From the Professional Heckler: No. 10: “Hi Noy. Korina here. Have you heard the news? Mar has been pulling away in the vice presidential surveys.…
Making life worth living.
Category: 2010 elections
Media remains the main battleground for the hearts and minds of voters.
As we approach the start of the official campaign period (Feb.9), members the Philippine Press Institute came up with a media covenant for elections.
The covenant was drafted when PPI, with the support of The Coca Cola Export Corporation, conducted a seminar-workshop on preparing journalists for the 2010 election in Cagayan de Oro in October 2009. This week, in Cebu, the covenant was approved by 31 journalists who represented PPI newspaper members.
Dapat pasiglahin na ni Noynoy Aquino ang kanyang kampanya.
Kahapon lumabas ang pinakabagong survey ng Pulse Asia kung saan halos pantay na si Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III at Sen. Manuel Villar, Jr. sa mga nangunguna sa presidential race.
Sa survey na ginawa ng Pulse Asia noong Enero 22 hanggang 26 sa 1,800 sa buong bansa, 37% ang nakuha ni Noynoy at 35% ang kay Villar.
Dahil plus at minus two percent ang survey, sabi ng Pulse Asia halos tie na yan sila.
Statement of Sen. Benigno Aquino III on the Pulse Asia survey results in the comments section.
With about four months to go before the May 10, 2010 elections, presidential candidates Senator Benigno “Noynoy” C. Aquino (Liberal Party) and Senator Manuel “Manny” B. Villar (Nacionalista Party) are tied for the presidency, with Senator Aquino registering 37% of voter preferences and Senator Villar 35%, the latest Pulse Asia survey showed.
The nationwide survey conducted Jan. 22 to 26, among 1,800 respondents has a margin of error of +/-2%.
The only other presidential candidate with a double-digit preference is former President Joseph Estrada (Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino) at 12%.
The other candidates register voter preferences of at most 5%. Less than one in ten Filipinos (6%) does not have a preferred presidential candidate at this time.
1. This is NOT my fight and this should not be the people’s fight as well. Our fight should be with Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and we should not be distracted from this. She’s about to appoint a new AFP Chief of Staff and a new Chief Justice in March. These appointments and how they will be done (particularly for the CJ) would be indicators of whether she has plans of stepping down or not. Aside from these, the prospect of the failure of elections scenario is still up in the air. In short, anything that deflects attention from her is playing according to her script. We must always remain vigilant and must never underestimate her.
2. It is a graft case and not an ethics case. Bulk of the evidence presented dealt with acts committed as early 1999 when Sen. Villar was still a congressman and during his first term as Senator. I believe that ethics cases should only cover acts committed after the mandate was given which, in this case, is 2007. With that, the only evidence left would be the double insertion in the General Appropriations Act (GAA). The problem is, the draft of the GAA was approved and presented to the plenary by the Finance Committee which was then headed by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. Said GAA was later on approved by the majority in the Senate. Therefore, assuming there were double insertions, it was the responsibility of Sen. Enrile’s staff to scrutinize the GAA and correct all anomalies and typo errors before being approved by Sen. Enrile. When it was approved by Sen. Enrile and presented to the plenary, it now became the responsibility of each Senator to scrutinize it again before approving it. Therefore, all those who voted for the approval of the GAA became equally liable for that double insertion.
Former Defense Secretary Avelino “Nonong” Cruz was not one of the speakers in last Friday’s forum of the “The Powers of the Presidency: Preventing Misuse and Abuse” but he was asked to say something when the issue of the Ampatuans’ private armies came up inthe question and answer portion.
Cruz gave a two- word advice for the coming May elections: “Choose well”. He said it will go a long way in instituting reforms in governance if we have a president that will lead by example.
He, of course, didn’t ask to vote for the presidential candidate he is advising: the Liberal Party’s Benigno Aquino III.
Karina Constantino-David, former chair of the Civil Service Commission, also stressed the importance of choosing a president with integrity because she said, “in the final analysis it is the character of the President, his/her honest dedication to public service and not just to power that will speall the difference between decency and judiciousness on the one hand and mis-use and abuse on the other.”
by Mario Ignacio VERA Files The Commission on Elections held field tests in Taguig and Pateros Friday to try out the automated voting machines to…
This is another view on the C-5 controvery:
by Rene B. Azurin
BusinessWorld
More credibility, probably, would attach to the Senate committee report on its so-called “investigations” into the C-5 road project controversy if senators — most politicos, actually — were not widely perceived as being distinctly unshy, brazen even, about using their considerable power to influence government decisions on public works and procurement. That said, I would certainly give great weight to the C-5 allegations being leveled at Senator Villar if I were satisfied that they were true. I am not.
On an issue precisely of ethics, objective observers must wonder how senators — like presidential candidate Aquino’s Liberal Party partymate Mr. Pangilinan — can first affix their signatures to one resolution clearing Mr. Villar and then about-face 180 degrees to affix their signatures to another one censuring him, just because “it’s the party stand.” Well, that, at least, is an explicit admission of how “honorable” senators define ethics.
Although Mr. Villar has actually already made a point-by-point rebuttal in the Senate itself of the charges of “ethical misconduct” against him and has clearly taken pains to make available to the public — through media — documents supporting his answers to each allegation, he is, alas, simply not media’s darling. Thus, media outfits whose bias for his rivals is obvious to observers constantly detail the allegations against him in their stories on the controversy and formulaically just include his denials but not his specific answers to the allegations. Such is life in these politico- and elite-dominated islands.
Kahit na pangit ang nangyayari ngayon sa Senado, mabuti na rin dahil lumalabas ang tunay na kulay ng marami sa kanila.
Kung hindi sila nagbabangayan, di hindi sana natin nalaman ang mga behind the scenes na ginawa ni Sen. Manny Villar katulad ng pakiki-usap kay Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile na parang ang dating daw ay nag-aalok ng tulong kapalit ang favorable na report tungkol sa C-5 road extension na proyekto.
Nalulungkot lang ako sa nangyari kay Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. na malaki rin naman ang kontribusyon sa ating demokrasya sa kanyang paglaban sa diktaturang Marcos.
Mabuti naman at nagsalita na rin ang Simbahang Katoliko ng kanilang pangamba tungkol dito sa automated election sa Mayo.
Sa kanilang annual general assembly noong Sabado, sinabi ni Bishop Nereo Odchimar, presidente ng Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines na marami tanong tungkol sa ‘reliability” (maasahan ba?) at integridad ng mga makina na gagamitin sa eleksyun ay hindi nasasagot ng Commission on Elections.
Katulad ng dati, ang sagot ng Comelec, okay lang daw lahat at hindi ra mangyaayri ang “failure of elections” na kinakabahan ng marami.