Automation has resulted in something virtually unheard of in Pinoy electoral politics in the past. The leading but losing national candidates have conceded  beginning with senatorial candidate Brig Gen. Danny Lim and the latest was presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro.  Since this is a first, some of these candidates need some pointers in looking like statesman  and gracious at the same time. Losing American presidential candidates are masters at this. A good example is John McCain. When I was in Australia, I recall losing PM Paul Keating conceding to Liberal Party leader John Howard. When Howard lost the election 12 years later, he conceded to Labor’s Kevin Rudd. The losing candidates were practiced in the concession speech. The speech has the usual formula  1) Concession, 2) Thanking supporters and die hards, 3) Congratulating and pledging support and cooperation for the winner. Since we are so unused to this, we have a number 4 which is largely unacceptable to Western electorates and this is 4) public griping or “sour grapes” (BTW my Brit friends say that the audible but lost out PM Gordon Brown has come close to this!)

But we can forgive our candidates. This is their first time. But there is one candidate that won’t concede is the subject of this blog post. It is no other than the Erap who as of this writing has 8.3 M votes compared to Noynoy’s 13.03 M!

I take this no concession stand as another showbiz stunt for the fans which should not really be taken that seriously. But before Noy fans exult, we have to  have a non passionate look at how the voting trends are going. The second Eraption is a sign that we now we have a very clear division between the classes and something that may be eeerily similar to the Red Shirt and Yellow Shirt division in Thailand. While in Thailand the Red Shirts are largely from the provinces and the Yellows are more urban, in the Philippines the Erap fans (Red-Orange?!?) are of the poorer classes (urban and rural) and the Yellows (mainly urban). It took several years before the Reds and Yellows in Thailand went into political “trench warfare”. But the Thai situation is rather different in  some respects to ours. Thaksin’s largesse have benefited the Red Shirts since they have Red tees and Red Crocs (I have seen this), but I doubt it if Erap’s largesse has given Orange Crocs to his fans.

This entrenching division in Pinoy society was exacerbated by no one else, but the Glory of the Second District of Pampanga, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The second Eraption is significant since it is incontrovertible proof that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s claim of  economic successes that has uplifted the poor is largely a farce.  The second Eraption is in the process of sinking the SS Mar Roxas, which is the Surprise of this Election. While my relatives who voted and are wags would attribute this the “Korina factor”, I doubt it. Roxas despite spending time in the palengke with a padyak-padyak, never successfully shed off the elitist aura off him. This is the surprise since the Holy Trinity of survey firms never predicted this!

The loss of Villar is another unintended casualty. While Villar may have indeed risen from lower middle class to what he is now, the Pinoy electorate (elite and the poorer classes) are not yet comfortable with the idea of someone making good through hard work and investment savvy. The electorate is more comfy with a rich bloke identifying with the poor (whether this is real or just plain gimmickry). And this is not true for Erap alone but for Noynoy as well.

The second Eraption is also evidence of the irrelevancy of the Left and it’s ideology It’s candidates Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza are like twins at 24-25 places in the senatorial tally. The other moderate Lefty Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel is 13th place. But Baraquel was repackaged more as a centrist than leftist.

The silver lining in our more divided society is that Mr Benigno Simeon Aquino III will be accepted by all as the legitimately elected President of the Philippines. This is something that eluded Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ever since becoming the Malacanang tenant.  Mr Aquino will be unlike Thai PM Abhisit and even his mother Cory (who came into power through military coups although in the case of Mrs Aquino, it was failed one rescued by more than a million people).

Mr Aquino has to immediately deal with the problem of our deepening and entrenching class divisions which have been described by both Time and Newsweek as a problem of “having a growing underclass with an increasingly insensitive elite” This is something that his sainted mother failed to address and thus resulted in the corruption he wants to get rid of so we can take that straight way.

Now how will he deal with Erap pardoned with all rights reinstated and Gloria in Congress? How will he immediately implement the needed reforms or else we end up with another dose of Yellow tinged betrayal? We have to remind Noynoy that the straight way may be paved with good intentions but right into hell!

We are in the clutches of a sweltering summer helped along by the El Nino phenomenon but Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may have  just opened the faucet, the corruption faucet that is.

Thanks to the incompetence-induced Mindanao power crisis, Mrs. Arroyo (whose Lakas-Kampi-CMD combine reputedly controls at least 80 percent of all local government units) issued this message as the weekened began:

The LGUs (local government units) can use five percent of their budget for calamity where they choose to spend it because they have local autonomy.

The one that’s not allowed during the [Comelec] ban is awarding contracts,

The gensets will be the private sector…. In my instructions, aside from the private sector importing gensets, they’re going to rent; they’re going to lease.

Claro que si?

Armed with this presidential wink, it’s now open season for such calamity fund to be siphoned off by ‘creative’ and unscrupulous Arroyo party mates to ease their personal campaign-related ‘financial calamities’.

Her hot-head and imperious Energy Secretary, Angelo Reyes, has said that the calamity funds totaling some P 5.5 billion will be used to procure generators.

Malacanang insists the suspicions are misplaced because the Commission on Audit will guard against the diversion and misuse of the calamity funds.

But there’s a fine print to that: COA is no longer allowed to undertake pre-audits!!!

Oh the needed emergency gensets will be bought alright.

But with the legally-mandated public bidding procedures suspended because of the calamity, the acquisition prices can be generously padded with the SOPs (under the table commission)having the suppliers and their political cohorts laughing all the way to the bank!!!

NOTE:

The authoritative publication MindaNews chronicled how energy authorities had long foreseen the power crisis but ignored it:

http://www.mindanews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7727

Manny Villar, utang na loob, lubayan mo ako.

As I watched men in orange caps accost UP students, I wondered how much he’s been spending to win his prize. All this election spending is not a bit like our consumer-led economic growth, all hot air with no ultimate substance. Posters and flyers are printed, ads are produced and aired, thousands are hired to serve the Villar election machine. Tremendous economic energy expended…for nothing. But no, the presidency is well worth Villar’s investment. If GMA is any indication, the chief executive’s SAL has a tendency to skyrocket upon assuming office. The presidency has proven lucrative. What businessman can resist?

But does Villar stand for anything? Speak for anything? Is he, like Noynoy’s platform, driven by ideology at least? Look at the assembly of those in his roster – elements from the left, the right, current admin bureaucrats, the son of Marcos. One big happy family. Given the cast of the Manny Villar spectacle, what sorts of roles should we expect them to play? Are those who have chosen to throw their lot with Manny erring on the side of pragmatism? Principles be damned, we have to win the elections? For now Manny has acquiesced to being their sacred cash cow. But afterwards?

Villar has two messages for two different sections of the electorate. For the poor he says he is one of them. By sheer identification, he exhorts the poor to vote for him. What he will do for them to alleviate poverty is never explicitly discussed. For the non-poor he speaks of an ‘entrepreneurial revolution.’ Each time I hear him speak in forums and TV guestings, I hear nothing but platitudes a twelve-year old could deliver better. This doesn’t mean Villar isn’t smart. You need some sort of smarts to amass that fortune.

But is Manny a man who looks out for the public good? Does he even care to think about policy issues? Or does he simply want to purchase the presidency as he would any land acquisition? By the looks of it, he is pulling out all stops, using all sorts of media platform to deliver messages. We are drowning in you Manny V. You may yet pummel the electorate into submission.

An important aspect of crime investigation is modus operandi. It’s evident that Villar’s MO in several housing projects is to acquire and develop raw lands where DPWH plans a road project or can be realigned to traverse. He’s used his positions as House Speaker, then Senate President to use his pork barrel funds or make budget insertions to hasten road construction, inflate the property’s collateral value and borrow housing development funds from government lending institutions.

Up to now Villar maintains he’s from a poor Tondo family. Using as baseline his 1992 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth when first elected to Congress his said net worth even under the most favorable conditions is beyond the realm of statistical probability.

That’s why overseas Filipinos through emails to me suspect Villar’s candidacy is to make the presidency a “safe harbor” to escape prosecution. To this end he’d buy the office with his ill-gotten wealth.  Consider that Villar’s campaign spending is as though money’s getting out of fashion like the wartime notes issued by the Japanese during WW II.

Although Pamusa isn’t allowed to get involved in partisan politics, we can investigate Villar’s wrongdoings in furtherance of our anticorruption efforts. We will run an information campaign in March through April up to election to ask the following questions, to wit:

Villar claims to have come from a poor family, how’s he able to amass billions of pesos of personal net worth?

What’s Villar defense to former Senate President Franklin Drilon’s charge that Villar’s company, Crown Communities Iloilo, bought 12.7 hectares in Jibao-an, Pavia, Iloilo from farmer CARP beneficiaries and converted this first-class irrigated rice land into a residential enclave, Savannah Subdivision?

Under the law it’s illegal to convert first-class irrigated agricultural land into a subdivision exactly what Villar did in developing the Savannah Subdivision. Hence, Drilon’s charged Villar of the crime based on tax declarations and other documents obtained from the Iloilo provincial government.

How come Villar only obtained the Department of Agrarian Reform’s approval to convert the agriculture land into a residential area in 2007 seven years after construction of the subdivision started in 2000? Hence, multiple counts of criminal acts were committed for five years before the conversion was approved. DAR should’ve filed court action against Villar and other officers of the company owning Savannah Subdivision unless, of course, he had fixed it.

Drilon added that Villar used P4 million of his pork barrel funds to build a 585-meter national road that led right into the entrance of Savannah. “This is the only public works project of Villar in the province,” said Drilon at the Iloilo press conference.

Drilon said that Villar, not content with the 12-hectare Savannah property, bought the adjoining rice lands almost surely covered by CARP and expanded the residential community to a total of 250 hectares. The farmers had no choice but to sell their property, said Drilon, because their irrigation supply had been cut off with Villar’s conversion of the Savannah property which was the primary source of water in the area.

Villar’s workers back-filled the canals to classify them as non-serviceable, another crime, with the value of Villar’s Pavia property in Iloilo shooting up to P3,500.00 per square meter from less than P150.00 per square meter.

The destruction of Iloilo irrigation canals whose costs should be charged to Villar the same way the Senate is asking him to reimburse the government of close to P7 billion for the feasibility studies, engineering design and plans, and other preparatory work wasted when Villar’s pressured DPWH officials to change the C-5 road extension alignment to “snake” through and provide ingress and egress for 23 Villar-owned or controlled housing subdivisions.

Drilon said that the access road to Iloilo’s Savannah Subdivision was paid with Villar’s pork barrel and is jokingly called C-5 and a half. Regardless if it’s only half a kilometer, it shows the lack of decency on Villar’s part to set aside the interest of CARP beneficiaries to be able to pursue his profit motives.

This is a sample of Villar’s social conscience he’d bring to the presidency, which all decent Filipinos should stop by all means.

The C-5 controversy is a tip of the iceberg. As objective people dig deeper they’ll see Villar’s MO similar to Mafia’s criminal enterprise has also been perpetrated in other subdivisions owned or controlled by Villar’s group of companies.

Another example of Villar’s criminal MO involved a property bought by Northwinds Prime Properties Inc. (a Villar company) for over P120 million from Sta. Lucia Realty and Development Corp. then mortgaged to Capitol Development Bank (a Villar-owned thrift bank) under the name of ADR Farms in the amount of P150 million (Northwinds making P30M profit) on July 4, 1996. The property was used as collateral for a P1.5 billion emergency loan from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and eventually sold to RCBC Savings Bank by Capitol Bank and finally bought back by Palmera Homes Inc. (another Villar company) for development.

This is clearly a criminal act of Capitol’s officers led by Mrs. Villar that involved the BSP accepting an over-valued collateral more than ten times its acquisition price in a highly questionable private business transaction whose benefits solely accrued to Villar’s owned Capitol Bank, Palmera Homes Inc. and, of course, himself.

As usual, Villar dismissed the charges the same way he did the Senate Committee Report No. 780 on the C-5 road extension scandal which, according to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, a Harvard-trained lawyer, presents a strong case against Villar and if the issue was brought to court and handled by a good prosecutor, the presidential aspirant “will end up in jail.”

Filipinos supporting Villar should ask themselves if he won’t be worse than Marcos or GMA if, God forbid, he’s elected President of the Philippines.

For comments fcwenceslao1034@gmail.com.

*Frank Wenceslao is president of LA-based Philippine Anticorruption Movement USA, Inc. (Pamusa) authorized by the U.S. Department of Justice to work with and submit evidence of corruption against current and former Philippine public officials and people that have colluded with them in conjunction with the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

Not to worry.

That’s what  COMELEC Chairman Jose Melo is telling us yet again.

This is in the wake of the twin decisions of PLDT /Smart Telecoms and Globe Telecoms to back off from their earlier readiness to make their mission critical data processing centers in Makati as the mainframe vote data collection and processing hubs for the May 10.

The telcos are saying they’re worried about the data centers’ security.

The COMELEC’s kneejerk reaction?

Don’t worry we’ll just post phalanxes of policemen and soldiers to stand guard.

Out of respect, no guffaws were heard t the Senate hearing.

But the ‘honorable’ Mr. Melo’s cluelessness was abysmal!

The reference to the centers being secure was not only the physical aspect.

They need to be secure from cyber terrorist attacks, attacks that can compromise the integrity of the servers, and the data they hold!!

One need only recall the recent hacking of 5 government sites with the cybe criminals warning that they may target the servers of the COMELEC.

http://atmidfield.com/2010/01/11/the-2010-elections-under-threat-from-cyber-terrorists-and-vulnerable-voting-machines/

These dangers cannot be glossed over any longer.

Even the ‘presidentiables’ are waking up to the clear and present danger that civil society members have been warning about for months: that the elections can be vunverable to automated cheating or digital dagdag bawas.

Questions are also emerging about just how stable the Luzon power grid will be come election day.

Energy officials are giving the tongue-in-cheek assurance that Luzon has 1,000 megawatts of excess generating capacity.

Don’t be fooled.

Energy sector experts know only too well that 1,000 megawatts in reserve power IS THIN, given the configuration of the grid where the tripping on one plant normally triggers a chain reaction of other plant, and the grid itself tripping off to prevent serious system-wide damage.

Taking the threats to the vote data processing servers and the power grid together spells failure of election.

The poll body now says the alternative data centers offered by the two telcos are ok for use and so there’s really no worry about the hubs beinf physically attacked.

The sites’ location, says COMELEC will not be made public and known only to partners like the Parish Pastoral Council for responsible voting.

No word about whether the political parties ill be told where the vote result tallies will be ‘processed’.

Given ‘immense public trust’ for the COMELEC and how it has practically outsourced its constitutional mandate of managing the election this secrecy stunt raises new doubys about the lack of transparency in this sovereign exercise!

The COMELEC’s nonchalant  ‘what me worry stance’ is unacceptable.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Women wailing,
Children moaning,
The noise! the noise!

Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!

Can you not survey the field of battle?
There! Dancing in the field, Opportunities Hidden in the Numbers!
Can you not see the the starving and the dying?
the poaching and pillaging pensions?
Can you not feel their anguish?

We’re here! We’re here!

The bell it tolls and you stand there,
in your neutrality lamenting great expectations lost,
in your ivory towers wailing Political Cowardice!

Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!

We’re here! We’re here!
Ride Uruguayan thoroughbred! Ride racehorse!
Carry our Yellow rag!

Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!

NO!
The Yellow Rag waivers,
The Yellow Rag falls,
Raise it! Raise it!!!

Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Orange Darkness rolls,
Great mother of storm!
It comes! it comes!

Will the storm swallow our tomorrows whole?
The Yellow Rag bloodied, dirtied tattered!
Raise it! Raise it! Fly it!

Stand loose, we stand lost,
Stand together, we stand free!

For whom does the bell toll?
It tolls for our raison d’être,

For whom does the bell toll?
It tolls for thee, can you not see?

For whom does the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It tolls to start Requiem,
We come to bury our tattered Tomorrows.

Dear Mr. Senator Noynoy,

Allow me the liberty of calling you by your nickname.

As you turn into ‘gold’  on your 50th summer  Filipinos are betting on you becoming this land’s 15th Prezident -  aA Presudent with a fresh, unquestioned electoral mandate, a mandate quite unlike the woman you are succeeding.

I realize you feel burderned.

Not only are you embarking on a task that your recently deceased mother took on in the aftermath of the Philippines world-inspiring people power revolt.

Your father’s martyrdom enabled Filipino to rediscover their commitment to democratic institution that the dictatorship left in tatters.

Your mandate, should you obtain it in our first ever computer-saided voting system, will allow the Philippines to vanquish the demon of Dagdag Bawas.

Yours will be a mandate  clothed with the political capital that you can expend to fight corruption, a mandate that can open the path to  effective and responsible governance, a mandate that can bring progress that trickles do to our poor toiling masses.

The news reports this weekened quote you as saying:

I really cannot focus on myself now and only The One who knows all things can say what will happen to me, and that includes getting married.

So how can one be selfish and think only about himself? I was talking to one of my friends and we said sometimes it could really be tiring. You want to just smash your head into the wall.

But you cannot turn your back on what you had seen all throughout your life.

So when (people) come knocking and say you still have to do something, there is no way you can say no.

You ask me about personal matters growing up. What I experienced was how it was being pressured (by the government) because my father was in the opposition.

Even their gardener, my nanny, and my father’s bodyguard were detained and tortured because of their connection to the Aquinos.

I will continue my advocacy for a corruption-free government.

Recovering the P280 billion lost in corruption every year would make a big difference in the lives of Filipinos.

I was in North Cotabato and saw the airport there still unfinished. It will only cost P100 million, such a small amount compared to what we lose to corruption.

Thank you for making these ‘sacrifices’, Sen. Noy.

But talk is cheap.

I will paiently wait for those words to turn into action.

A final note – weeks ago you promised to tell  Filipinos you would decide on how to resolve the Gacienda Luisita Grarian reform promblem in a just and fair manner.

Have you forgotten yours?

Is this the same fate that awaits your other campaign promises?

If this is so, it may be best that you don’t make Ms. Shalani Soledad wait too long.

Happy birthday po.

It is widely held belief that Senator Manny Villar’s heavy spending in political advertisements was the chief factor that helped him narrow the gap between himself and presidential race frontrunner Senator Benigno Aquino III in the latest SWS and Pulse Asia opinion poll surveys.

The common belief goes that you need money to buy ads. The more ads you place, the more chances of getting your message across to voters. Therefore conventional wisdom goes that, in an election, the one who has the largest war chest wins. Even Noynoy bought it.

Certainly, money is a factor in an election. But does money, as the conventional wisdom dictates, necessarily translate into votes on polling day?

I used to believe the conventional wisdom until I got hold a few years ago of the 2005 New York Times bestseller Freakonomics, authored by economist Steven Levitt with Stephen Bubner. “Indeed, election data show it is true that the candidate who spends more money in a campaign usually wins,” writes Levitt. “But is money the cause of the victory?”

To figure out the relationship between money and elections, Levitt suggests considering the dynamics involved in campaign finance. “Let’s say you are the kind of person who might contribute $1,000 to a candidate. Chances are you’ll give the money in two situations: a close race, in which you think the money will influence the outcome; or a campaign in which one candidate is a sure winner and you would like to bask in reflected glory or receive some future in-kind consideration. The one candidate you won’t contribute to is a sure loser,” Levitt muses.

“Now picture two candidates, one intrinsically appealing and the other not so. The appealing candidate raises much more money and wins easily. But was it the money that won him the votes, or was it his appeal that won the votes and the money?”

Levitt says the answer to that question is very difficult to answer because voter appeal can’t be measured in numbers just like economic data. “It can’t, really – except in one special case. The key is to measure a candidate against … himself.”

You can gauge the money’s impact if you have two candidates running against each other in two consecutive elections, Levitt explains, and compare their spending and the election results. So Levitt pored over decades of U.S. election data.

“As it turns out, the same two candidates run against each other in consecutive elections all the time – indeed, in nearly a thousand U.S. congressional races since 1972,” Levitt finds.

“What do the numbers have to say about such cases? Here’s the surprise: the amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by that same 1 percent. What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are.”

So, the key to victory is to tell voters who you are, make sure that what you say matters to voters, and get your message across clearly. If people buy what you’re saying, you win – whether or not you’re selling truth or lies.

1. I am not surprised with this turn of events. First, our opponents have had a long head start in this campaign. And while I diligently perform my functions as a legislator, the others are practically campaigning fulltime, neglecting their mandate with those who entrusted them with their votes. Second, for all the unprecedented and sustained ads spending in all forms of media of the other camp and the unrelenting and increasingly below-the-belt and baseless black propaganda against me by my opponents, not to mention the harassment we have been continuously getting from this administration–the arbitrary transfers and replacement of police directors, the inexplicably adverse rulings we have been getting from Comelec for our local executives, the abrupt cessation of government projects in provinces friendly to us and lately even the denial of venues for our rally sites– I am surprised that I am still on top of the surveys.

2. By the day, it is becoming clear that an unholy alliance is developing between this administration and my opponent. No wonder the Palace spokesman couldn’t restrain himself in expressing his gratitude to one of my opponents for keeping quiet on the many issues confronting this administration.

3. Of course, that is not to say that we do not face challenges in the campaign. Quite a lot, I must say, foremost of which is the ability to bring our message–a clean, decent, transparent and accountable government will put an end to massive corruption, dedicate precious public resources to basic services for the poor and alleviate our people’s hopelessness and poverty–across to as many of our people as possible. It is a strong and relevant message that we are certain has had and will continue to have traction among more and more of our voters. We have been able to address this. In the coming days, we will be able to do this with greater frequency and in a sustained manner through ads.

4. On top of this, I believe that our comparative advantage–the organizational strength coming from our ability to mobilize volunteers all over the country–still has to make itself felt in the campaign. We expect that to happen as we formally start the campaign this February, the historic People Power month.

5. I have been through this before. When I first ran for office as a Congressman in 1998, I faced eight opponents and initially attracted about two-thirds of the votes. After the eight ganged up on me, throwing everything they could at me, my numbers fell to half of what I started with. But since the issues they threw at me did not stick and since I brought a message of change and hope, in the end, I prevailed with plenty to spare.

6. What should not escape all of us is that I still lead the surveys–from the time I declared my candidacy to this day. I would like to assure everyone, especially our supporters, that as the formal campaign period starts, we will work harder to make sure that we remain on top of the fight and the hope of our people for a clean, competent and compassionate government through my tandem with Senator Mar Roxas will be fulfilled.

The SWS says these are the twelve leading senatorial aspirants. Who among them will go one to take office after May 10?