Partisanship, policy representation, ideology.
These are the three usual elements of electoral politics that, by their nature, divide people, oftentimes into the majority and the minority, into the administration and the opposition.
Elections can divide a country, a city, a family, and yes, it can divide and end friendships.
Even with us here at Victorina, the council oftentimes have heated debates which I welcome because it means that we are thinking individuals and we always argue our points. We just have to trust that our friendship and our commitments are deeper than a single issue.
In the
Clans like the Cojuangcos, the Osmenas and the Laurels have been divided because of elections, and in several times, have caused so much damage that the wounds never heal.
Friendships have been broken because of electoral politics. There are too many instances to single out anyone.
Given these scenarios, is election still an important process in our country’s development?
I must begin with a premise that electoral politics is directly related to political maturity, and by that I mean the degree in which our citizens have developed the capacity to make correct decisions based on social realities, laws and values. It also includes an innate capacity to differentiate personal agenda, and even relationships, from political ones.
The election of 2007 was heralded by many as a sign of political maturity – when most of the celebrities didn’t win. But noted pundit Amado Doronilla begged to differ, and called the Filipino political maturity a myth. In an article published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, he said,
“What the recent studies on the perceived “improvement” of Filipino electoral maturity have noted are superficial and mechanistic manifestations of change, influenced by modern technological means of transmitting political intelligence (TV, mass media) to a broader public audience. The effects of these technological changes have largely been in influencing the political strategies of both Team Unity and Genuine Opposition.
The outcome of the 2007 election is the political messages the Filipino voters are getting from the mass media, with their high-tech information devices. What ensures the normality of the May election was the fact that it was not being held in the midst of a political crisis and national stress. This helps explain why the election has failed to excite political passions.
Those who observed closely the pattern of the 2004 political campaign could not have failed to notice that: first, the Arroyo camp shifted to small “town hall” meetings all over the country from big urban rallies, to counter the charisma-driven campaign of movie idol Fernando Poe Jr.; and second, that 2004 was the last encounter of political pragmatism and charisma (in which charisma lost). It was also an election in which political organization prevailed over a celebrity-driven campaign.”
In that sense, the 2004 election was a watershed. It may have marked the end of the era when movie personalities rose to political stardom that peaked in 1998 with the election of Joseph Estrada to the presidency. Since the experience with the Estrada presidency, fewer show-biz celebrities have been elected to national offices, indicating that the entertainment world has lost its allure as a recruitment ground for political leadership. This receding tide was reflected in the current campaign, where there were only two celebrity-candidates for the Senate -- Cesar Montano and Richard Gomez -- and both lost. ( Sonny Trillanes is another matter that deserves a bashing.)
What Doronilla is basically saying that is, while the last elections appear to an improvement, it was not a signal that we are maturing as a democracy. But given the technological advancement between 2007 and 2010, and the global recession that we are experiencing right now, this coming election would the perfect litmus test to see whether we are already politically mature.
Victorina is sorry to disappointment ABS-CBN and the traditional media!
The internet is now become a leading source of campaign news for young people and the role of social networking sites such as Google, MySpace and Facebook. Even in the past elections, senatoriables like Chiz Escudero have used the internet and social networking for his online campaign. Presidentiable Mar Roxas leads in blogging, website and even has accounts in various social media and netw
orking sites.
Pioneering the power of the WEB is the University of the
This creates a smarter electorate and whoever learns more from the Winner of 2008 US Presidential Election Best Internet Marketing - BarackObama.com may have a considerable edge in the up and coming elections!
This creates a smarter electorate and whoever learns more from the Winner of 2008 US Presidential Election Best Internet Marketing - BarackObama.com may have a considerable edge in the up and coming elections!
ARIEL QUERUBIN for Baranggay Chairman!
nabasa nyo na ba ito :
http://gmakapusonetwork.multiply.com/journal/item/1514/Karumal_Dumal_OWNER_of_Defunct_Chikatime.com_bashing_GMA_Stars_IS_an_accomplice_of_BRIAN_GORRELL
and,what about senate bills 773 & 778?
I never really liked Mr. A. Doronilla, but I would have to agree with him in this case...that the so-called political maturity of Filipinos is nothing but a MYTH!
Maybe the internet age will signal a new chapter in the way Filipinos vote. Then again, maybe not. I remain skeptical, but I think it's worth finding out how we'll fare in the upcoming elections.
well, doh!
David Perlmutter: BLOGWARS: THE NEW POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND (OXFORD, 2008) began as an idea as early as the mid-90s. In 1996 a friend and I did a study of presidential campaign websites. Basically, what we found was that they were pretty much static bulletin boards: speeches, statements, pictures just posted up there. No real interactivity. In 2003, I started paying attention to the nascent campaign for president of an obscure ex-governor of Vermont named Howard Dean. His name recognition nationwide was in the single digits; he was not very rich or prominent or powerful within the Democratic party. Yet the Internet visionaries around him tried something really new: to get supporters of his views and ideas to self-mobilize, to create support groups, fundraising, canvassing on their own without top-down central direction. Blogging was their main forum for such activities.
To see Dr. Perlmutter's blog go to
www.policybyblog.squarespace.com
the difference here is that we have yet to see someone like an obama who's got just enough charisma and promise to inspire a nation. the change we need requires a leader who can turn our negative self-image around. as of this moment, i don't see anyone among the candidates who fits that description.
that being said, i believe that blogging will unleash it's full potential soon. i hear the local mainstream media starting to 'admit' what they have denied for quite some time...that blogging is a force to reckon with!
despite this fact, we shouldn't expect overnight results. it's a major step in the right direction, but there's still a lot of work to be done. in the near future, let's hope we get to see the emergence of potential candidates that most of us can agree on.
keep it up, DV!
The internet is now become a leading source of campaign news for young people and the role of social networking sites such as Google, MySpace and Facebook.
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it worked with Obama and of course it would be useful in this election
BUT only in URBAN areas where youd have at least some internet connection, that even in Manila it crawls like a cut snake. (and expensive)
Lets not forget the barangays in Visayas and Mindanao where the trapos continuously paint the towns red come election time.
remember the: "this Purok is Donated by Congressman SO and So and His brother Senator So and So"
Rain we have analyzed the situation and like Banlaoi of the National Defense College charges that in the Philippines "elections are nothing but overt expressions of competing interests of the Filipino elite rather than venues of contending programs of government". This being the easy-going Philippines, competitive elitism takes the form of a huge fiesta - or politics as entertainment. "Filipino voters participate in the election for the same reason they go to cockfights, boxing and basketball, festival and beauty contests," Banlaoi says.
"Election season is like a big sports or concert season - highly entertaining." That's the same analysis given by Coronel from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
Twice as many Americans used the internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002. Some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002. A post-election survey shows that the 2006 race also produced a notable class of online political activists. Some 23% of those who used the internet for political purposes, the people we call "campaign internet users" actually created or forwarded online original political commentary or politically-related videos.
CAN YOU IMAGINE PRESIDENT POE? Dead F. Poe, a very close friend of Estrada, ran without a program or even ideas, apart from a vague "unity of the Filipino people". It doesn't matter, because he got the vote of the TV-and-cinema-going masses. Manila Archbishop Rosales was not very pleased with the whole show, even saying that the greatest destructive element that ever visited the country in the past 58 years was Philippine politics. He hit the fundamental nerve when he organized a movement called Pondong Pinoy (Filipino Fund) to force people "beyond the politics of money, power, class, greed and family ambitions that has held the country captive for many generations".The first People Power revolt in 1986 got rid of Marcos - and inspired, among others, the mass protests that got rid of Suharto in Indonesia in 1998. People Power 2, in 2001, ousted the mega-corrupt Estrada. In both events, the Catholic Church played an absolutely crucial role - mobilizing millions to change the course of Philippine history. But now the Church simply has no one to trust: it has barely begun to contemplate the implications of the four-day military-backed civilian uprising - a de facto coup d'etat - that put Arroyo in power in January 2001.
Estrada, a certified rascal, never formally resigned as president and still claims he was "robbed" - the ultimate irony. He now lived under a relaxed form of house arrest near a military camp and now the THIEF is free!
ANG DAMI NIYO ARTE WITH WORDS... JAIL THE CRIMINALS!
The shrinking Filipino middle class shares most of the values of the conservative ruling elite.
Like Amiel they may be striving to amplify their political voice, but they definitely have no interest in radical change - an absolute must if this long-suffering land of warm, gracious people does not want to be devastated by a social volcano.
Here are other GO claims that need clarification in the interest of truth and fairness.
CLAIM: The Misery Index is higher today than in Estrada’s time.
FACT: The Misery Index combines inflation and unemployment—which both hit crushing levels in 1998, Estrada’s first half-year, due to the Asian financial crisis. Today, both average self-rated poverty as surveyed by Social Weather Stations (SWS), and poverty incidence as measured by the World Bank and the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), are at their lowest in at least a generation. Indeed, from 2001 to 2006, some 5.5 million Filipinos rose out of poverty, based on NSCB data. And even those still poor are better off, as data from the Annual Poverty Indicators surveys show (see table below).
CLAIM: Taxes are now heavier for Filipinos, at 14.8 percent GDP in 2006, compared with only 13 percent in 2000.
FACT: Those percentages measure tax effort. They show how well government collects—the higher, the better. With revenues up, investors are pouring in and creating jobs, and spending on infrastructure and social services are rising by double-digits. World Bank chief economist Francois Bourgignon beams: “The [fiscal] situation has been corrected. It is time to adopt the Asian type of very fast growth.”
CLAIM: Spending for health and education decreased in 2001-04 under President Arroyo.
FACT: Total health spending, which goes beyond the Department of Health budget, is now P25 billion—or P284 for each Filipino, more than twice the level under Estrada. The amount includes PhilHealth insurance for 24 million of the poor, 16 times the number in 2000. Many thousands of outlets have been added to the low-cost medicine network. Now nearly half of Filipinos find medicines cheap, according to SWS—up from one-tenth in 1999.
The Arroyo administration has provided textbooks to virtually all students in public elementary schools and the first two years of high school, in English, math, science and Filipino (and 3rd and 4th years of high school are nearly there). That 1:1 textbook-to-student ratio compares with a 1:5 ratio under Estrada. And since 2004, the classroom shortage has dropped from about 60,000 to less than 6,000.
CLAIM: The amount of foreign direct investments (FDI) has fallen since 2000 and never matched Estrada’s high of $2.24 billion.
FACT: Last year net FDI reached $2.35 billion, up 27 percent. And more is expected, with investor concerns about the budget deficit and poor infrastructure being addressed, and political unrest much diminished since 2005. Leading global investment bank Goldman Sachs says the country is at the “early stage of an asset reflation cycle,” when stock and property prices surge due to increased confidence and investment.
GO will surely have its own rejoinders to government performance data, but what the people really need is its plan for the nation. Will it seek to oust the President and bring us back to the turmoil of two years ago? Since they contend that life was better under Estrada, will they adopt his policies, including midnight cabinets and declining revenues?
If and when it debates Team Unity, GO should explain its platform for the future, not just its gripes about the past.
A Puno-led transition government also does not appeal to Estrada, who said that the nation would only tumble into the same pitfalls of the military-backed uprising in 2001 that “unconstitutionally” removed him from power. Estrada noted that it was Puno who “invented” his constructive resignation, an act that violated his constitutional rights as the then President.
JOSEPH ESTRADA SAID “The government now has competent people in the antipoverty commission. Now, I would like more to work with the private sector,” said Estrada, who had spent his first Sunday as a free man with his grandchildren.
Now he wants to be President AGAIN?
Anonymous said...
ARIEL QUERUBIN for Baranggay Chairman!
June 9, 2009 11:16 AM
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I hope he wins in YOUR barangay, idiot.
Can't stay on-topic, can't spell...pathetic!
unless we have quality people running for office and savvy or informed electorates, this debate is pointless.
Anonymous said...
unless we have quality people running for office and savvy or informed electorates, this debate is pointless.
June 11, 2009 1:29 AM
I AGREE 100%.