By Jam Sisante, Mark Merueñas, and Howie Severino 06/23/2009 | 10:53 AM www.gmanews.tv The first in an occasional series on political advertising. Officially, the campaign period for next year's election will start eight months from now. But who's waiting? In only the first three months of this year, just three possible candidates have already spent a total of P230 million in "advocacy ads" -- thinly disguised campaign commercials on television and radio. Roxas and Villar lead in "advocacy ads" spending Nielsen Media Research identified the three as Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas II (P140 million), Senator Manuel Villar Jr. (P80 million), and Senator Loren Legarda (P10 million). All three have given indications they're running for the presidency next year. The early electioneering is obvious to many TV viewers. But the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has already determined that the so-called advocacy ads do not violate election campaign laws sinc...

Thank you for the deluge of e-mails, text messages, and comments being sent to me about this blog and my columns that appear at www.abs-cbnnews.com (Tuesday), Philippine Star (Monday) and S [Showbiz, Stars, Scoops] Magazine every month. Some of them are belated congratulations about the nine books that I have written, published and are on sale at National Bookstore, with 130 branches nationwide! Since mine is a campaign fueled not by PhP 100 million in ill-gotten funds, all I have are words -- blazing on paper, floating in the air, spreading nanosecond-fast in the borderless world of cyberspace. As the days pass, you will see more candidates with blogs and columns and why, even books and autobiographies that they did not write. Thoroughly incapable of thought and even of stringing a decent sentence whether in English or Filipino, they have hired the best golden hands in the business to produce their works. As they say, It's a fake. Carepool, carepool. It's a blessing in the ski...