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Spin

It was not only PDI that used the same spin.
It was not only PDI that used the same spin.
Spin, in media lingo, is using information to support a particular bias or slant.

It’s not exactly false but some aspects of the truth may have been glossed over.

As the campaign for the 2013 elections heats up, spin doctors are becoming more creative that sometimes, I get startled by what I hear and read.

Crunch time

Team PNoy and UNA. Thanks to Philstar for photo.
Team PNoy and UNA. Thanks to Philstar for photo.

With two more weeks to go before Election Day, candidates are moving heaven and earth to get that much coveted post.

Expect more black propaganda, vote buying, junkings and soul-selling. Senatorial candidates would be dealing individually with local politicians. The declaration of Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, head of the Liberal Party in Bicol, that he won’t be voting straight Team PNoy and include two candidates from the United Nationalist Alliance, will be replicated all over the country.

Salceda said that he will include UNA candidates JV Ejercito and Nancy Binay in his senatorial ticket.
Ejercito and Binay are only two of the UNA candidates in the Magic 12 in both Pulse Asia and SWS poll surveys, spoiling the exhortation of President Aquino for a straight Team PNoy victory.

The terror of the unheard voice

Yesterday, April 28, marked the 6th year that farmer-activist Jonas Burgos disappeared.

The Burgos family observed the day with renewed hope after new information surfaced early this month which strengthen the accusation that the military was behind the abduction of Jonas.

The information, which apparently came from the files of the military, included a picture of Jonas looking dazed with a large bandana around his neck, which was probably used to blindfold him.

Confronted with unpleasant reality, Aquino goes into denial mode

Modern-day Pieta. Not an unusual sight in Metro Manila's sidewalks and underpasses.
Modern-day Pieta. Not an unusual sight in Metro Manila’s sidewalks and underpasses.
Updated:Malacanang says PNoy not disparaging NSCB

President Aquino is discrediting the report of his own government agency- National Statistical Coordination Board which says the much-vaunted impressive economic growth has not trickled down to the teeming poor in the country.

The NSDB official release said: “Poverty incidence among population was estimated at 27.9 percent during the first semester of 2012. Comparing this with the 2006 and 2009 first semester figures estimated at 28.8 percent and 28.6 percent, respectively, poverty remained unchanged as the computed differences are not statistically significant.”

In simpler terms, life for the Filipino poor has not improved in the past six years.

Getting to know Trillanes at Bulong-Pulungan

Trillanes in Bulong-Pulungan with Manila Bulletin's Deedee Siytangco
Trillanes in Bulong-Pulungan with Manila Bulletin’s Dee-dee Siytangco
Bulong-Pulungan sa Sofitel yesterday was a getting-to-know Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV with journalists asking questions not often asked of the young senator who shot into the limelight in July 2003 when he and some 300 junior officers and soldiers made a stand against Gloria Arroyo in Oakwood Hotel in Makati.

Manila Bulletin’s Deedee Siytangco asked about the senator’s family life- wife Arlene and children, Seth and Thea.
Not many in the audience know that Arlene belonged to the first batch of female graduates of the Philippine Military Academy in 1997. She has resigned from military service and is now teaching at the National University.

Charo Yu, a supporter of Trillanes who helped arrange the senator’s guesting at the weekly media lunch forum, had to retrieve a photo of the senator and his wife from her cellphone to show Bulong regulars. “She’s pretty,” Deedee commented of Arlene.

In his desire for personal comfort,Brillantes insults foreign service

Wants a taxpayers' paid relaxation abroad.
Wants a taxpayers’ paid relaxation abroad.
Nakakahiya.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes told reporters last week that he will ask President Aquino to name him ambassador to a country in Eastern Europe once he leaves the election body.

“I will wait to see the President so that I can ask him … My plan was to ask him, ‘Could you give me an ambassadorship instead so that I can rest. It’s so tiring in the Comelec,’” he was quoted by media to have said.
Brillantes named countries that he was eyeing: “Romania, Slovakia, or Hungary … where no Filipinos go.”

Two things are very wrong with what Brillantes wants:

China gives a glimpse of armed power

China's aircraft carrier
China’s aircraft carrier
China’s Defense White Paper released last Tuesday is an interesting read in the light of the current tension in the Korean Peninsula and the Philippine’s territorial dispute with the new world economic and military power.

The White Paper titled, “The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces” was released as US State Secretary John Kerry completes his Asia visit (South Korea and Japan) re-affirming the “rebalancing” policy initiated by the Obama administration in its first term.

Under the rebalancing or “pivot” policy, the US shifts its military power and presence from the Middle East war zone to the Asia Pacific region.

The Pichay lesson in political ads

Pichay's ad in 2007 elections
Pichay’s ad in 2007 elections
Some are concerned that with the lifting by the Supreme Court of the airtime limits on political advertisements, we would be bombarded with all those propaganda in the next 30 days.

Less-moneyed candidates are worried that they would be drowned by those with money to burn. Independent senatorial candidate Teddy Casiño said the SC’s ruling favors wealthy candidates or those backed by the ruling elite.

“Ginawang parang unli text, unli call.The problem is its steep cost,” he said. TV ad rates, depending on the time slot, would not go below P250,000 for a 30 second ad. A candidate would need some P30 million for the remaining four weeks of the campaign.

” It is disgusting that the SC has decided against the Comelec’s effort to rein in expensive campaigns which poor or cash-strapped candidates like me cannot afford,” Casiño lamented.