the Left.   if there were no poverty and oppression, there would be no Left;  snubbing and demonizing the Left (instead of finding a way for Left and Right to work together for the good of the whole) would not have been ninoy’s way, is no way to honor ninoy’s legacy, in fact it dishonors ninoy’s legacy.   anyway, if he used the six years wisely andcreatively, maybe also studied the education problem thoroughly — an additional two years of schooling is not the answer —  i have no doubt that the cory-ninoy effect would have kicked in as powerfully, and there would not be so many undecideds in 2016.

for now hindi ko pa mapatawad si noynoy for the hacienda luisita killings and for being so anti-Left, or is it anti-poor.   i guess i’m still hoping to hear him say something reassuring, to the effect that he will prevail upon the cojuangco-aquino clan to follow the law and give up luisita to the farmers, and that he would snub the likes of palparan and get the military to produce jonas burgos atbpang missing activists.

lacking either or both, well, there’s villar, pero kahit kayanin ko siyang patawarin for c-5 at taga and, even, the obscene spending, ay di ko yata kayang patawarin his obdurate stand against reproductive health.   si erap, he got his turn already, and he botched it.   gibo looks good but he reeks of status quo politics.   amboy gordon i considered, but only briefly.   bro.eddie is too fundamentally religious, perlas too green, jc too sophomoric.   jamby at least has not only the best-looking FG (french gentleman), she has the best platform of the lot.   so hmm, if not noynoy, it could be jamby for me, a protest vote, on principle.

cowards all

it’s not only manny villar, who has been called a coward for refusing to answer questions re the c-5 extensions that allegedly benefitted his real estate empire in the millions, billions.   i don’t even think that snubbing the senate is as much a matter of cowardice as of some kinda guilt, or why won’t he take questions in the proper forum?   “is manny villar blameless? is the pope protestant?”

by cowards all i mean all five leading presidential candidates noynoy villar erap gibo and gordon, for not having the audacity, the daring, to think big and brave and to talk the radical changes that are implied in the promise of good governance.

this is not just a failure of the candidates though but a failure too of the electorate for not demanding more of these guys, which in turn is a failure of the media for inadequately informing and inspiring themselves, and the people, to ask demand clamor shout-out for changes beyond an end to corruption.   particularly changes in a system that was designed, in the first place, to benefit the few elite and NOT the manymanymanymanymany poor, as we should all see by now if only we hadn’t become too lazy to read and think and be critical, and  if only we would stop trusting in these candidates’ motherhood statements na kunyari they have the best interests of the poor at heart, because they don’t; rather they’re quite willing to play along with the same forces, inside and outside, that gloria arroyo (not to speak of past administrations, including erap, all the way back to the commonwealth) has been playing along with, to the detriment and degradation of our land and our economy, our people and our sovereignty.

they are cowards all, these leaders who don’t have the courage to stand up to the catholic church on the RH bill and sex education, never mind that 7 out of 10 filipinos want need deserve it.   cowards all who won’t stand up to the U.S. of A. on the chauvinist imperialist VFA and the IMF-WB-imposed “development plans” that over the decades have rendered the country nowhere near “developed”, rather turned us into the basket case of the ASEAN, basket-case meaning no legs of our own to stand on, no arms to work and feed ourselves with, how humiliating, how depressing.

they are cowards all.   afraid, not of going to hell if they defy the church’s stand on RH and sex education, just afraid of losing votes that the church allegedly commands.   cowards all.   afraid of espousing any kind of deep-seated change not because it’s undoable but out of fear and disinclination to defy and displease uncle sam, paano na ang campaign contributions, aray, paano na ang “special” fil-am relations, lol, how colonial the mentality pa rin.

it bears repeating what the journalist tony abaya of manilastandardtoday wrote back in august 2009 in response to rumors that noynoy might run: that what the country needs is a forward-looking president, a truly revolutionary president, someone with the attributes and visions of lee kwan yew, mahathir mohamad and gen. park chung hee:

… it is someone who has the qualities of these three foreign leaders that the Philippines badly needs in order to overcome decades of consistently poor governance, restore our badly battered self esteem, and draw for us a credible vision of what we want our country to be.

We need someone like Lee Kwan Yew who was/is personally incorruptible and at the same time was/is so conversant with economics and international relations that he could speak ex-tempore and defend his policies before an assembly of multinational CEOs and diplomats and made/make solid sense, whether they agreed/agree with him or not.

In addition we need the strong sense of nationalism of Mahathir Mohamad who in the 1980s drew a vision – Malaysia Vision 2020, that sought and seeks to transform Malaysia into a fully industrialized country by the year 2020 – that he was able to convince the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious people of Malaysia to embrace as worthy of their national loyalty, beyond the narrow appeals of their tribes and ethnic groups. No mean feat, considering the catastrophic demise of equally multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious federal Yugoslavia in the 1990s that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Mahathir’s nationalism also expressed itself in his readiness to fearlessly fire back at other countries, other world leaders, as well as international agencies whenever he felt they were trampling on the national self-interests of Malaysia.

We also need the single-minded determination of Gen. Park Chung Hee to transform his impoverished, resource-poor and inconsequential Republic of Korea from 1961 to 1979 (when he was assassinated) into a fully industrialized country that is now one of the ten biggest economies in the world.

… this is what the Philippines needs, a leader who can start and lead a revolution, a peaceful one, as much as possible; a violent one, if necessary.

anything less is just not good enough.  hindi na lang ako boboto.

oh and what’s this BS about villar NOT belonging to the elite just because he started out poor, unlike noynoy and gibo?   c’mon, rene azurin, you can do better than that.   by any reckoning, villar and the tsinoy taipans who all started out poor are very much a part of today’s elite, the irresponsible filipino elite, that wittingly or unwittingly collaborates with foreign powers, keeping the masses poor and marginalized.