Eighteen days to go before the start of the filing of certificates of candidacy for elective national positions -- president, vice-president, senators and party-list. The filing period is between November 20-30. Expect the next four weeks to be a nail-biting experience. Why? 1. Not a single political party has completed their senatorial slates. 2. Manny Villar and Gibo Teodoro have no VP candidate, while Loren Legarda has no presidential candidate. 3. The forthcoming Pulse Asia survey should help the political parties finalize their senatorial slates and their alignments or realignments. According to Lito Banayo, this survey should be out late this week. And which party will I join? 1. The party that will not tell me to firm up my niche or message, because that has been firmed up in the last three years. 2. The party that will treat me with the respect that my candidacy deserves, having done their extensive research and found out the following about my political mapping: a. There are 4...

By HANNAH L. TORREGOZA, EDMER F. PANESA October 13, 2009, 5:30pm Manila Bulletin Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile confirmed Tuesday that former President Joseph Estrada would be running for president in the May 2010 elections with Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay as his running mate. This developed as party-list Rep. Florencio “Bem” Noel said that the tandem of Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Loren Legarda in 2010 is a done deal. In an interview with Senate reporters Tuesday, Enrile said that as far as he is concerned an Estrada-Binay tandem seems to be a “done deal” already and it would only be a matter of time before the ousted president formally announces his presidential bid. Enrile is chair emeritus of Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) which Estrada founded. “Palagay ko done deal na iyon,” Enrile said when asked about the issue. “I think that’s it. I think that’s it,” Enrile repeatedly said. In contrast with other presidential tandems, Enrile compared the Estrada-Binay tandem ...

BY SOPHIA DEDACE, GMANews.TV 09/25/2009 | 01:17 PM With only a month to go before the registration period for the 2010 elections ends, the number of names purged from the voters’ list is more than twice the number of new voters that have signed up so far, according to records obtained from the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). As of July 2009, a total of 2.7 million new voters have signed up since the registration period started in December 2008, figures culled from Comelec records by GMA News Research show. During the same period, however, the number of names that have been purged from the list of registered voters has reached 6.1 million. Most of them, or about 5.6 million, are Filipinos who did not vote in the last two elections. James Jimenez, head of the poll body’s Education and Information Department, said the figures should not give the impression that there is a low turnout of new registrants because more voters have been stricken off the voters’ list. “There is a misconcepti...

BY Ellen Tordesillas www.ellentordesillas.com It’s heartening to know interest among young people to participate in the 2010 elections is growing. Political consultant Malou Tiquia, in her presentation on “Developments in the 2010 election campaign” in a recent forum sponsored by the Ateneo School of Government, said of the 45,029,443 registered voters as of March 2009, nine million belong to age 18-35 years old. Election observers expect 22 per cent of voters would come from the youth sector. If these young people would identify with someone in their age range, they would have three to choose from: Chiz Escudero of the National People’s Coalition, who will be turning 40 (the minimum age requirement to be president) on October 10; Gilbert Teodoro of the administration’s Lakas-Kampi-CMD; and the Liberal Party’s Noynoy Aquino. With the significant number of voters being young, Tiquia, who is advising Escudero now, said there would be higher use of New Media both by the candidates and the...

BY Lito Banayo Ang Pahayagang Malaya September 18, 2009 ON the 16th day of the 9th month of the Gregorian calendar, which is the 28th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar, also known as the "Kwi Ge" or ghost month, Gilbert Teodoro was "chosen" by the PaLaKa Executive Committee as their standard-bearer for 2010. (For the benefit of those who do not know the significance that the Chinese place on the Kwi Ge, know this: No Chinese family moves to a house, no businessman opens a store or an office, or ink a major contract or agreement during the Kwi Ge, when ghosts roam the land. No announcements of major significance, no career changes are made, or bad luck steps in if ghosts attach themselves to house, office or career. And this year, the 7th month began August 20 and ends today, September 18. That’s when the moon cakes are given around, thanking the gods for passing through a dreadful month.) So Ronnie Puno is wiser. He did not allow himself to be nominated as ...

BY Lito Banayo Ang Pahayagang Malaya September 16, 2009 The week began with startling political news. Noynoy Aquino, who announced his intentions to run for the highest post in the land September 9, zoomed up spectacularly in the first measurement of popularity done in the month of September. The surveys, in fact were done in haste (not that haste makes its results suspect). When it was clear in the last days of August that the Liberal Party seemed to be hedging its bets on Mar Roxas, some businessmen wanted to test the so-called public clamor for Noynoy. And the earliest SWS could do a test was the first week-end of September. The territorial scope would also be delimited to what political tacticians call the Mega-Manila area, or more aptly, the Lingayen to Lucena corridor. This vote-rich, urbanized community, whose population is reached almost completely by audio and visual broadcast media, and has access to print media, mostly tabloids, constitutes roughly 40 percent of the entire v...

By Lito Banayo Ang Pahayagang Malaya August 26. 2009 Trust Senadora Miriam to make your day whenever she vents her ire on whoever. Aliw na aliw. She chewed Buboy Syjuco and spat him out with such sardonic humor that even the masa clearly understood. “Pasayaw-sayaw pa, e ang tanda-tanda na…puti na nga ang buhok!” And even if you knew she was purposely lying when she described her Jun Santiago as “one of the handsomest men in the country”, you simply got bowled over by the way she stitched her barbs together. Indeed, Buboy Syjuco should ask himself --- why spend 28 million pesos of taxpayers’ money on an infomercial, just to make an ass of oneself. Surely there are cheaper ways to achieve the same result --- making an ass of himself. * * * The King of Saudi Arabia has been prevailed upon by the Royal Privy Council to cancel the purported state visit of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The King’s advisers got verified information that Dona Gloria is not “halal”. * * * I do no...

By Mon Casiple www.moncasiple.wordpress.com More realignmentsWith the death of Con-Ass and its accompanying emergency rule scenario, things have gone back to normal–”normal electoral politics” that is. The 2010 elections tightens its grip on the whole political landscape. However, there are interesting twists. Most of these were brought about by the re-manifesting of people power during the wake and funeral of former president Cory Aquino. Some were brought about by the rapid process of disintegration of the lameduck Arroyo administration. Still, others were influenced by the surprising strength of former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada in the presidential surveys. The most interesting is the catapulting of the Aquino political heir, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, to the electoral limelight. He is now being buffeted by pressures from all sides–not necessarily friendly–to seriously take a stab at the vice-presidency, even the presidency itself. If this materializes, the political shock w...

Mar: Eye on the prize SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan (The Philippine Star) August 12, 2009 12:00 AM In a sprawling compound within the Araneta Center, Judy Araneta-Roxas lives in the house closest to the main gate. The house, with an unimposing façade, has her stamp all over it, from the family photographs to paintings of herself and her late husband, Sen. Gerardo Roxas. Priceless paintings by Juan Luna and Vicente Manansala adorn the living room, which opens out into a spacious garden. It’s the kind of house, reeking of old money, that you usually find in Forbes Park. But this is right in the heart of Cubao, Quezon City. The only one who can have this kind of spacious accommodations in the heart of Araneta Center, which includes Farmers’ Market and several shopping malls, is the family that owns the commercial center. This is the favorite joke of former President Joseph Estrada about Judy’s son, Manuel “Mar” Araneta Roxas II, who lives with mom Judy. How can the grandson and namesak...

An unlooked-for gift -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial www.malaya.net.ph July 29, 2009 ‘Thanks to Gloria, Mar no longer needs to define himself.’ Gloria Arroyo might have unwittingly paid the highest compliment to Mar Roxas when she singled him out among her administration’s critics in her state of the nation address. There are lingering suspicions that some opposition figures, including presidential aspirants, are prepared to strike a deal with Gloria, assuming they have not already done so, in pursuit of their personal ambition. In her spite, Gloria may just have established Roxas’ credentials as the genuine oppositionist in what is emerging to be a wide-open 2010 electoral race. Gloria’s attack on Roxas stemmed from the latter’s allegation that she had sought to undermine the Cheaper Medicines Act by refusing to sign an executive order cutting the prices of 22 essential medicines by half. Gloria’s position was that there was n...

by Maria Althea Teves, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 07/25/2009 3:46 AM MANILA - It is no secret that US President Barack Obama won partly for using new media in his 2008 campaign. New media is defined by Obama New Media Operations Manager Mary Joyce as a media message created, produced and read by the people. This means media found on the internet, and text messages via mobile phones. Social networking sites have linked internet users to Obama’s webpage in order to know his policies and actively participate in discussions. But there is one key aspect the Obama campaign team is most proud of: getting online donations for the campaign that amounted to $500 million. So what if they paid a dollar to the Obama campaign? Joyce told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak that the psyche behind donating money is that they feel they belong to the campaign. Joyce is also co-founder of digiactive.org, a volunteer organization helping activists around the world to use Internet and mobile phones to increase the ...

By Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta University of the Philippines The Forum - May-June 2009 - (Vol 10 Issue 3) All the world’s a stage, and at no time is this more evident than during national elections. November 30 is the red letter day for those intending to run in 2010, since they have until then to file their candidacies. Their fate as candidates, however, is not in their hands. It is up to the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which weeds out the fly-by-nights, would-be messiahs, and other such nuisance candidates. However, in the course of declaring nuisance candidates some well-meaning and qualified aspirants—aspirants who might well have made a positive difference had they been elected—get scratched out of the list. One of these is Ateneo de Manila University English Professor Danton Remoto, who ran as representative of the party-list group Ang Ladlad in the May 2007 elections. When the Comelec dismissed Ang Ladlad as eligible to be part of the party list, Remoto aimed for a Sena...

Ex-president: ‘You can’t stay at the top forever’ By Fe Zamora, Michael Lim Ubac Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 01:01:00 07/17/2009 MANILA, Philippines — Former president Fidel V. Ramos Thursday told six aspirants to the presidency that being in power was not a permanent state. “Going up to the summit is optional, but coming down is mandatory,” Ramos said, quoting the first Filipino mountain climbers to scale Mount Everest. “You cannot stay at the top forever.” Ramos’ remarks were applauded by the six aspirants and their audience, to whom they presented their planned six-year socioeconomic programs. The venue was the 10th Ramos Peace and Development Foundation public lecture series held at RCBC Plaza’s Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in Makati City. “Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magalit,” a laughing Ramos also said, mouthing the old Filipino adage about being a sport in the face of criticism. It was an apparent swipe at President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose term ends in...

By Rommel C. Lontayao, Reporter Manila Times July 13, 2009 Gov. Ed Panlilio of Pampanga said “reform” candidates like him are counting on the youth to choose non-traditional politicians when they vote in next year’s elections. “I hope they will choose someone who can bring good governance, and responsible and ethical leadership in the national government,” Panlilio told a roundtable with editors and reporters of The Manila Times on Saturday. The priest-turned-provincial-governor had expressed his intention to run for either the presidency or the vice presidency with Gov. Grace Padaca of Isabela as his running mate in the 2010 polls. Panlilio and Padaca are members of social and political reform movements that champion ethical governance. Fellow “reformist” Gov. Teddy Baguilat of Ifugao said that changes in the government could be realized through a new generation of voters. “The youth sector is a big sector. Their decision on whom to vote for can dictate the results of the elections,”...

By DJ Yap Philippine Daily Inquirer Posted date: July 09, 2009 MANILA, Philippines—Ang Ladlad, a party-list organization representing homosexual men and women, expressed optimism Wednesday that it would finally be accredited by the Commission on Elections for the 2010 polls. Ateneo de Manila University professor and Ang Ladlad Chairman Danton Remoto said the Comelec had assured the group that it would be accredited as a party-list group provided it could prove a national membership. Remoto said the group now has 22,000 registered members and 10 regional chapters. In the 2007 elections, the organization was rejected by the poll body on the ground that it did not represent a “marginalized and underprivileged” sector as required by election laws, Remoto said. “We were told that the likes of (prominent gay men) Boy Abunda, Ricky Reyes, and myself, a teacher at Ateneo, did not belong to the marginalized sector,” Remoto said at the Fernandina Media Forum at Club Filipino in San Juan City. ...

One senator running for re-election saw my campaign manager, a transgender named Bemz Benedito, and told her: "Hoy, 'yang boss mo, ang lakas-lakas ng loob tumakbo ng senator. Wala namang partido. Wala ring pera. Mataas man siya sa mga surveys at mock polls ngayon, surveys at mock polls lang 'yan." To which my campaign manager just arched her well-trimmed eyebrows. I have trained her to ignore stray dogs. Miffed, senatorial candidate added: "And you can tell that to your boss!" The problem with Bratinellas (brats who become senators) is that, after winning by a fluke because of a TV melodrama about their family's life, they think they can now win the top spot in the 2010 senatorial elections. Because that is what this reelectionist wants, to be on top of the heap in 2010. I have said it before and I am saying it now: The youth vote will be a youth quake in the 2010 elections. Boto mo, ipatrol mo, is growing by leaps and bounds. Previously apathetic young ...

By Ellen Tordesillas www.ellentordesillas.com Kayo ba ay naniniwala na talagang tatakbo si Gloria Arroyo bilang kongresista ng Pampanga sa 2010 eleksyon? Malakas ang kutob ko na isa na namang pakulo niya ito at meron talaga siyang ibang maitim na balak. Suspetsa ko diversionary tactic lang ito. Nakakapagtaka kasi sila mismo ang nagpapalutang. Si Arroyo mismo. Sinabi nya sa kanyang talumpati, “anong malay nyo, baka tumakbo akong kongresista sa Pampanga.” Ito ay sinundan ng mga pahayag ng kanyang deputy spokesperson na si Lorelei Fajardo na wala namang batas na nagbabawal na tumakbong kongresista. Ang pinakahuli nilang drama ay ang ikinuwento ni Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman sa mga reporter sa Cotabato City na sinabi raw ni Arroyo sa kanila sa miting ng Legislative-Executive Development Council ang kanyang planong pagtakbo bilang kongresista ng Pampanga. Nang inilabas ng Inquirer, deny ang Malacañang. Walang sinabi raw si Arroyo sa miting. Atras din si Pangandaman. Ginawa ...

By Tony Abaya Manila Standard Today www.manilastandardtoday.com June 16, 2009 *** You may disagree with what Manong Tony says, but you have to agree he writes it with just the right amount of salt. Or pepper. Or dash of acid. *** Political events in the country have accelerated so fast in the three weeks that I was away that I must postpone my Letter from Oakland and Letter from Chicago to a later date so that I can catch up with the dizzying pace, as we spiral down toward a perdition. The mega event of those three weeks was, of course, the shameless passage last June 2 of House Resolution 1109 that would empower Congress to convene itself into a constituent assembly in which members of the Lower House and the Senate would vote jointly, not separately, to amend the Constitution. The resolution was passed by acclamation, not by secret or open vote, perhaps to hide the identities of those who voted for it so that they will be spared a backlash from irate voters during the 2010 election...

By Ricky Carandang rogue Magazine www.rogue.ph This fearless forecast predicts more of the sameóterm-extension schemes, shifting political alliances, and continued combat in Mindanao with the dubious consolation that other Southeast Asian nations will share some of our indignity next year. Politics in this country is like the stock market . . . volatile and difficult to predict. The only thing anyone these days is willing to say about the market is that it will be volatile and unpredictable. It’s probably safe to say the same thing about politics in 2009. Chances are, it will be another noisy year. Where will the noise come from? I believe that attempts by the Arroyo administration to amend the Constitution to extend the president’s term beyond 2010 will come to a head early next year. With the Senate now in the more openly friendly hands of Juan Ponce Enrile, the Palace probably sees an opening to dance the ChaCha. Far-fetched? Remember this: every president after Cory Aquino has tri...