Update (3:18 p.m.): Preemptive, Calibrated Response declared unconstitutional.
Yesterday, the President apparently held a command conference of sorts to look into the progress of the Charter change campaign. Apparently, according to scuttlebutt, she gave everyone a tongue-lashing, frustrated by what she is said to have described as the lack of progress of the people’s initiative, which isn’t gathering enough momentum. She was said to have been quite irked by the manner in which opposition to the initiative has been reported and more importantly, manifested.
No coincidence that yesterday, too, began a tremendous (and quite obviously, hugely expensive) “information” campaign on all media: television, radio, the broadsheets and in the tabloids, to push forward the administration arguments. The President is said to be quite adamant that the Senate be painted as the enemy. And destroyed. Billy Esposo explains why the Philippine Information Agency seems the wrong agency to mount such a drive.
The timeline seems endangered: Palace functionaries are said to be nervous because the maximum deadline for achieving Charter change is September (see how much time’s been wasted in this timeline). By October-November, all the political parties, including the administration coalition, will have to form and begin campaigning for their senatorial and congressional candidates, with elections scheduled in May of next year. Privately-commissioned surveys, on which the political strategists of all sides are heavily dependent, indicate that the administration won’t be able to elect any senators, and congressmen throughout the country, starting with the Speaker, are anxious over challenges being mounted even in previously “safe” districts.
The Speaker himself has tried to revive the Constituent Assembly solution, and party operatives are abuzz over what has become a three-track strategy:
1. People’s initiative calling for a shift to unicameralism, resulting in a referendum
2. People’s initiative calling for Congress to convene as a Constituent Assembly, propose amendments, and then call for a referendum
3. The House and the Senate to pass a “bullet amendment” calling for the immediate shift to a unicameral parliament, resulting in a referendum (the “bullet amendment” idea was borrowed from certain opposition quarters that wanted to propose cutting short the terms of the president and vice-president, thus paving the way for presidential elections in 2007).
The Speaker, formerly marginalized by the people’s initiative steamroller, can now say, seeing it’s getting bogged down, that signatures already gathered can be recycled with a new objective: to force the Senate’s hand, instead of bypassing Congress altogether. A Constituent Assembly is ultimately more manageable, politically, rather than putting out fires throughout the length and breadth of the country.
With these marching orders from the President, no wonder that the Manila Standard-Today goes great guns for unicameralism: Unicameral shift to save P250b annually is an example.
Would unicameralism save us money? One one point, as this article says, definitely: no more rentals for a Senate that should have moved its premises to Quezon City a long time ago. But otherwise?
If we take the computation of the probable seats in a unicameral parliament made by Winnie Monsod, that’s 400+ seats with pork barrel for each; there are allowances; would MP’s holding cabinet portfolios give up double salaries? I doubt it. if we add the current pork barrel of the President (which she would retain, and after her, devolve to the Prime Minister, or be split between them), including the following: the Intelligence Fund, the Social Fund, and unfettered access to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes and the PAGCOR: I don’t see where savings would come from. What’s more probable is that if the Senate spends 250 billion annually, that amount will be carved up by the members of parliament. Anyway, this is one question that deserves some serious number-crunching.
In other news…
The Inquirer says Lifting of VAT on oil mulled: Plan draws bipartisan support in House but the Manila Times says Ermita, Finance trash Defensor’s RVAT idea. The Inquirer editorial supports lowering VAT on gas and says alternative energy sources besides ethanol need to be explored, too -and goads the Senate committee on energy to speed up deliberations on the ethanol bill sent by the House to the Senate last November.
Funny, ha-ha: Impersonator sends cops scurrying after “Gringo”
Not funny: Armed Forces braces for another overthrow attempt set May 1
In the punditocracy, Bel Cunanan quotes the Sigaw ng Bayan people as claiming their website has received nine million hits since it was launched three weeks ago. Truly, as both Sigaw and Cunanan say, a phenomenal number, amounting to “almost 20 percent of the total number of registered voters.”
So for the more technologically-savvy out there, how can the media and the public verify such claims? Is there an objective way of doing so? Because I’m curious:
1. Are there 20 million Filipinos online as Cunanan suggests? Or is the figure misleading?
2. Can the claim of 9 million hits (unique?) within three weeks be verified? If so, how? If not, why not?
3. Does their error message -“Due to the huge volume of visitors, this site has exceeded its bandwidth limit and is temporarily shut down. To the Administrator, please contact service provider. Thank you.”- look and read like a genuine bandwidth exceeded message? Or could it be a propaganda trick? Here’s a screenshot:
Two op-ed pieces focus on development outside Metro Manila. Juan Mercado spotlights the water problems of Cebu City exacerbated by difficulties faced by potential investors in water projects; John Mangun looks at the disparity in the prices of basic commodities in and outside Metro Manila, which he says is due to a dependence on importation (which requires fuel for transportation and storage) to the metropolis:
In fact, the Philippines has two economies: that of the National Capital Region and everywhere else.
The NCR is oil dependant for transportation to get around the NCR and to bring goods to us in the Greater Metro Manila region.
Outside of this area, the fuel component of prices is much less for the goods that people need. We in the NCR pay a much higher price for vegetable and fruits than elsewhere. In fact, we pay double the price for tomatoes in Manila than in Dipolog. Outside of the NCR, fish is one-third to one-quarter of our palengke price. Premium rice is as much as 20 percent cheaper.
The 75 percent of the Filipinos who live outside NCR have not been affected as much by the effect of higher crude oil.
We, who inhabit the area, may be feeling the pinch of higher oil prices. However, the overall effect is reduced by the massive influx of new earnings primarily due to the 100,000 or so employees in the growing BPO business. The multiplier effect of all those call-center and transcription jobs is immense and notable.
Makati and Eastwood are now 24/7 areas with a tremendous amount of money flowing where it never existed before. High oil prices? It is not even part of the economic equation when you consider all the new jobs created in the last couple of years. If there are 50,000 new BPO employees in Makati since 2002, there are probably another 25,000 new jobs just to support those employees with food, transportation and other services.
The greater potential of negative impact as oil pushes higher is with the government’s budget deficit and debt serving programs. As oil goes higher, the risk of a depreciating peso increases as dollars are needed to buy oil. The Philippines will manage with $75 oil; the government may not.
Lito Gagni presents a rather frightening catalog of the defects of the NAIA Terminal 3:
The expert, Richard Francis Klenk, an American engineer who is an independent consultant in the areas of aviation, highways and marine, raised several safety issues and cited, in particular, “serious issues with respect to the structural integrity of the terminal structures.”
There were five areas that were found grossly defective: cracks in the concrete slabs, deflections in the beams, questionable pile installation, car-park structural problems and structural integrity problems of the roadways. It is no wonder then that the Naia 3 ceiling crashed down just because of the vibration from the switching on of the air-con unit.
Tony Abaya bats for the national ID card (I’m for it, too -preventing its abuse will just require vigilance). And an eloquent letter to the editor: Dissent has value. Also, Connie Veneracion takes up the cudgels for mall visitors.
Technorati Tags: constitution, people’s initiative, Philippines, politics
“Can the claim of 9 million hits (unique?) within three weeks be verified? If so, how? If not, why not?”
it can be verified, provided that the website uses some sort of web analytics/statistics software or services (which will record the IP addresses of each visitor), and that Sigaw ng Bayan makes these statistics public so that we can see if:
1) the IP addresses have a certain degree of uniqueness (there could be duplicates, but not too much!)
2) the IP addresses are valid, which means randomly selecting IP addresses and testing them to see if they’re working, and if they are from reasonable locations (Philippines, or US and other places where there might be Filipinos, but the majority of them SHOULD be from the Philippines. if the IP addresses produce locations such as Uganda or Sweden or Slovenia, they are bogus)
In the first place, what’s the Sigaw ng Bayan bandwidth? Baka naman minimum.
“3. Does their error message -â€ÂDue to the huge volume of visitors, this site has exceeded its bandwidth limit and is temporarily shut down. To the Administrator, please contact service provider. Thank you.â€Â- look and read like a genuine bandwidth exceeded message? Or could it be a propaganda trick?”
could be propaganda. i decided to google the error message and see if i get a match. usually, there will be forums or websites talking about the meaning and/or causes of these kinds of error messages, and these websites should appear in the results when you google the error message. in the case of sigawngbayan’s error message, i got ZERO matches, which means:
1) the error message is rarely encountered, therefore nobody asks about it and it is not discussed in forums and/or websites
2) it’s a pretty new error message, so the web hasn’t picked it up yet
3) it’s fake
CPR not constitutional. I may be wrong but the biggest one will be declared legal. Looks like a balancing act.
# 3 very smart.
CPR is unconstitutional.
But the Cha-cha is the central agenda.
Is the SC conspiring with the lady with the mole or faithful to the blindfolded lady with the weighing scale?
That is the Question for 85M Filipinos.
#3 check it up its already up maybe you got the wrong address.
however the number if you check the visit is bloated maybe they add the numbers they got manually and include in their web entries if so the sum is logical.
yup, the sigawngbayan website is up again.
there’s something there that made me curious:
“249,722 total site visits since April 8, 2006”
249,722 or 9 million?
maybe the 249,722 is outdated (and there’s a scrolling sign on the site that says it updates every 12 hours).
or maybe the 9 million is postdated (it’ll reach that number in 3 years, not 3 weeks)! hehehe!
Or perhaps, Lulli Macapagal’s internet brigades are working full time, round the clock, to make the hits… if Gloria could produce a 1,000,000 million vote edge by instructing 1 official to do so on the phone, wouldn’t it be easier to produce 8,000,0000 internet hits by hundreds of clicking fingers paid to do that?
Just don’t anything Gloria does – absolutely not particularly when it comes to producing numbers!
MLQ3,
I’ve just read that DoJ chief wants student heckler probed (http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=1&story_id=73705)
The Inquirer reported that Maria Theresa Pangilian, the student who stood up and called for the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during graduation rites at the Cavite State University will be investigated upon orders of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez.
The news report said that insane DOJ chief Gonzalez said a crime was committed Maria Theresa Pangilinan stood up and shouted “Oust Arroyo†and carried a banner to express her opposition to Charter change.
What the friggin inanity is DOJ Chief mouthing here? Has he gone starking mad? Or is he merely executing some spurious, illegal Gloria policy to stop freedom of expression and legitimate dissent? Is DOJ siRAULo Gonzales hellbent on intimidating future young dissenters?
I say, send this turd of a Gloria mouthpiece to the South and order him to hunt JI terrorists there and probe them instead of intimidating young, upright, courageous people! He’s nothing but a useless piece of horse dung!
The 9M stat is unbelievable and should not be believed.
9 Million visits is technically possible but doubtful.
You’re talking 300 discrete visits per minute or 432,000 visits per day 24/7 for 21 days?
Inquirer claims to get 1 million page views per day, sweethearts. But that’s a respected news daily.
At a rate of 432,000 visits per day, sigawngbayan will get 12,960,000 visits on its first month of existence! Wow!
How does a website ramp-up that many visits in the first three weeks of its existence? Where did that many visitors come from when the site is practically unheard of till now?
Eto namang si Atty. Lambino..
Well what else can we expect, right..?
Lawyers will be liars..
Magkano nanaman ba ang dahilan?
Baka naman nag-employ kayo ng mga “bots†(i.e. robots -techies would know about this) to do a “denial of service†attack on your own site kaya ganoon ka dami ang bisita niyo?
Aha! Good stat info there In A Pig’s Eye…
Besides, how many Filipinos realistically have access to the internet? (I know people with computers but have don’t have access to the INTERNET). Could we safely say that there are 9,000,000,000 Filipinos with access to the INTERNET to produce daily bona-fide visitors of 432,000 to express their civic-consciousness?
Really, I wouldn’t be surprised that the bulk of these visitors or hitters were from the Palace’s internet brigades.
OOOPS! CORRECTION THERE: 9,000,000 !!!!
ang dami-daming charges at accusations na ginagawa ng gobyerno based on intelligence reports.
tapos di man nabalitaan ng intelligence nila na si Gringo Ho-nasaan ang lalabas at hindi si Gringo Honasan?
hindi intelligence yan. katangahan yan. LOL
We have a ‘Little Gloria’s Almanac of Liars and Lies’ in the making. A volume I: Little Gloria’s Collection of Cute Lies II.Bunyi’s Tale of Two CD’s and other Tales ( including ‘ The Tale of Toting’s Missing Tail) III. Mikey Mousy D’s Disney Stories: The ‘X’ Tapes, Xperts, featuring Jonathan Tiongco and other cartoon characters – The XTapeMen and the Super Liars.
New Vol: Lambino’s Hit song ‘A Million Lies for You, My Love’ dedicated to GMA. ( Record breaking chart-buster: 9 Million hits and still counting, check it out folks)
“Hits” should be differentiated from “visits” and certainly should be further differentiated from a count of unique site visitors. If I visit a web page and that page references several files (i.e. image files, CSS files, etc) then all those files that will load (comprising just one web page, mind you) would also be counted as “hits.” Imagine if I further visit other web pages from the same website, and those other web pages references other files, then the “hits counter” would go up considerably.
From my previous experience as a webmaster, “visits” usually comprise only 1/40 to 1/50 of “hits”, thus 9M million hits would only translate to about 180,000 to 225,000 visits. And “visits” aren’t actual “unique visitors” counts either. That count would even be a lot less.
I guess the only way to find out is if they make public their detailed web statistics (i.e. webalizer or analog webstats, many sites have those tracking tools.) Pero judging from how deceitful “Sigaw ng Bayan” has been, I’d definitely expect that even their web statistics are anomalous.
Still, 9 million hits in three weeks, considering that their website is hardly known at all? My best guess as a (previous) webmaster: Either they’re lying outright, or some “magic” has been done to their webstats.
By the way, in a news item at sunstar.com.ph, Sigaw’s Lambino is quoted as saying that their website has received 40,000 hits since it was launched April 8. The news item was posted April 17. That only make it about 40,000 hits a week.
news item is here
A news item posted on philstar.com last April 20 had this to say: “As of yesterday morning, 82,650 surfers had viewed the sigawngbayan.com website since it was posted last April 8” according to Lambino.
Anyway, we all know na pinaglololoko lang naman tayo ng “Sigaw ng Bayan” na ‘to. That this is actually Gloria’s initiative.
“Hits” should be differentiated from “visits” and certainly should be further differentiated from a count of unique site visitors. If I visit a web page and that page references several files (i.e. image files, CSS files, etc) then all those files that will load (comprising just one web page, mind you) would also be counted as “hits.” Imagine if I further visit other web pages from the same website, and those other web pages references other files, then the “hits counter” would go up considerably.
From my previous experience as a webmaster, “visits” usually comprise only 1/40 to 1/50 of “hits”, thus 9M million hits would only translate to about 180,000 to 225,000 visits. And “visits” aren’t actual “unique visitors” counts either. That count would even be a lot less.
I guess the only way to find out is if they make public their detailed web statistics (i.e. webalizer or analog webstats, many sites have those tracking tools.) Pero judging from how deceitful “Sigaw ng Bayan” has been, I’d definitely expect that even their web statistics are anomalous.
Still, 9 million hits in three weeks, considering that their website is hardly known at all? My best guess as a (previous) webmaster: Either they’re lying outright, or some “magic” has been done to their webstats.
By the way, in a news item at sunstar.com.ph, Sigaw’s Lambino is quoted as saying that their website has received 40,000 hits since it was launched April 8. The news item was posted April 17. That only make it about 40,000 hits a week. From 40,000 hits in one week to 9 million in three weeks? Sobrang kalinlangan naman yata nun.
A news item posted on philstar.com last April 20 had this to say: “As of yesterday morning, 82,650 surfers had viewed the sigawngbayan.com website since it was posted last April 8” according to Lambino.
Anyway, we all know na pinaglololoko lang naman tayo ng “Sigaw ng Bayan” na ‘to. That this is actually Gloria’s initiative.
alam niyo kung gaano ka-irrelevant yung Sigaw ng Bayan web site? i-google niyo yung term na Sigaw ng Bayan, ni hindi man lang lalabas yung web site. 🙂
So sorry for abruptly changing the topic… but I believe there’s good reason to..
People of the Philippines.. there’s something else to watch out for..
As you well know by now, the Supreme Court has declared CPR as unconstitutional.
That’s the good news.
But don’t uncork your fave red wine just yet.
The scuttlebutt is that we’re being set-up for a big let down.
Guess what boys and girls?
The validity of the signature campaign for the chacha is going to be upheld by the SC..
What a neat quid pro quo, huh?
As if on cue, just as we’re beginning to think that the system is beginning to right itself,
the SC lets the nation down by handing the Palace the keys to jumpstart chacha.
They bait us with crumbs; EO464, CPR.. only to whammy us with a neatly railroaded chacha..
So are we going to just take this?
In A Pig’s Eye,
Re: “The validity of the signature campaign for the chacha is going to be upheld by the SC..The validity of the signature campaign for the chacha is going to be upheld by the SC..
What a neat quid pro quo, huh?”
If this happens, I believe honest and upright citizens of the Republic of the Philippines have the moral right to poke the SC in the eye, after all justice is supposed to be blind.
Charter change is the central agenda of this admin. Many are anxious, uncertain about the status quo inspite of the SC’s rulings unfavorable to Malacanang.
Is the Supreme Court ‘in connivance’ with Malacanang on its cha-cha agenda?
Is this series of rulings part of a ‘calibrated judicial response’ to build up the SC’s badly needed credibility , it’s ammo for undertaking a ‘judicial coup’ upholding GMA’s charter change railroad whatever ‘track’ it takes to get it done?
Will the cha-cha train be given the green light, ‘the track is all clear’ signal by the SC just as unanimously as it has ruled on the preceding cases?
Will the cha-cha train reach its destination on time before the people, the church and the consciensitized soldiers get their acts together to rescue the constitution and the government from hijackers?
Anna, I almost fell off my chair with your “poke the SC in the eye…since they’re supposed to be blind” comment. That was really funny.
Don’t you notice, guys and gals?
The Malacanang Muppets’ faces are turning red. Glum countenances all over. Nervous tics are showing. The huffing and puffing is getting heavier. Shouts and shrieks are getting louder over there. Valium pills are being popped all over.
And the propaganda tales are getting taller. Stats are being stretched and interpreted to their incredible limits.
In short, there’s desperation in the air in that Evil House by the river.
That means the tide is turning.
sana maprint sa Letters to the Editor itong reaction ko sa column ni Bel Cunanan:
I was laughing so hard when I read Belinda Olivares-Cunanan’s latest column, “Nine million hits for Sigaw website” (PDI, 4/25/2006) For web-savvy readers, this piece of “news” was so obviously made-up, but once again, Belinda plays the propaganda tune of the administration without even bothering to check the facts. Or maybe she’s just web-illiterate.
A quick perusal of the Sigaw ng Bayan web site shows that it has just 249,722 total site visits since April 8, 2006 as of 10:22 pm of April 25, 2006. This is based on the web counter on the face of the index page of the web site itself. How Atty. Lambino came up with the 9 million hits figure, nobody knows. He may have to say “Hello…Garci?” to get out of this one because he obviously needs “yung dagdag, yung dagdag” from the master of “pagpapataas.”
Still, lest I be called judgmental, I need to make a test to see if the site is, at the very least, deemed relevant in the world wide web. So I Googled “sigaw ng bayan” and, lo and behold, not one web page from the Sigaw ng Bayan web site showed up in the results. Surely, a site that generates 9 million hits in just three weeks would be deemed important by Google’s PageRank technology! Well, that’s assuming that those 9 million hits were not fictitious.
I also tried to search for the page in the Alexa web site, which ranks top web pages based on traffic. Sigaw ng Bayan was nowhere to be found in its rankings. Interestingly, Capt. Nicanor Faeldon’s web site, which has only 1,160,490 hits, was ranked number 239,537.
But still, to be fair, I need to make an empirical test to determine if 9 million hits could at least be plausible for the Sigaw ng Bayan web site. To generate 9 million hits in 3 weeks, it has to average 428,571 hits per day / 17,857 hits per hour / 298 hits per minutes / 5 hits per second for the whole three week period.
Wikipedia, the most popular free encyclopdia on the web, averaged only 3 hits per second on the day of September 11, 2002.
Sounds plausible? Of course. That is, if you believe that the world wide web was more interested in the charter change of a small country in Southeast Asia than the tragic events of 9-11. Which reduces the possiblity of that happening to about…zero.
To all you Techies and Wizards of the Web,
Thanks for exposing this “9 million hits” fairy tale. You sure made mincemeat of this attempt to again make fools out of us.
Hihihihi! Phil, I finally got tickled myself by what I wrote because of your own comment, otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed that it was funny…
The new face of people power looks like Raul Lambino’s personal promo website. And in a Lacoste at that … If that’s the new face of people power, I would go with the old, greying faces of people power.
Parang naging mouthpiece na ni Gluria ang AFP. AFP = Arroyo Forces of the Philippines?? Huwag naman sana. AFP save your tainted name.
As said in one comment above it is not surprising nor is it impossible to claim such a number of hits.
Hits are a useless statistics and it is the visits that count.
To make it easier for example you vist this blog and click all info available like the curriculum vitae of mlq,the viitors page and all the archives of past blogs and articles
you can do all that in one visit.I have no plan of visting the site but maybe it has many pop ups where many sites of the web page will pop up upon vist.
Agreeing with in a pig’s eye and was it Emilie?
Don’t raise up the wine glasses yet.
But all is not lost as long as the senate stll exist and I don’t think they will take things lying down.
Let us all remain alert and at thge same time hopeful that the time to raise the wine glass or the beer bottles will come at the sonnest time!
As said in one comment above it is not surprising nor is it impossible to claim such a number of hits.
Hits are a useless statistics and it is the visits that count.
To make it easier for example you vist this blog and click all info available like the curriculum vitae of mlq,the viitors page and all the archives of past blogs and articles
you can do all that in one visit.I have no plan of visting the site but maybe it has many pop ups where many sites of the web page will pop up upon vist.
Agreeing with in a pig’s eye and was it Emilie?
Don’t raise up the wine glasses yet.
But all is not lost as long as the senate stll exist and I don’t think they will take things lying down.
Let us all remain alert and at thge same time hopeful that the time to raise the wine glass or the beer bottles will come at the soonest time!
Whoa! 9 million in 3 weeks? Maybe their number is 3 zeros overdone.
On second thought, make that 4 zeros overdone!
No. 9 Just don’t anything Gloria does – absolutely not particularly when it comes to producing numbers!
forget the past…Let the numbers speak…as the newspaper rounds last Sunday of PIA slogan speaks: Magtulungan tayo. Kaunlaran muna. (a volley of government ads in retaliation to the senate-perceived victory on the SC eo464 rule…start of another palace-initiated mind-conditioning to me: all hail, plankton…all hail, plankton!)
http://www.pia.gov.ph/download/numspeak1.jpg
http://www.pia.gov.ph/download/numspeak2.jpg
http://www.pia.gov.ph/download/numspeak3.jpg
bel’s (cunanan) propagandic write-up is diminutive compared to pia’s.
who reads bel anyway? the pia ads were catchy…anybody could have read them, even the gullibles!
OOps! two times ang submission ko ng same comment(29 and 30) in one visit…(i tried correcting my spellingof soonest kasi).
On the question of unicameralism and saving money.
Again if the law makers of the planned unicameral setup would be trigger happy they would make laws even without budget ..ngayon nga me check and balance na ang dami pa rin laws nakakalusot.
more people of lets say 450 would mean more people will be approached by lobby groups to sponsor and co sponsor their advocacies.We need first to know how to use of what we have and make tune ups not engine overhauls.
As for the many uneconomical laws signed, it needs trimming not a new wig or even hair extensions.
enough with anlaogies lalo yata lumalabo.
i would want a senate that checks if laws are feasible and it maybe true that we don’t have a perfect system but it needs only fixing and proper maintenance not changing.
You are right Karl, maintenance is required to make any system work if only to last until a modern version is available to either upgrade or change it.
But Karl, to do that, a culture of maintenance must exist. I don’t know if the Philippines has a well-developed culture of maintenance (if it exists at all). What I’ve seen so far in the Philippines is a quick fix or fast repair, some kind of a band-aid system which is not a system of maintenance at all. It’s not even an effective repair system. Cannibalizing, an inherent part of Philippine culture, is a poor subtitute and promotes non-maintenance.
I think what the country needs is an entire overhaul and then follow it up with proper maintenance – that’s the only way to develop a much needed culture of maintenance.
At this point, I personally believe that beyond just utter disbelief at and implausibility of the number (9M hits) declared, one encounters other concerns supplementing those already mentioned in empirically trying to prove the number’s correctness.
Please allow me to add some that come to mind and which could be considered in the overall assessment:
1. Most ISPs (most especially dial-up) assign dynamic IP numbers to their subscribers, rather than static ones. Thus every time one logs on to the net, the system assigns the next available IP to that user and it is brought back to inventory when the user logs out. In effect, one user who visits one site during different occasions could be seen as using different IPs.
2. Metering software or applets (like SiteMeter) allow users to reset the meter and thus, users have the option to manually reset the meter anytime.
3. And add to a hit any data in that site that will be matched by any search engine. Thus, every time a search engine includes the named site in its search results that is counted as a hit.
4. Other questions like this one: How often does the meter count the user’s every visit to the site in one session? For example, if a user terminates a visit and returns some time later during the same session when does the meter start counting. After every 2 or 5 minutes, or… ?
5. Of course, the site owner’s, or owners’ if there are many, every visit also count both as a hit and a unique visit.
I would give more credence then those who are fighting for change in a positive way then those who are confused & are blood thirsty.
I just can’t understand those fighting against change.
But in reality what are those fighting against change proposing?
Why can’t they just say it stright that they are for the preservation of the “status quo”.
I’m aware that there are 1 million reasons, from the most petty, confused & who knows what.
Are people really weighing things & really reasoning out?
I really think we do need change.
No change will ever be a cure all.
Sadly, because it is more of our attitudes that is our problem.
But we have to face it that we can’t go on the way we are.
Just like cureing a sick person takes a series of medicines.
I beleave that we too as a country should start the cure w/ a series of steps.
But we really gotta have a hold on our penchant for “kampihan” & our subjective ways of looking at things.
We really have to grow in maturity as a nation.
Just like there are those who are hungry for glorias neck that will only in the long run create us more problems.
I don’t see what is wrong in not supporting people who have constructive ways of solving our problems.
who is to say when the best time will be.
If not start now, then when?
I’m sure, just like lil kids, there will always be 1 million excuses & all sorts of reasons.
But do we forever wanna be in a situation where we are all talk & hot air but at the end of the day we can’t deliver on anything?
MLQ3, a de brux, karl, baycas, phil, amadeo, etal,
On Marching Orders:
If, by some quirk of fate, you find yourself leading the Philippine-side of a new wave of ‘people power’ sweeping across Asia, after Thailand and Nepal, what marching orders would you declare?
1. People’s initiative calling for a shortening of term of Pres and VP, resulting in a snap election and a referendum on whether people agree or not agree to change the charter and if agree, what mode: concon or conass?
2. People’s initiative calling for Congress to convene as a Constituent Assembly, propose amendments, and then call for a snap election and a referendum as above?
3. People’s initiative calling for the House and the Senate to pass a “bullet amendment†via a joint resolution cutting short the terms of the president and vice-president, thus paving the way for presidential elections in 2007 and a referendum on cha-cha as above?
We have allowed GMA to dictate the agenda; we are just reacting. The common denominator in the Thai and Nepali uprisings is that the people rejected the administration’s compromise formula. We must build consensus and focus on a ‘smart’ — specific, measurable (getting nearer the objective), achievable, realistic, time-bound — goal or a real and true People’s Agenda.
We must catch the tide of change sweeping in the region that could bring about more responsive and responsible governments via a combination of people power and constitutionalism.
Now is the time to unite and to establish a kind of government we need for our ship of state – our nation and our people — to weather the turbulent global storms already upon us.
In Nepal: “King Gyanendra, buckling after 19 days of violent protests, agreed Monday to reinstate Nepal’s parliament, sparking jubilant scenes as thousands poured onto the streets of the capital.â€Â
“Today, in the wake of the king’s concessions to the protesters, Nepali politicians interviewed said they were for hastening the transformation of Nepal into a constitutional monarchy, with the king reduced to a symbolic head of state.â€Â
In Thailand: “Thaksin resignsâ€Â;“Thailand’s widely respected king Tuesday rejected the opposition’s calls to appoint a new prime minister to end the country’s long-running political crisis while branding recent elections undemocratic.‘I have ruled under many constitutions and worked many decades, and now people ask me to act according to my own discretion,’ he said. He also urged the judges from the Supreme Administrative Court to quickly take up their deliberations and find a solution.â€Â
In the Philippines: “SC:Gloria’s CPR unconstitutionalâ€Â; “SC partly voids EO464. The Supreme Court has upheld the right of Congress to compel executive officials to appear before inquiries ‘in aid of legislation’ as it struck down portions of an executive order by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.â€Â
(This confluence of developments serves as an open invitation for Filipinos, the people power people, to join this wave of change and ride the crest of jubilation for true Democracy under a real honest-to-goodness Constitutional government.)
Joselu,
I’m trying very hard to understand your position that we have to have change because change is good. But change for the sake of change and change to primarily benefit one woman and a few cohorts is not beneficial change. The change proposed by these people are not constructive but destructive of the democratic institutions we hold dear.
The majority of the people clearly have made known their stand in survey after survey. They don’t want Charter Change at this time and under this present administration, this present House leadership and this present Comelec. It’s just too risky a proposition.
Phil Cruz, who is to judge change for the sake of change is wrong? Are you saying everything is just fine & why change?
To think that the change will benefit one individual is being narrow minded & shows our inability to look further & separate issue from personalities.
Perhaps, our problem is more to do w/ our mind set & attitude.
How distructive can a group of people be when all they are doing is taking a consensus among the people.
How distructive can something be to propose change because of being sick & tired of the way things are & don’t work?
How can be an initiative by the people destroy political institution when the power to elect comes from the people?
If there are those groups of people using all sorts of dirty tricks & gimmicks to bring down the administration & have not succede in mastering a critical mass more crdible?How come to this day they are still the same noise makers & still hard selling?
Honestly, it’s wishfull thinking that a majority express their opinion in a survey.Then let’s forget election & just depend on surveys.Survey give indication.Survey also get reactions to issues subject to different circumstances of the period taken.
It seems you are being to presumptious to conclude to many things.
Do you really think that in a divided country like ours we will ever arrive to any agrement on anything when the proper time will be?
You probably refuse change for one reason just like others would refuse change for another reason
What is wrong then if efforts are made for people to listen to each other & dialogue insted of just perpetually discrediting others.
Why are we at a level that we can’t face issue squarely?
Only risk takers are the winners at he end of the day.
True to our culture, many of us are either siguristas or just to scared to take bold steps.We will always end up hanging-on to all possible excuses & i million reasons but will always have nothing to show at the end of the day.
Just like the parable of the talents in the gospel.There was the person who made his talents grow & multiply & he was futher rewarded insted of the other who was to scared to lose the little he had so he just kept it for himself.
“How distructive can a group of people be when all they are doing is taking a consensus among the people.”
not as dEstructive as wrong spellings are to people’s impression of one’s capabilities.
guys, i have a really really SERIOUS question…
how come we don’t see ‘sleeping’ no more?
Jumper
I am still reading just spending more time working, for my future..
If one person says hits then the newspaper says visits then it is the incompetence of the reporter to understand the facts that like said hit do not relate to Visits.
And if they submitted the site to the 1000’s of search engines then there is more hits.. Not visits.
Numbers are always read the way you want to read them..
And you didn’t read my posts on Nepal?..
The 9 million hits figure is about as credible as the estimate that Cha-Cha would save 250 billion pesos annually.
JMakabayan,
Re your #39 Comment and the three Marching Orders options you laid out…(quite a seriously thought out set of options, I must say.) Here are my thoughts on the matter:
I can agree to a shortening of the term of office of the present President and Vice-President.
I can agree to a snap election in 2007.
I can agree to a People’s Initiative to bring this about.
But a People’s Initiative can easily be blocked by the administration by controlling one, just one, congressional district.
Therefore, I would go for the proposed joint House and Senate resolution (but voting separately) to pass a bullet amendment cutting short the term of the President and Vice-President to pave the way for a snap presidential elections in 2007.(But I’m no constitutionalist, so I’m not sure if this is possible).
But I don’t agree to include a Referendum on whether or not to Change the Charter. Simply because I don’t believe in changing the charter NOW. There are more important problems to be solved. Charter Change is a distraction, a wasteful spending of money and energy. We need to focus instead on enforcement, enforcement, and enforcement.
That’s one of the major causes why we are in such a sorry state. Non-enforcement. Wrong enforcement. Stupid enforcement. Nonchalant walang paki enforcement. Practically everybody in government, including the public, is guilty of these. And practically nobody gets punished for not enforcing or for not following the thousands of laws, rules and regulations.
We have become a country whose motto is “Laws are made to be broken and punishment is only for those who have less in life.â€Â
ENFORCEMENT and JUSTICE are the two keys to get ourselves out of the rut. Oops….Sorry, Mr. JMakabayan, I digressed. Got carried away there.
Phil Cruz,
“Therefore, I would go for the proposed joint House and Senate resolution (but voting separately) to pass a bullet amendment cutting short the term of the President and Vice-President to pave the way for a snap presidential elections in 2007.(But I’m no constitutionalist, so I’m not sure if this is possible).”
Angara favors Charter change but shorter term for Arroyo (Mar 09, 2006 TJ Burgonio Inquirer)
SENATOR Edgardo Angara proposed yesterday that Congress amend the Constitution but limit the changes to revamping the Commission on Elections and cutting the terms of both President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro to extricate the country from the political morass
“If we agree on this with the House, we will file a joint resolution to shorten the term of both the President and Vice President so that it will usher in a fresh election…. Then the question of illegitimacy and mandate will be laid to rest,†Angara told reporters.
He said the joint resolution would form the basis for amending the Charter, with the amendments “strictly confined to the two propositions.â€Â
A combination of #1 and #3 options,a people’s initiative and legislative intiative could be the key to break the impasse.
I think the required ammendments for a snap election could qualify as valid petetions/proposals via either initiatives.
I’m not constitutionalist nor a lawyer even, I’ve been exploring ways to get some experts’ opinions on viable options. Mar 26, I posted the idea on this blog.
If there is one thing blogs can do best is help synthesize ideas.
I’ll have to get back on previous inquiries.Talks on this options persists but no definite formula has been presented so far. It has been suggested on a previous post if a talk with the Senator is worth looking into.
I’m sure we can get something going about a the
best ‘peoples’ option.
Hi Juan Makabayan,
You raised very pointed issues there which I believe must be addressed by everyone in the country.
Let me go through the issues you raised right off the bat:
Re snap election: I do not think it’s necessary to shorten the term of Pres & VP for a snap election to take place. A national referendum could be held but only the chief executive can really do that unless of course, there’s a genuine PI calling for such and provided it is allowed by the Constitution. However, in my opinion, pro-Arroyo ouster groups with the help of media and sympathizers in Congress could pressure the Palace to hold a national referendum (Yes or No to snap election) by launch a genuine PI. I do believe that the sovereign will resides in the people but the people must seize that will and not play footsie with their democratic rights.
Like Phil Cruz, I do not support a charter change and exactly for the same reasons. There is no guarantee that a quick fix such as Charter Change could rectify the current situation. I don’t believe JdV’s statement and tha of his supporters that a parliamentary system will save the Philippines billions of pesos. We can look at charter change again when the people who put the nation in its the political and moral vaccuum the country finds itself today have yielded the sovereign will to the people of the Philippines.
Furthermore, I am strongly opposed to this so-called People’s Initiative calling for Congress to convene as a Con Ass precisely because I do not think that in the current state of affairs, the members of Congress busily and hastily advocating this PI are the true representatives of the people. We also have to come to terms with the fact that there are 8 million or so DoLe registered OFWs who are not represented in the current Congressional scheme. It wouldn’t be right to waylay the OFWs for the simple reason that they are not in the country today. They, like every Filipino, also possess the right to be heard.
I agree with you that the time is now to unite and to establish a government we need to man our ship and to steer the course of our nation. Therefore, I think we should do everything in our power, as a people to force this government of the inept to stand down and yield to the sovereign will of the people so that a snap election may be held.
We already have a constitution, we have laws, we have a political system, perhaps they are not perfect because we allow blatant imperfections to creep in and allow demagogues to buffoon a system that will actually work if we are a bit more courageous by meeting these insitutionalized lawbreakers head on. But we, the people, have what it takes to enforce our laws and call those in the political hierarchy to task when they do so, I join Phil Cruz when he says ENFORCEMENT and JUSTICE are the two keys to get ourselves out of the rut.
Enforcement of the sovereign will of the people and render justice back to the people. The people must decide to claim their rights back – they must not yield an inch to the political harlots in power today.
“How distructive can a group of people be when all they are doing is taking a consensus among the people.â€Â
Oh please, we all know that that is NOT what they’re doing. They (GMA, cohorts, and their “Sigaw ng Bayan” lackeys) aren’t simply “taking a consensus”, they’re trying to railroad cha-cha, mostly through deceptive means and strong-arm tactics.
Interesting discussion thread. Re SnB’s website, I prefer going to http://www.kantyawngbayan.com. It spoofs SnB’s via editorial cartoons. On Charter change, the SnB crowd call themselves “constitutional warriors” when they are really nothing more than consitutional contortionists. The People’s Initiative is meant as a reserve power to the people to amend, not revise, the Constitution. Of course, the administration and its allies continue to overlook this legal fact. Nothing in the present Charter prevents them from delivering good governance. However, there is cause for concern that a hastily-drawn Charter by politicians who certainly do not personify good governance can weaken the Bill of Rights and lift safeguards against excessive use of power. Once the present Charter is opened up, none of its provisions will be safe from scrutiny and change by those most susceptible to political pressure/seduction.
Re SnB assertion on 9 million hits, just a press release to meet its pr outfit’s daily quota. The other day, SnB claimed to have more OFWs supporting cha-cha based on website hits from overseas Filipinos. Do you think our OFWs have that much time to even look for this site????
Iyong odometer ng sasakyan ina-atras, iyong site meter ng snb (o sob) ina-abante naman. What da!!!! (apologies to rove live)