First of all, I am not a blogger; I am a reader/commenter. In any case, I sure have no problem sharing my choice as a voter for 2010 this early: Manny Villar, for whom I do not have, in any way, professional/personal ties. Of course, if you believe that or not, is up to you. No pressure: I am not asking you to tell me yours.

I did not say that bloggers are obligated (that would be an extreme way of putting it) — rather I wrote that disclosing/disclosure IF IT IS APPLICABLE is an ethical thing to do.

This is to say that I think we need to identify which information needs to be public and which are in essence, private:

PUBLIC:
Journalists/bloggers who choose to identify themselves publicly need to declare IF they work for a candidate/political party as professionals or render their services (crucial or important); disclosure on personal ties: not so crucial/important, but greatly appreciated.

PRIVATE:
Bloggers/journalists are citizens too and hold the inalienable right not disclose whose name/s they would put eventually in the ballot box come election day.

Also, I am aware that having mentioned the above, I take there would still be gray areas between public and private. It’s up to the bloggers to delineate which is which.

I hope I make sense. And yes, you are right — of course, we can be still be fooled by those who choose apparently to disclose their political/professional/personal ties. But I would say, and I choose to believe that the public would catch up with this, if this would be the case, sooner or later.

Well, maybe some bloggers really don’t know who they are supporting, or even if they do, they really would rather not share such a private choice with anybody.

Bloggers are not obligated to satisfy your curiosity about their private preferences.

All you have really is CAVEAT EMPTOR because even those who disclose could easily be lying, present company possibly excluded on personal recognizance, of course.

If you can be fooled by a blogger through nondisclosure, you can also be fooled by a blogger through “disclosing”.

I, as a reader, for example, don’t want to read a blog post which could be, unknown to me, a PR/pseudo-PR, no matter how rendered, for certain candidates or political parties.

Of course, the key thing here is if the blogger would stand to gain in the future or is in fact, already gaining something, financially or otherwise for writing about a candidate or political party.

Kudos to Ding Gagelonia for his disclosure re: Mar Roxas connection.

Your …”it’s not the blogger or the writer, what he is or who he works for, what his political agenda or ideology, or the quid pro quo for his opinion. rather, it is the persuasiveness of his viewpoint, the wisdom of his insight, or the true value of his offering.

i don’t care if the opinion is from erap or cory, so long as it makes sense in my own estimation.”

Spot on.

But I also do not see any problem about disclosure. If there are any bloggers, or commenters, in this collective who may have political affiliations it will be their own credibility they’ll be putting on the line and in the end the blogging community will also decide what their own takes are.

When your slip shows then it does. :0