How to enjoy the Presidential Debates

By this time, the presidential candidates shall have aired their campaign promises, developed their slogans, delivered their best one-liners, and perfected stock replies to standard questions.

Most voters would have gotten used to the candidates’ rhetoric that they would not mind missing the next debate. Watching one on TV with the audio off, most Pinoys could almost tell what the Palace pretenders are saying. Why waste 60 minutes on a forum where the conversation is predictable?

Still it’s possible to enjoy the next debate if we listen carefully and hang on to every word.

How?

If you’re with family at home or friends in a bar, you could make a bet against each other that the candidate would soon drop his favorite phrase or that his next line would include a predictable word. You collect as the candidate drones on.

Or you could play the American State of the Union Drinking Game. Bar guests take a swig each time a US president drops a line or a phrase that has become a cliché. Instead of gagging over the overused line, the viewers usually, bar customers, down a drink or order one from the bartender.

You could make a bet or gulp a drink each time Noynoy Aquino mentions “My sister Kris,” “My beloved parents” or “My girlfriend Shalani Soledad.”

Make a bet that Manny Villar will say “Mahirap ako noon,” or “I’m spending my own money.” Take a swig of beer when he declares he owes everything to “sipag at tiyaga.”

Drink straight from a bottle of wine when Erap Estrada declares, “I am running to redeem my honor” or challenge a friend to a bet that Erap will boast, “I am a defender of press freedom.”

You can bet Gibo Teodoro will say “my loyalty to GMA ends where my loyalty to mother-in-law begins,” or “it’s qualification, not popularity, that counts” and “Huwag akong iparis sa Big 3 dahil walang dungis ang pangalan ko.”

If Dick Gordon sheds a tear over his accomplishments in Subic Bay, order Gordon’s Dry Gin from the bartender Bro. Eddie Villanueva’s lines—“Moral leadership” and “I will live by example”—are worth a prayer and a bet.

If Jamby Madrigal says, “I am a vegetarian but I will eat Manny Villar alive,” that calls for a round of drinks.

If you prefer to hand out grades, give an A+ or 95 percent to a candidate who could explain an issue without lapsing to Taglish. Give a failing grade to a speaker who could not pronounce the name of Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad.

If you lose big money or get a hangover, blame the debate sponsors. (Manila Times)

I guess, only the luminous council of Barrio Siete and their “brilliant” attorney would think otherwise; As regards Magdalo’s endorsement… rest claims by LP adherents that Villar is the President’s secret candidate. No right-thinking person would believe that Sonny Trillanes and Ariel Querubin and their rouge posse would support a Malacañang ally.

Villaroyo? I don't think so...

If I were the Liberal Party (LP), I would stop bellyaching about the advertising expense of Sen. Manny Villar, the standard-bearer of the Nacionalista Party (NP) during the campaign period. After all, it is their party president, Sen. Mar Roxas, the running mate of Sen. Noynoy Aquino, who started it all.

At the start of the 2004 senatorial campaign, Mar was far off the Top 12. Sure, the oppositionists were sore at him them for dumping Erap in 2001 and he was not expected to get much of their votes.

However, he was a former trade secretary and he was running under the majority coalition led by President Gloria Arroyo, so his low rating initially was a big letdown. His solution to this problem? Advertising, lots of it! By saturating television and radio with his “Mr. Palengke” advertisements, he clawed his way up until he eventually became Number 1.

Mar’s ad spending was unprecedented in 2004. There were howls of protest that the way he was spending for the campaign, only the very rich could soon afford to run for a national office. A petition for his disqualification for overspending was filed before the Commission on Election. (The Fair Election Practices Act allows a national candidate to buy a maximum of 120 minutes for TV ads.) Mar, however, got off the hook. He contended, and the Comelec agreed, that the 120 minutes should be computed on a per-station basis.

The law did not mention “per station” in limiting the air time allowed but, thanks to Mar, it has been interpreted to mean just that—per station. This interpretation opened the floodgates for political advertising on TV and radio. Imagine the great reduction in election spending if each candidate could buy only a total of 120 minutes in all stations! But then, if these were followed, Mar would have been disqualified.

Again, if I were the Liberal Party, I would stop pointing an accusing finger at Manny Villar for starting his advertising even before the onset of the election campaign. The LP should not forget that Mar, fully supported by the moneyed Aranetas and Roxases, was waging an advertising campaign when he was still the presumptive presidential candidate of the party.

He was slugging it out with Manny Villar ad per ad, station per station.

How soon can the people forget the ads where Mar became no longer Mr. Palengke but Boy Padyak?

And the many ads he had on the Cheaper Medicine Law?

All of these came even before the election campaign because he was then acknowledged as the sure bet of the LP for president in 2010.

Mar’s ads, as well as the press releases that were really voluminous, tapered off after he gave way to Sen. Noynoy Aquino as LP presidential candidate. I am sure that had he remained the LP candidate for president, he would have given Manny Villar a run for his money in TV advertising. He would have needed TV ads because he was then rating low in pre-election surveys.

Now, this is not to denigrate Mar’s qualifications for public office. As I said before, and I will still say it now, he grew in stature before my very eyes—and before thousands of others, I am sure—in giving up the quest for the position that he had been craving for. I note that he is now doing much better as vice presidential candidate than as presidential aspirant.

This said, the LP should be forewarned against raising bogus election issues, like campaign spending, that could boomerang on it.

The Villar Campaign

This week is a most propitious one for Manny Villar. He was named the most trusted presidential candidate in the non-commissioned survey conducted by Pulse Asia and was endorsed by the Magdalo group headed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th.

He had a “big trust” rating of 70 percent while his main rival, Noynoy Aquino, had 64 percent. They were the only presidential candidate with majority trust ratings in the survey conducted from January 22 to 26. Compared to the Pulse Asia trust survey conducted last December, Villar’s rating went up by 1 percent, while that of Aquino went down by 8 percent.

Pulse Asia noted that the trust rating survey was conducted while the newspapers headlined the report of the Senate Committee of the Whole seeking the censure of Villar over the C-5 road extension project.

As regards Magdalo’s endorsement, this goes beyond numbers as the group has only 55,000 members—it cements Villar’s status as a genuine oppositionist and puts to rest claims by LP adherents that he is the President’s secret candidate. No right-thinking person would believe that Trillanes and his group would support a Malacañang ally. BY EFREN L. DANAO

“Bongbong conveniently ignored the fact that from the 1986 to 1987, the economy was starting to show signs of takeoff, experiencing genuine expansion from the years of painful contraction during his father’s last legs in office.
That momentum was only lost when so-called reformist soldiers staged a series of coup attempts against President Cory. Those same self-styled guardians of the people had done the dirty work of physically eliminating opposition to the dictatorship—that is, until they and their political patron lost out in the political infighting within the Marcos regime...

I had seriously considered adding Ferdinand Marcos Jr.—a.k.a. Bongbong—to my list of preferred senatorial candidates.

I have heard of what he has done as governor of Ilocos Norte and was particularly impressed with his Northwind project. I thought, here is a visionary—at least on the environmental front.

I also appreciated his and his sisters’ gracious gesture of visiting the wake for President Cory Aquino at the Manila Cathedral. I had hoped that he and other members of the Marcos family had finally gotten over their resentment for the inglorious fall of their tyrant-patriarch in 1986.

I was even willing to absolve them of liability for the ordeal that I and tens of thousands of other Filipinos underwent during the dark days of martial law. After all, why should the sins of parents be visited on their offspring?

Last Monday, however, it became clear that Bongbong continues to look back at the 14-year dictatorship of his father with the fondness of a principal beneficiary, if not an enthusiastic conspirator. Contrite, he wasn’t—and still isn’t.

While the rest of the country was commemorating the 24th anniversary of the EDSA uprising, Bongbong was shooting his mouth off, castigating the millions of Filipinos who made that relatively bloodless transition possible.

He also heaped scorn on the government that the people installed after sending the Marcoses and their closest cronies fleeing to the safety and comfort of Honolulu.

In published reports, Bongbong declared that “poverty worsened and the government was unable to clean up the bureaucracy” after EDSA 1.

He evidently forgot that it was precisely because the economy was on a tailspin after the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.—the political rival his father most dreaded—and the exposés on scandalously crooked deals—like the billion-dollar nuclear power plant in Morong, Bataan—that fueled unrest.

Bongbong conveniently ignored the fact that from the 1986 to 1987, the economy was starting to show signs of takeoff, experiencing genuine expansion from the years of painful contraction during his father’s last legs in office.

That momentum was only lost when so-called reformist soldiers staged a series of coup attempts against President Cory. Those same self-styled guardians of the people had done the dirty work of physically eliminating opposition to the dictatorship—that is, until they and their political patron lost out in the political infighting within the Marcos regime.

Nevertheless, the democratic institutions that the people—and not just Cory—erected in the aftermath of EDSA 1 proved resilient enough. Those institutions, although flawed, are precisely what allowed Bongbong and his ilk to begin their climb back to power.

And now, he has the nerve to dismiss the achievements of EDSA 1 as worthless, as meaningless? What gall.

Bongbong is a senatorial candidate under Manny Villar’s Nacionalista Party. Villar’s closest rival is Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd whose popularity—the NP standard bearer insists—flows entirely from the heroism of his parents.

This is probably why the NP is dead set on discrediting the apogee of Ninoy and Cory’s contributions to democracy, EDSA 1—and on attempting to reconfigure the disgraceful historical imprint of the dictator Marcos.

Villar has even gone on to say, “I don’t see a problem” with the long pending, but controversial, proposal to inter the dictator’s remains—currently refrigerated in a crypt in his hometown—in the hallowed ground of the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Villar, along with Bongbong, must have figured that the public indignation over the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship has died down finally.

After all, many of the Filipinos who participated in EDSA 1 as well as in much earlier movements that opposed one-man rule are either dead or too old to make a difference in the upcoming general elections.

The time is ripe to engage in historical revisionism, Villar, Bongbong and the rest of the NP slate—including a couple of leftist congressmen—must have reckoned.

To be honest, far too many Filipinos of my age have not done enough to remind the younger generations of what life was like under martial law. Many of us, too, harbor ambivalent feelings toward EDSA 1.

I, for one, did not have the privilege of taking part in the 1986 uprising, which at first I found silly. This, despite the fact that I had become involved in the First Quarter Storm of 1970 and the underground resistance that struggled, as best it could, against the Marcos juggernaut during martial law.

When Juan Ponce Enrile and his RAMboys staged their mutiny on February 22, 1986, my initial reaction was dismiss it as the climax of the long-simmering conflict among the Marcos camp followers.

When Butz Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin urged the people to rally around the mutinous troops later that evening, I thought them to be both naïve.

But when the people seized the chance to show their strength in numbers and began inundating the periphery of Camps Aguinaldo and Crame, I became convinced that something much bigger than all the actors on the ground was at work.

Fortunately for Bongbong and the rest of his family, it was not a revolutionary government of extremists that took power after the Marcoses were sent packing to Hawaii on February 25, 1986.

Had it turned out some other way, Bongbong, the other Marcoses and their associates might have suffered the fate of, say, Benito Mussolini and his mistress.

And yet here he is now, heaping scorn on the event that eventually allowed his family to recover a measure of the power, which they let slip their clutches 24 years ago.

Thank you, Bongbong, for revealing yourself this early to be an unrepentant enemy of democracy. You have just lost one vote—and, I suspect, many others.

What fools we must have been to think, even briefly, that a leopard could change its spots. BY DAN MARIANO