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LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 27 May 2007 Issue

The aftermath of the May 14, 2007 midterm election is not actually different from previous polls.
 
Name every provision in the country’s statute books on the conduct of a free, honest, and orderly election and chances are they were all violated. Unfortunately, this litany of poll irregularities is committed with impunity. 

The usual electoral scenario leaves an indelible question to poll observers whether there is still hope in Philippine democracy. Is there?

The interim results of the senatorial race shows that the voters are no longer excited about the celebrity status of the candidates. Tito Sotto, Richard Gomez and Victor Wood are losing miserably. The fact that Senator Ralph Recto is the husband of popular actress and now Batangas governor Vilma Santos did not seem to have much impact on his reelection bid.  Actress Sharon Cuneta on Senator Francis Pangilinan is an entirely different matter because people think that he stood for his principles when he ran independent.
 
The big publicity spenders in the senatorial race were also flatly rejected by the people while Oakwood mutineer Antonio Trillanes IV, who is languishing in jail and hardly had any media exposure, is still in contention. While there is no doubt that media can make or unmake a person’s good image, candidates should learn the lesson that there must be truth in advertising. And the Filipino people had just shown their capacity to discern the truth from falsehood or mere propaganda.

The so-called ‘command votes’ of incumbent political leaders, as well as the endorsements of religious groups who claim to have the strength of numbers by voting in block, also did not matter much in the outcome of the senatorial tally.  Somehow, this is indicative that given the opportunity the present generation of Filipinos tends to vote out of conscience, not out of sheer or blind obedience.

Apparently, candidates from the administration who are making it to the senatorial race are those who are known for their independence, like Senator Joker Arroyo, and performance, like Senator Edgardo Angara. Secretary Mike Defensor, a known loyalist of the president and who has been in the news all year round is in the losing circle.

It seems also that the people are starting to get tired of political dynasties. There is still a possibility that top-notch lawyer Aquilino Pimentel would not join his father and Representative Alan Peter Cayetano may not be with his sister in the Senate. If the people do not mind political dynasties they would have easily put both candidates in the sure winner lists.

On the party-list front, it is a source of wonder why the votes garnered by BANAT led by Raul Lambino, who led the so-called people’s initiative petition to amend the constitution last year, is nowhere the vicinity of the 6.3 million voters who he claimed signed the petition.  Even the BANTAY party-list of reitred General Jovito Palparan is still fighting for its life, maybe because of the alleged human rights violations associated with him while still in the military service.

On the local contests, it is true that there is no real big change in political leadership. This may be due to the failure of non-administration parties to put up candidates in many areas. Also, for the local constituency, it is always a case of who can best deliver the goods for them, a case of voting smart so to speak.

But given the option, like in the case of Pampanga, where Catholic priest Eddie Panlilio fought against the almost impenetrable political machinery incumbent Governor Mark Lapid and Board Member Lilia Pineda, the people would not hesitate to express their conscience on their votes.

Representative Darlene Antonino Custodio, who belongs to a political family in General Santos City, routed the most popular Filipino today, boxer Manny Pacquiao. And it was a choice between mere popularity without any real political agenda as against a political dynasty with a proven track record in public service.

All these point to the growing sensitivity of the Filipino people for political change.  Who knows, the world might be in for one big political surprise come 2010.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 28 January 2007 Issue

While the country gears up for the midterm national and local elections, the season for the race to the US presidency in 2008 also began.

The Democratic Party, perhaps one of the oldest political parties in the world whose origin can be traced back as early as 1792, is pitting two exciting figures in its election primary, senators Barack Hussein Obama Jr. of Illinois and Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton of New York.

Either of them winning the party nomination and eventually the US presidency would make a first in that country’s history. 

Obama may yet become the first black president of his country and now at the age of 45 could be the second youngest after assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Clinton, on the other hand, could be the first woman president of the US, the first former First Lady to become one, and the first woman to be nominated to the presidency by a major political party.

Obama was born in Hawaii. He is only the fifth African American senator in US history and the only one of such breed serving at the US Senate at present. His father, a Kenyan, died in a car accident when he was twenty-one years old. His mother Ann Dunham of Kansas, who divorced Obama Sr. when he was two years old, re-married an Indonesian and died of cancer in 1995 several months after he published his book, Dreams from My Father. He has written other books one of which is about his political convictions entitled: The Audacity of Hope that remained in New York Times list of best sellers since its publication in 2006.

Four years of Obama’s childhood were spent in Indonesia attending Catholic and Muslim schools. He graduated magna cum laude at the Harvard Law School and first gained national recognition when he was elected as the first African American president of Harvard Law Review, the oldest operating student-edited law review in America. After becoming a lawyer, he briefly became active in a voters’ registration drive, worked for a civil rights law firm, and taught constitutional law in Chicago until his election as senator in 2004.

They say that many Americans are drawn by Obama’s everyman image and broad appeal because in his own words “people project their hopes on him”.

Clinton, as everyone knows, is the wife of former US President Bill Clinton, who involved herself in policy making primarily on health care during her husband’s tenure, departing from the traditional role played by First Ladies. When she won a Senate seat in 2000, Clinton became the First Lady to seek public office and became the first woman senator of New York.

Clinton was born in Chicago. As a student, Clinton had already shown her academic brilliance, her mettle as a student leader, and her passion for political life and causes. Like her husband, she graduated from the Yale Law School where she served on the Board of Editors of Yale Review of Law and Social Action.

In 1996, Clinton authored a book entitled: It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us that became a best-seller. Her 2003 memoir Living History sold more than one million copies in the first month following publication. In the latter book, she explained that love is the reason why she chose to stay with Bill during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998.

Magazines Time and Forbes had placed Clinton as among the most powerful figure in today’s world.

Just like the drama of world tennis championship, Obama and Clinton unfortunately will not battle it out in the finals because they will have to knock each other out early on.

Wanted: Obamas and Clintons in Philippine politics.