Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The Greatest Conqueror

After the election fever subsided, emotion remains high especially to losers. There are some leaders and supporters particularly those who may have contributed little amount of “hard earned” money who gnashed their teeth while blaming others for bad fate.
But, one should understand that an election is a gambling – a gambling of big time gamblers.
An informer said that a group of known businessmen in the locality met almost every night in some nook and cranny in the city to play card game. Some, the informer said, easily losses P200,000 to P500,000 a night!
I just wonder where the hell these people get their money to gamble. Unless, you were the sole winner of the recent P126 million lotto draw, losing P500,000 is something.
But, spending a P 500,000 on elections is peanuts! I heard that a local candidate had almost P 100 million in election chest but lost it somehow. He never grumbled but just wondered what happened.
I remember a local candidate some 10 years ago who spent P 5 million on elections day but still lost in the electoral fight. He was perplexed how he lost with the money he let go on elections day.
Now, I heard that some financiers of local candidates are up against the heads of some trusted people who dealt with a group to ensure their candidate wins.
While there is no tested formula in winning an elections, both parties agreed to spend some “operation money” on condition that both should work together to attain their goals.
Notwithstanding, the candidate lost. An assessment of the situation boiled down to neither one accepting fault that leads to their defeat.
Now, they’re trying to recover money spent saying it was hard earned. Of course, there is no argument that that “election money” was hard earned.
Yet, to deny what has been agreed or dealt with is unfair. And, to accuse anyone of profiting from an operation money is absurd.
How could one recover an election fund purportedly spent on a covert operation? It should be noted that even the government could fail after spending millions of pesos on some covert missions.
Thus, gunning after a person’s neck for failure to recover an election fund considered “spent” is relatively unfair and unjust.
How many candidates lost a lot of fortune every elections day? How many candidates spent money to win the trust of unknown supporters but still lost?
But, we never heard of one among the many a candidate running amuck by killing suspected supporters in a bid to recover “hard earned” money?
It is understandable ‘though that when one losses in any game, much more, in an electoral exercise emotions are high.
More often than not, losing in an election sometimes drives one to blame innocent people suspected of stashing away “hard earned money.”
But despite all these humdrums and mental agony, there is always a time to retrospect. Thus, when one is humbled to accept defeat, one displays the spirit of the greatest conqueror of them all. We, believed these people are the real winners in the mid-term elections this year.[]

Friday, June 1, 2007

Philippines: Looking towards 2010

After the mid-term elections for Senators and local officials this year, the Philippines is now looking at the Presidential elections in 2010.
In spite of the controversies hounding the national and local polls (most of these controversies focused on "adding and shaving off" votes) politicians are already preparing for the Presidential elections three years from now.
The excitement of the upcoming Presidential polls is definitely on the shoulders of the political opposition. Senators identified with the opposition captured eight of the 12 Senatorial seats. Two administration candidates were also elected while two others were independent candidates.
Topping the Senatorial slot is Loren Legarda, a defeated vice presidential candidate, in the 2004 Presidential polls.
Legarda is followed by Chiz Escudero, a young opposition lawyer who chair the minority bloc in Congress prior to his election as Senator.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former Estrada police general and avid anti-Arroyo who ran for re-election, landed third place. Another second-term Senator Manny Villar, who ran as Independent candidate, settled fourth place.
Amid bickering and prognostic assessment of would-be-Senators, one candidate made it to the top 12 by sheer guts and people's support. Imprisoned Navy man Antonio Trillanes, accused of rebellion for an attempted coup against the Arroyo administration in the failed Oakwood Mutiny in 2003, is occupying the 11th Senatorial seat.
Trillanes ran for Senator under the Genuine Opposition ticket while being imprisoned in a maximum security detention cell in Fort B0nifacio.
Another military leader turned politician who also ran for Senator while a case for rebellion is also being heard against him is former Senator Gregorio Honasan. Honasan, another Independent candidate, landed in the 10th place.
There are humors that Honasan is actually an administration candidate who reportedly signed a "secret deal" with the Arroyo administration in exchanged for his temporary freedom and subsequently, ran for the Senate.
Anyway, whether the opposition controls the Senate, the Arroyo administration is not intimidated. Knowing that the administration remains in control of the Lower House, majority of the administration candidates were elected to Congress in the May 14 elections this year, the Senate cannot just pass a legislative measure unless it first passes in Congress.
There is a possibility that the rubber stamp Congress is going to move anew for Charter Change. With the administration still in control of the majority of the Lower House, the plan for the shift from Presidential to Parliamentary is likely to resurrect.
Notwithstanding, an opposition Senate remains a headache of the Arroyo administration. Any move to shift the present Presidential government to a Parliamentary system will definitely meet stiff resistance from the Senate.
As usual, the Senate is not akin to changing the present Presidential form of government to Parliamentary system since most of the opposition senators are now gearing toward the presidential elections in 2010.
There are a lot of potential presidents among the newly elected Senators. These Senators are humored to run for President in 2010.
Among them are Loren Legarda, Manny Villar and Panfilo Lacson, all of the opposition, as against an administration beat, the incumbent Vice President Noli de Castro. Some materials for the Vice Presidency includes Escudero, Roxas and Aquino.
This early, some leaders of would-be-Presidential candidates have already started mapping political plans for another grueling elections three years ahead.###