By Fel V. Maragay Manila Standard Today Senator Mar Roxas is the uncontested presidential contender of the Liberal Party, party leaders said yesterday. “The process of choosing our standard-bearer for the 2010 elections is just a formality we have to go through. Our candidate is Mar Roxas,” said Franklin Drilon, who heads a faction of the second oldest political group. Party bigwigs, including provincial chapter chairmen, took part in a forum on Charter change and a multi-sectoral rally at Plaza Miranda on the occasion of the party’s 63rd anniversary. Another faction headed by Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza denounced Roxas and Drilon for misrepresenting the party. Roxas, national president, thanked his party mates for their “endorsement’ of his presidential plan. “But as president of our party, I have to respect our process. I will have to go through that process. In the meantime, based on the party’s guidelines, we are focusing on public service, not politics,” he said. Roxas ...

By JANRYLL FERNANDEZ, ABS-CBN News Channel | 01/27/2009 6:27 PM www.abs-cbnnews.com The heat is on! Fifteen months to the 2010 elections, one can already feel the looming heat of the upcoming presidential showdown. On ANC’s Talkback with Tina Monzon-Palma, leading figures from the major political parties gathered for a preview of what promises to be the most participated and potentially most expensive presidential derby in Philippine history. Present during the program were former Ambassador and Senate President Ernesto Maceda of the United Opposition, Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (KAMPI) President Congressman Luis Villafuerte, Nationalist People’s Coalition secretary-general Congressman Jack Duavit, Liberal Party chairman and former Senate President Franklin Drilon, Nacionalista Party spokesman and former Congressman Gilbert Remulla, and Lakas spokesman and former Congressman Prospero Pichay. “There are 17 names that have been mentioned who will run for president--7 from the adminis...

By Eldie Aguirre, Orlando Dinoy Mindanao Bureau First Posted 16:50:00 01/31/2009 www.inq7.net Philippine Daily Inquirer DIGOS CITY, Davao Del Sur -- Senator Francis Escudero on Friday said the Philippines needs a man like Barack Obama so that Filipinos could dig themselves out of their difficult situation, even as he announced anew his intention to run for president in 2010. "I am running because we need a leader that can provide solutions to the unemployment problem, the clamor of teachers for higher salaries and [I am] a man that could address the issue on hunger and poverty," he told reporters here. Escudero said what the country needs is a leader who has a vision similar to that of the first black American president. He said he was not comparing himself to Obama but that he believed he could be a good president with the help of the people, especially the youth. "The problems of the Philippines must be solved by Filipinos. Empowering the youth sector of the society is...

Danton Remoto Remote control Views and analysis www.abs-cbnNEWS.com Ilocos Norte dreaming When I was younger and ten pounds lighter, I went to Ilocos Norte and remember the brown nipa huts and the empanada I ate near the church. I also remember reading the marker on the house of the poet Leona Florentino. A few months ago I returned, and saw that the brown nipa huts have been changed by sprawling houses with Mediterranean designs – orange and yellow and red. The empanadas are still there, bigger and hotter than before. And the roads are cleaner, wider, and, as the ads say, smooth as silk. I went there to visit Sitio Remedios owned by St. Luke’s Medical Director Dr. Joven Cuanang and talk to some leaders up in the north. “It evokes one’s childhood,” I told the good doctor as we sat down to a lunch of inabraw (boiled vegetables), tanguinge sinigang soured with tomatoes, and big squid adobo. The fishermen, their wives and children – around 100 of them – were just hauling in the nets from ...

By COMELEC Commissioner Rene V. Sarmiento | 01/19/2009 1:19 PM www.abs-cbnNEWS.com “Martin Luther King said he had a dream, and I feel right now at this time, this is the dream he wanted.”—Judy Brown, 56, Jacksonville bus driver I flew to Washington, D.C. on October 31, 2008 to represent Comelec Chairman Jose A.R. Melo in the 2008 US Presidential Election Program sponsored by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), a nonprofit, democracy development organization that works to give people a voice in the way they are governed. The election program was attended by election officials representing 41 countries. On the second day of the program Sen. Barack Obama was elected after a historic quest for the presidency. The international program participants shared the sentiments of many that Obama’s election was “historic,” “revolutionary” and “record breaking.” In its editorial, Chicago Tribune said: “When he [Obama] was born in 1961, African-Americans risked death merely ...

By Tony Lopez The Manila Times www.manilatimes.net It’s fiesta time in the Philippines. The so-called presidentiables or those people with presidential ambitions and think can make it to the presidency have begun to fan out to the provinces in search of votes and voters. The presidentiables make a long list, at least 11 as of this writing. But only four or five will eventually survive the winnowing process. At the starting gate, the frontrunners, per recent surveys, are: Vice President Noli de Castro, 59, 31 percent; Loren Legarda, 49, 28 percent; Manny Villar, 59, 27 percent; Francis Escudero, 39, 19 percent Panfilo Lacson, 60, 14 percent; former President Joseph Estrada, 71, 11 percent; and Mar Roxas, 51, 10 percent. Trying to close in on them with single digit ratings are two local officials, Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, 66, of Makati, and Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando, 63; and a corporate CEO, Chairman Efraim Genuino, 59, of the state casino monopoly...

BY Lito Banayo Ang Pahayagang Malaya www.malaya.com.ph Jejomar Binay, his first name a contraction of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, has been mayor of Makati, enclave of the very rich, financial capital and fashionable shopping mecca all rolled into one, since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos. But for a brief interlude when he handed temporary power to his wife, Dra. Elenita, when he himself sat as MMDA chair and a member of President Estrada’s cabinet, the people of the city have kept electing him. His second round of three terms each ends on June 30, 2010. Indeed, it is time to move on. Before Corazon Aquino appointed him officer-in-charge of the country’s then premier municipality, Jojo was a lawyer not of the rich, but of the poor, and together with legal activist Rene Saguisag, embraced human rights advocacies during the long night of the dictatorship. We were together when the first ever anti-Marcos rally in the financial capital rocked the political bearings of the dictatorship in the afte...