Category: 2013 elections

Made for TV campaign rallies

Ellen Leave a comment

Aquino campaigning in Mindoro 2010

Election campaign is non-stop, all-season in the Philippines. But officially, for the May election, it starts tomorrow, Feb. 12.

For the opening salvo, the administration’s Team PNoy will have its proclamation rally at the Plaza Miranda while the United Nationalist Alliance will have theirs in Cebu.

Although campaign rallies have lessened their importance as a vote- getting vehicle with the dominance of television and radio as sources of information on elections, barrio folks still look forward to them more as an entertainment show.

Campaign rallies usually feature entertainers. A rally of candidates for national positions (senators in this mid-term election) usually have movie and TV stars to attract a crowd. The masses enjoy free shows. It’s a balm to their weary body after a whole day of toil in the rice fields.

On the part of campaign organizers, campaign rallies are more of photo opportunities for them to show a big crowd on national TV hoping to create a bandwagon.

One good example of this were the out-of-town rallies of Manny Villar in the 2010 elections which were budgeted at P10 million per rally including the air fare, hotel accommodation of the performers and the productions staff, transport of equipment.

Headed by TV host Willie Revillame, a Villar political rally in 2010 was a concert. An excellently l-produced concert and usually held in open stadium attracting as many as 30,000 to 50,000 people who line up for the evening activity as early as lunchtime.

It’s dancing and singing from beginning to end by professional entertainers: Andrew E, Geneva Cruz, Ara Mina and others. The candidates and their usual vote-for-me spiels are only inserts, and are even regarded as distractions, in the concert.

In our after concert/rally interviews, the attendees expressed no commitment to vote for Villar. But they enjoyed the show.

That Villar lost big, despite those huge crowd, proved that the size of rally crowd does not necessary translate into votes.

Organizing political rallies costs a lot and requires a good organization. That’s why political parties these days hold big rallies as an opening salvo and at the close of the campaign period which would be on May 11. They may hold one or two big rallies in vote-rich provinces during the 90-day campaign period.

Estrada rally in Cavite 2010.

Aquino campaign strategists in 2010 wisely held several rallies in one night in a province holding them in town plazas, which were smaller and easier to fill up, but looked huge taken by a good cameraman and photographer.

From one town to another, people lined up to catch a glimpse of Aquino. Others looked for his sister, Kris.

Former President Estrada’s rallies in 2010 were much smaller compared to the extravaganzas that he had in 1998 with no less than Da King, Fernando Poe, Jr. (who had his turn of political rallies in 2004) and Nora Aunor joining him onstage.

Rally crowds give a good idea of how the campaign is faring. A well-organized rally speaks of a good organization and adequate logistics which could work for the candidates’ favor on election day. But a ‘hakot’ crown could also mean that they were a paid audience and open to the highest bidder. That means the candidates could not be sure of their votes on election day.

In this election campaign, I imagine that the senatorial candidates would be divided into teams for them to cover as many places as possible.

Although the battleground today for the peoples’ vote is television through those outrageously expensive ads, there’s nothing like a face-to-face encounter and the touch of the flesh to win Juan and Maria’s heart and mind.

Sloth, pride, and greed: Of FOI heroes and heels

mcmangahas Leave a comment

WHO OR WHAT killed the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill?

All voters would do well to know and remember as the May 2013 election campaign heats up, according to the latest pooled editorial of the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) that ran this week.

The PPI is the national organizations of over 120 newspapers and periodicals across the nation.

Yet, of course, deliberate delays, the chronic absenteeism of lawmakers, and the lack of firm support by President Aquino and his allies in the House of Representatives killed the bill in the 15th Congress

What follows is the full text of the last of four pooled editorials on the FOI bill that PPI members have published in the last four weeks:

Of FOI heroes and heels

A MACABRE murder it was. The victim, the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill, lay forlorn in the last nine session days of Congress in the last three weeks, until finally it died.

To stave off its death, the media and the citizens had cried for leadership and urgent rescue by President Aquino and his allies in the House of Representatives. He and they alone had both power and mandate to save it. But they turned a deaf ear to the citizens’ clamor. They defaulted on their duty to lead. By their inaction, they had willed to send the FOI bill to the legislative morgue.

On the tombstone for the FOI bill, the facts should be written in no uncertain terms: Killed by official sloth, pride, and greed. Killed by politicians who lie on their promises and shirk from their duty to the people.

On the same tombstone, too, it should be written: Championed to the last by the people of the Philippines.

Official sloth killed the FOI bill. It is evident in the deliberate delays, the President’s constantly changing big and small “concerns” about the bill, and the ineptitude and chronic lack of a quorum in the House, that have marked the steadily slow pace of legislative work on the bill.

Pride is evinced in their espousal of transparency according to their terms. Transparency, they say, has been served because they have dumped tons of unintelligible but static budget and public finance records online, even as they refuse to respond to public requests for more documents on the use of taxpayers’ money.

And greed, for power and privilege surely, is palpable in their scorn for the FOI bill as it could trigger the disclosure of the full facts of their wealth and how they fiddle with public funds to finance their pork and other perks. The FOI bill, some had admitted in candor, will only lend their political rivals information to censure and expose them.

The death of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress gives the lie to the claims of the Aquino administration that it is a government committed to trekking daang matuwid.

The FOI bill could have served as the bedrock and institutional framework of that straight, narrow path but its death leaves daang matuwid narrow, dark, and stuck in potholes. Without an FOI framework, daang matuwid remains for the most part a slogan in theory but not in practice, a PR line.

Just as important, the death of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress is a sad commentary on how much and how far the President and his House allies value their promises and their word. Or alternately, how they do not at all. As a candidate for President in May 2010, Aquino had sworn to accord the FOI bill top priority. Meanwhile in 2011, his House allies filed suit to impeach, convict, and oust a chief justice, for his failure to disclose the true and full details of his wealth.

With his less than tepid verbal endorsement for the FOI bill, the President seems to be telling the nation that words are to a politician cheap, and promises, mere sound bytes a candidate mouths to get elected.

As for his House allies, the death of the FOI bill is proof that transparency and accountability is a razor-sharp sword they wield but only against political foes, never against themselves. To this day, in fact, Aquino’s House allies have refused to allow the chamber’s secretary general to release to the media and the citizens copies of all the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth of all House members, as she is authorized in law to do, without need for approval of individual lawmakers.

Without an FOI framework, daang matuwid will constantly be hobbled by official sloth, pride, and greed. It is regretful that even now, as the election campaign heats up, the political opposition has mounted yet another PR spin they call daang maganda. But whether it is matuwid or maganda, a road not lit by the transparency and accountability that an FOI law assures in theory and practice, will simply remain a vicious, not virtuous, path at all.

The Constitution, from 26 years ago, has firmly guaranteed the citizens’ right to information on matters vested with public interest and involving use of public funds. The Constitution, from 26 years ago, has also enshrined transparency and accountability as state policies.

Under the same Constitution by which they took their oath of office and swore to serve, it is the solemn duty and obligation of the President and his House allies to pass the FOI bill into law. They have chosen instead to be painted as the heels in the murder of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress.

Yet still, under the same Constitution, the people of the Philippines continue to labor and campaign for the FOI bill. In their practice and advocacy, they are the true heroes of transparency, accountability, and good governance.

It is election campaign season. All voters would do well to remember who or what killed the FOI bill.

Pooled editorial tells pols, parties: Take a stand, don’t cop out on FOI

mcmangahas Leave a comment

ANOTHER POOLED EDITORIAL by the newspaper-members of the Philippine Press Institute has challenged all political parties and candidates in the May 2013 elections to take a firm stand on the immediate passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) in the 15th Congress.

The editorial ran on Monday in the print and online editions of Ang Pahayagang Malaya, BusinessWorld, The Journal, and Manila Standard-Today in Metro Manila, as well as in a number of regional and provincial newspapers.

The full text of the editorial follows:


Take a stand: Don’t cop out on FOI

IT IS the season of elections and all political parties and candidates are wont to spin a slew of promises yet again in their drive for votes.

But before they start courting voters yet again, the first order of business is this: Political parties and candidates must deliver on a promise they’ve made in elections past by taking and making known their party and personal stand on the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

Over the last 15 years, from the 11th to the 15th Congress, the FOI bill has been stuck in the legislative wringer for lack of clarity and coherence in how lawmakers and their political parties stand on the issue. Even as President Aquino himself as a candidate in May 2010 had promised to push the FOI into law, members of his ruling Liberal Party and its allies in the majority coalition of the Nacionalista Party, the Nationalist People’s Coalition, and the National Unity Party have separately come out as either the most ardent champions or the most strident critics of the FOI bill.

Between the pros and the cons in the FOI bill equation, that is where these political parties are: fence-sitting with neither leadership nor clarity of purpose with respect to the constitutionally guaranteed state policies of transparency and accountability that the FOI bill upholds.

Political will from all the political parties could yet assure the passage of the FOI bill in the remaining nine session days from January 21 to February 8, 2013, or before Congress adjourns for the elections. Calling for a conscience vote on the FOI bill is a clear cop-out by political parties and candidates now aspiring to be elected into office.

All voters must carefully scrutinize how these parties and their candidates for the 2013 elections will stand on FOI in their remaining nine session days. The countdown begins today. How they stand on the FOI bill, and if at all they will take a stand on this all-important reform measure, will give us an idea whether or not they deserve our vote in the coming May elections.

Pera, pulitika, at eleksyon: Comelec lays down rules

mcmangahas Leave a comment

By Malou Mangahas

THE ELECTION campaign period is on and in the nick of time, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has spelled out in no uncertain terms the rules of the game on election spending and donations for all candidates, political parties, service contractors, election personnel, and voters.

Campaign finance has always been a muddled issue in these parts, the laws observed largely in the breach. Except for a few thousand pesos of fines that had been imposed on a handful, not a single candidate, party leader or voter had been jailed for the most gross and the most willful violations.

On Jan. 16, 2013, the Comelec en banc issued Resolution No. 9616, or the General Instructions for the Implementation of Campaign Finance Laws, as well as the relevant provisions of the Omnibus Election Code and The Fair Elections Act.

Tuesday’s resolution supplements Comelec Resolution No. 9467 issued last year, which created the Comelec’s Ad Hoc Campaign Finance Unit (CFU) now under the diligent stewardship of Commissioner Christian Robert S. Lim.

A 25-page edict (including template filing forms), it is clear and exact about the roles, duties, accountabilities, procedures, and penalties for violations as well as acts of omission, and covers the various phases of the election period from monitoring and reporting of expenses to the audit of election spending reports, after the vote.

Because it is precise to the extent of defining which parties are liable for which violations, the resolution is at core fair warning to all election actors that violations may be committed only as pure acts of ignorance or defiance of the law, or even, as sheer failure of logic or character or intention on the part of violators.

Comelec personnel from headquarters (Campaign Finance Unit) to the field have been designated as implementing agents throughout the election period, and unto the audit of election spending reports.

It lists down as well the duties of all parties authorized to receive and spend donations, issue and secure contracts for advertising and other services from the candidates and parties, and proscribes what expenses are allowed and disallowed in law.

It stresses, too, the prohibitions against use of state resources, funds, and facilities for partisan campaigns, and against civil servants and uniformed personnel, entities with government contracts, foreigners, and all public agencies from donating or serving with the candidates and political parties. The resolution spells out 16 various “unlawful acts, omissions and activities related to campaign finance and The Fair Elections Act.”

Just as important, the resolution reminds voters and citizen groups that they may not sell their votes, nor solicit cash, favors or promise of favors from the partisans.

The new resolution finally settles the tricky math matter of how many minutes of TV airtime and radio airtime candidates are allowed to procure for political advertising. Incongruent Comelec issuances and laxed enforcement of the laws had left this issue muddled for so long.

For the May 2013 elections and onward, the Comelec has also ruled that a candidate is entitled to an aggregate total of 120 minutes of TV airtime, and 180 minutes of radio airtime — across all national, regional and local broadcast media entities, on both free or cable platforms. The wealthy and wizened candidates had in the past insisted on placing viral political ads on TV and radio stations across the nation, and counting these as separate 120-minute or 180-minute airtime caps per station.

Comelec’s Resolution No. 9467, which created the Campaign Finance Unit, had earlier clarified that election propaganda, for the May 2013 elections and in all subsequent elections, will now include “newspaper, radio, television and other advertisements for purposes of promoting the candidacy, including website or Internet ad placements.

The web, until now, has remained outside the ambit of campaign finance laws even as a growing number of candidates have invaded social media networks and websites as a playground for their propaganda since four elections ago.

Any citizen may file suit against any candidates or parties for any violations of campaign finance laws. Additionally, the resolution mandates Comelec personnel to act motu propio on apparent and clear violations that they have witnessed.

The Comelec has deputized the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Commission on Audit, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Anti-Money-Laundering Council, and law enforcement agencies, and opened a window for civil-society groups to be designated as partners and co-monitors, to track and run after violators.

Monitoring checklists and templates for reports have been annexed to the resolution to assist Comelec personnel in their “continuous monitoring” and enforcement of campaign finance rules.

So will all those concerned now play by the rules?

It’s a big maybe, and a truly most critical task that assigns the Comelec lead role, and all citizens common duty to help enforce. If we so abhor the pre-eminent influence of money in defining and deciding who wins or loses, no matter undeserving or crooked, in our elections, this is the time to help monitor, track, and report to the Comelec violations and violators.

The Comelec’s table of penalties for violations includes provisos that winning candidates who fail to file true, accurate, and complete election spending reports within deadlines, may not be allowed to take oath and serve in office. This, the Comelec said it will enforce, on strength of a memorandum of agreement that it signed with the Department of the Interior and Local Government under the late lamented Secretary Jesse Robredo.

The DILG supervises all local government units, and under its agreement with the Comelec, the poll body must first issue a certification of compliance with campaign finance laws, before a winning candidate can be allowed to take his/her oath of office.

Meanwhile, whether he/she wins or loses, a candidate who will not file reports for two consecutive elections he/she had participated in could face perpetual disbarment from running again for elective positions, the Comelec had ruled earlier.

Indeed, integrity and transparency in how they deal with, and how truthfully they will disclose, details of their campaign donations and expenses are perfect tests for all candidates and political parties. It’s also a preview of whether they will do well by taxpayers’ money, when or if they come to power after the balloting.

It is during elections, a veritable job-application process for those who aspire to lead the nation, when all citizens — their employers in truth — must rate most critically who will pass or fail campaign finance laws. This early thus, we’d all do well to keep our eyes fixed on the purses of these wannabe-leaders.

charft 3

Pass the FOI bill, PH media tells Congress

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

MEDIA AGENCIES across the Philippines are demanding that Congress take care of “unfinished business”  by passing the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill before going on extended break to prepare for the 2013 midterm elections.

In a pooled editorial published by various national, regional, and local media organizations beginning Monday (January 14), media organizations belonging to the Philippine Press Institute, the national association of newspapers, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), the national association of broadcasters in the country, called on congressmen to fulfill all the promises they made of transparency and accountability when they campaigned for office in the previous election.

ppi 2

The editorial noted that there will only be nine working days left for Congress when it resumes session on January 21, since it adjourns for an extended break on February 6. After February 6, many legislators are expected to start preparing for their reelection bid in the May 2013 midterm elections.

This allows for a very tight schedule if ever Congress does decide to calendar the FOI bill for floor debates. The measure was approved in the House committee level late last year, and there is no indication yet that the bill will be prioritized by the House leadership.

On the other hand, the Senate has already approved its version of the FOI on third and final reading.

“We, the newspapers, television networks, radio stations, online and independent media agencies, and citizen journalists of this nation state here and clearly now our expectations of the House of Representatives: Get back to work, assure a quorum, pass the FOI bill in your last nine session days,” the pooled editorial read. “You have all promised and sworn to serve by matuwid na daan, transparency, and accountability in government, and we expect nothing less than clear, concrete results on your promises.”

The pooled editorial emphasized that the passage of the FOI bill is “a constitutional obligation” that overrules other “private concerns” by legislators that the measure could be abused by media.

Several legislators have been trying to block passage of the FOI by insisting on a rider that provides for a right-of-reply (ROR), where officials are to be guaranteed free and equal print and airtime to give their side on an issue. The Philippine media has insisted that the ROR provision violates the freedom of the press, since it effectively legislates editorial content.

“Lawmakers that they are, they must be well aware of the Constitutional principle of “a public office is a public trust,” the very reason why the news media and all citizens must pry and probe, critique and censure, and report news good and bad about issues and events vested with public interest,” the editorial read.

The pooled editorial is just part of a series of actions programmed by media organizations all over the country to remind legislators of the importance of the FOI. Media groups are concerned that the non-passage of the FOI in the last nine session days would mean the bill would go back to square one with the incoming 16th Congress.

The pooled editorial published by members of the PPI and the KBP reads as follows:

Pass the FOI bill now

QUICK and correct action. This is the best and justly deserved path for the House of Representatives to take on the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

Slow and wrong. This is the worst and justly reasonable judgment that Filipino voters would have of the House members, most especially of those seeking reelection in May 2013, should the FOI fail to pass.

Time, the dribble drivel in the House, and an Executive seemingly less than lame in his support for the bill – the odds seem stacked against the passage of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress. This is even as the Senate had passed its version of the bill on third and final reading before Christmas last.

Only nine session days remain from Jan. 21, when lawmakers return to work after a month-long holiday break, to Feb. 6, 2013, after which lawmakers will have another extended break and plunge into election campaign mode. They will have just three more session days in June intended mainly for closing ceremonies, before adjourning sine die to give way to the incoming 16th Congress on June 30, 2013.

Failure by the incumbent House to pass the FOI up to third reading, so it could be submitted to bicameral action thereafter, in the coming nine session days is certain death for the bill in the 15th Congress. Legislative work on the bill will revert to step one yet again in the 16th.

This is why only quick, focused action to pass the FOI bill is the absolutely correct path for the 280-odd members of the House to take, in their last nine session days before the election campaign kicks off.

It avoids wasteful spending of scarce taxpayers’ money on legislative work that often start and end as mere verbal jousts among lawmakers.

It is, most assuredly, also the right thing for the House to do.

The FOI bill implements the state policy of transparency and accountability that the Constitution we Filipinos ratified in 1987 explicitly and fully guarantees.

Passing the FOI bill is thus a constitutional obligation that lawmakers have had to fulfill, to do right by all citizens, from 25 years ago.

Passing the FOI bill is a public good that trumps any and all supposed private concerns that a few lawmakers claim are the reasons why they do not favor FOI and insist on loading it up with right-of-reply (ROR) provision. They have had, they say, fallen victim to negative reporting by the news media.

Lawmakers that they are, they must be well aware of the Constitutional principle of “a public office is a public trust,” the very reason why the news media and all citizens must pry and probe, critique and censure, and report news good and bad about issues and events vested with public interest.

Libel laws, codes of ethics, and self-regulation mechanisms are fully observed in most news media agencies. There are no reasons that are writ in law for these few lawmakers opposed to the FOI to now dangle ROR as a precondition to their vote. In this instance, it is clear that to them, ROR is truly just a monkey wrench to kill the bill.

We, the newspapers, television networks, radio stations, online and independent media agencies, and citizen journalists of this nation state here and clearly now our expectations of the House of Representatives: Get back to work, assure a quorum, pass the FOI bill in your last nine session days.

You have all promised and sworn to serve by matuwid na daan, transparency, and accountability in government, and we expect nothing less than clear, concrete results on your promises.

It is election season once more and you are all likely to offer more promises to get elected. But before we vote, we ask you to finish your unfinished business. Start with one you swore to deliver two decades and a half ago: Pass the FOI bill now.

 

Here are screengrabs of some of the news organizations that published the pooled editorial:

Philippine Star

malaya 1

Sunstar Davao

Standard Today

For its part, the Manila Times ran its own editorial last January 11 stating that it has not yet given up on the FOI bill. The Times said the Aquino administration and Congress should “realize by this time” that the Philippine media was not giving up easily on the FOI. “We still want to see the act passed into law despite misinformed parties like House Minority Leader Danila Suarez promising to block the bill at all cost.

“We consider the right to access government records as important as any right guaranteed by our Constitution,” the Times editorial read. “Democracy without transparency in government and its institutions is no democracy at all.”

Manila Times