The slowdown in the interweb is really frustrating, particularly if you’ve developed a routine for sifting through the news and blogs in the morning. It takes forever and a day for anything to load, and what appeared quickly yesterday may not load properly today. The year is off to a very bad, tiring, and frustrating start for anyone in an www-dependent line of work. In his column, Peter Wallace paints a grim picture of how the call center industry has been hammered by the effects of the submarine cable through Taiwan being cut; apparently other nations used their clout to find alternatives but the Philippines is just praying for a miracle. He advocates investment in alternative cables or a new cable for the country, but warns the diversion of calls to other centers in other countries probably means local expansion will be put on hold, and traffic won’t return:
…Every call center in the country was down – some 150,000 employees on over 120 call centers were affected. Three days later, capacity was still down 40 percent. Complaints from irate principals started pouring in. Head office management wasn’t too happy either. I’m putting it mildly.
There’s already a lot of resistance in America to transferring American jobs overseas. Here’s perfect ammunition for those who want those Americans in call centers in America (where they used to be). While the call center bosses think it’s not smart to have all eggs in one basket (sorry for this hackneyed cliché, but it does express my sentiments aptly), the Philippine basket was dropped. It was not the fault of the Philippine government (now there’s a refreshing change) nor of anyone in the Philippines. Still, a bunch of eggs was definitely broken.
The culprit was a natural disaster – an earthquake in Taiwan so violent that it broke the underwater communications cable between the Philippines and the US.
If the Philippine government rushed to do something about the situation, it certainly didn’t tell anyone. Call centers, and the entire business process outsourcing industry were left twisting in the wind. That’s a good analogy: Death to the industry may be exaggerated, but you can be sure head offices will be rethinking their expansion plans.
The inability of the Philippines to respond swiftly or have alternatives in place forced companies to re-direct their calls to other countries – Malaysia, India, South Africa, wherever call center companies have alternate sites. The sad thing is that that re-direction is likely to be permanent.
…One of the problems he can address is that the Philippines has misplaced priorities. Places like Singapore (where the government owns Singtel) or NTT in Japan have clout. And they used it to get priority allocation of cable bandwidth when this crisis hit. As did several others – taking what the Philippines should reasonably have had.
So, now the Philippines must think contingency planning and buy a significant stake in a couple (in case one goes down) of the main cables. Or do what Kenya and South Africa are doing, lay their own cable. Given the importance ITES now plays, the Philippine government should seriously consider doing the same. The US150 MM or so to do it is small potatos compared to the huge potential of this sector. After all far more is spent on a road between factories and a port. The number of jobs, and well-paying jobs at that, created by one telecoms cable far exceeds whatever commerce, and jobs a single road can provide. An undersea cable can generate infinitely more revenues than any highway ever could.
What it also highlighted was need for a better communication system between all the major players: government, industry support services and, the call centers and BPOs themselves. They need a well-established “quick call” system so that when the unexpected happens everyone can be fully informed.
A colleague informs me that the other day, the Hong Kong Telecom Authority assumed emergency powers, and that Indonesia has decreed that aid workers have priority when it comes to Internet usage, and opened up its expensive commsat network just to keep things going. So if things are bad here, they’re as bad elsewhere.
Now, while the news was being steadily leaked during the holidays (to slowly gage public reaction, perhaps, or simply to get the news out while no one really cared -the “boil the frog slowly so he doesn’t notice” framework for communications strategy), today’s papers finally rev up the possibility that we’re in for a February surprise: a people’s initiative that would transform the electoral landscape.
The proposal? Let’s call it Plan A (2007 edition): Another People’s Initiative, with attention paid to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. A unicameral, presidential system, this time (unless the unicameral, parliamentary system proposed in 2006 suddenly returns from the dead).
In recent days the Commission on Elections has caused publication of new implementing rules and regulations for a people’s initiative. The rules bear in mind the recent decision of the Supreme Court on the last, ill-fated, so-called “people’s initative”. Objectively speaking, the new rules serve to flesh out the law and give teeth to the Constitution’s provisions on initiative. From what I’ve read, they sound like the rules lawyers told me should have been followed, had the administration or opposition pursued a real initiative last year.
Politically, of course, it’s a can of worms. First, there is now the option to reconsider the signatures the Legion claims it gathered last year. Which may be a long shot, but more astounding things have happened. Second, there’s the shift in emphasis away from the House leadership, specifically, the Speaker, to the President’s very own master of electoral logistics, the Secretary of the Interior.
Speaking of the Secretary of the Interior, his own bravado-filled statement provides us a smooth transition to:
Plan B (2007 edition): An administration Senate Slate with a fighting chance, and retention of a majority in the House (but perhaps dominated by Kampi and no longer by Lakas). According to RG Cruz, the administration slate tentatively includes:
Presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor, Congressmen Robert Ace Barbers, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, prospero pichay, ace durano, angelo reyes, mike enriquez and korina sanchez and Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. However othe reliable administration sources said 6 slots are reserved for some opposition politicians who are lobbying to be part of the slate, as well as members of the Senate’s Wednesday group, Senators Joker Arroyo, Ralph Recto, Francis Pangilinan, and Senate President Manuel Villar.
The President only has to elect 5 senators to derail any possibility of an impeachment prospering in the Senate. And, as one Lakas-CMD veteran told me shortly before the holidays, the raiding of their party by the president’s pet party, Kampi, is well underway -and they seem at a loss over what to do about it.
There are two election-related blog entries of note: Mongster’s Nest suggests the point of unity for the opposition shouldn’t be a crude dislike of the President, but instead, a positive coming-together against hunger, which would emphasize the trickle-down assumptions of the administration. I agree. Philippine Politics 04 says the opposition’s goals with regards to the House have to be more ambitious. The question though, is if a people’s initiative is attempted, to what extent can and should it be fought? It would be easier to fight it if a plebiscite were held in February, as it could be round 1 in a 2 round fight; if a plebiscite were held simultaneously with the May elections, it adds yet another thing to guard in an election which promises to be fraud-filled at least on the senatorial level.
The only thing going against a plebiscite and election lumped together, is that expectations would be raised for senatorial candidates, which might be messy if dashed (in the first place, what do you do with them, never mind the opposition, what about administration candidates?) So it would still be logical to have a plebiscite in February leading up to the cancellation of the senate portion of the May elections.
Plan C (2007 edition) a constitutional convention, sometime, somehow, somewhere, as expressed by the Vice-President.
As the Inquirer editorial points out, as with Daniel Smith, so has it been with everything: a calibrated, preemptive response suffices for all crises and conditions. Ellen Tordesillas explains how this works vis-a-vis the United States.
Fascinating entries, as usual, in Another Hundred Years Hence on rezoning in Makati City; and also, on the company behind the city’s past growth.
Blurry Brain takes a look back at his argument for social cleansing (of which I partially approve).
I’m glad to hear Ronnel Lim intends to go back to blogging.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Charter Change, constitution, people’s initiative, philippines, politics, president
how can there be a plebiscite in Feb when there is a 60 day requirement?
“The year is off to a very bad, tiring, and frustrating start for anyone in an www-dependent line of work.”
Well, at the least, that makes two of us.
Over here, things were bad on December 27 but only for that day. I couldn’t access any site outside Singapore. Afterwards, connectivity was restored and performance was back to normal. Peter Wallace’s column above should serve as a reality check for those who put their faith on the Arroyo government’s competence.
i had been straining to get news about the impact of the damaged undersea cablles on the BPO industry back home. thanks for the lead on peter walace.
The damage to the undersea cables, in this information age, is completely analogous and as crippling as damage to our physical infrastructure. It is less visible but is as critical as any event that would have rendered half of our ports, airports and roads inoperable or inaccessible.
Apart from the lack of action in this current emergency, we should also decry that lack of strategic thinking that leaves us out of the SEA-ME-E 4 and the Trans-Asian Railway.
oop. that last link to the Trans-Asian Railway seems to be dead. Here’s a link to the map instead.
So far we have not experienced significant slowdown in WWW traffic during the past week, could be that Ma Bell has some kind of alternate route for her Telecom and Internet business. I also noticed the last I called tech-support (two weeks ago, Dell computer) which usually is serviced overseas, this time when I asked the Technician where she was based, she told me right here in Canada. Usually its either India or Philippines. Maybe rate of pays here are not that much different now.
vic,
aren’t you based in Canada? then the damage to the asian undersea cables shouldn’t affect your web access. (unless you were trying to access servers in asia)
that your tech support was answering from canada might be because the call centers in the Philippines or India were down. i strongly doubt that the salaries have suddenly become competitive.
Repair crews are just arriving at the scene. They still have to search for the breaks. There are five cables involved here and some of them suffered more than one break. If the cables suffered only one break each, locating those breaks would have been easy. There are instruments that can tell them where the one break occurred. Unfortunately, some cables suffered as many as five breaks and break locators only work when there is a single break.
Once those breaks are located, the cables will have to be raised to the surface, repaired and replaced underwater again. My source from pldt told me normalcy won’t be restored until around february. This holds for all the countries who are connected to the 5 cables going through Taiwan.
I don’t know if I agree with MLQ and Mongster’s nest that a policy debate on poverty is a good idea. I think any debate, specially on policy, works in gloria’s favor. Not that gloria’s policies are good but any debate that takes away from talking about gloria is good for her. Gloria’s personality is her biggest liability. It’s her weakness. Let’s not give her a free pass on that.
MB, i share your misgivings. My concern with bringing up policy matters during the campaign is that it conflates issues of governance with the primary issue of legitimacy. However, i think Mong’s suggestion of focusing on the issue of hunger and proposing workable solutions that could be incorporated in the Opposition’s platform is worth a serious look. At the very least, it would serve as a response to any smart aleck who asserts that you cannot eat legitimacy by calling attention to the fact that under Arroyo, large numbers of people do go hungry.
Battle of the Plutocrats – It goes on in the U.S. like it goes on in the Philippines. Trade liberalization will solve the problem?
Who will protect countries from the capitalists that are the greatest threat to capitalism?
“Capitalism’s biggest political enemies are the executives in pin-striped suits who extol the virtues of competitive markets with every breath  while attempting to extinguish them with every action.” R. Rajan, Chief Economist of the IMF
“Markets will always create losers  if they are to do their job.†R. Rajan
“In the quest for growth, many countries have neglected to build a reliable system of social security that will help citizens buffer the market’s volatility.” R. Rajan
Is there an international government that will enforce a social contract between labor and capital??????
You have the emergent power of the global capitalist who is not hamstrung by any state. Defended by Empire.
January 4, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Snit in First Class
By DAVID BROOKS
I have a dream, my friends. I have a dream that we are approaching the day when a ranch-owning millionaire Republican like George Bush will make peace with a vineyard-owning millionaire Democrat like Nancy Pelosi.
I have a dream that Pelosi, who was chauffeured to school as a child and who, with her investor husband, owns minority shares in the Auberge du Soleil resort hotel and the CordeValle Golf Club, will look over her famous strand of South Sea Tahitian pearls and forge bonds of understanding with the zillionaire corporate barons in the opposing party.
Furthermore, I dream of a great harmonic convergence among the obscenely rich  between Randian hedge fund managers on the right and helipad environmentalists on the left. I dream that the big-money people who seem to dominate our politics will put aside their partisan fury and discover the class solidarity that Karl Marx always said they shared, and their newfound civility will trickle down to the rest of us. I dream that Berkeley will make peace with Buckhead, Streisand with DeVos, Huffington with O’Reilly.
I have my dreams, but of course, I am realistic too, for I am aware that at present there is no peace among the secluded island villas. I look out across the second homes of America and its surrounding tropical regions and I see polarization among the Kate Spade devotees and bitterness among the Rolexes. And I know that both Bush and Pelosi are part of an upper-income whirlwind of strife.
Some people believe that Pelosi is an airhead, but that is wrong. Some people believe she is a radical San Francisco liberal, but that, too, is wrong. The main fact to know about Pelosi is that she is a creature of the modern fund-raising system. Some politicians rise because they run political machines. Some rise because they are great communicators. Pelosi has risen because she is a master of the thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraising circuit.
Living amid a web of investors, venture capitalists and West Coast technology tycoons, she raised heroic amounts of money for the Democratic Party before she ever thought of running for anything herself. In 1984, she was the state party chairwoman. In 1986, she was the national fund-raising chairwoman for the Senate Democrats.
Since coming to the House, she has discovered what many a savvy pol has discovered  that the fastest way to ascend in Congress is to raise a lot of money and give it to your peers.
She paid her dues selecting party favors, arranging seating charts (after that, legislation is easy), and laying thick dollops of obsequiousness on cranky old moguls and their helmet hair spa-spouses. She has done what all political fund-raisers do: tell rich people things they already believe, demonize the other side, motivate the giving with Manichaean tales of good versus evil.
It is no wonder The Los Angeles Times calls her a “rabid Democrat†or that Time magazine calls her “hyperpartisan.†It is not a surprise, as The Washington Post reported this week, that despite campaign promises about changing the tone in Washington, Pelosi has decided to exclude Republicans from the first burst of legislation  to forbid them to offer amendments or alternatives.
She is part of the clash of the rival elites, with the dollars from Brookline battling dollars from Dallas, causing upper-class strife that even diminutive dogs, vibrant velvets and petite salades can’t fully soothe.
It pains me to see plutocrats fight, because it sets such a poor example for those of us in the lower orders who fly commercial. It pains me even more because politicians from the rival blueblood clans go to embarrassing lengths to try to prove they are most authentically connected with working Americans.
Think of John Kerry visiting a Wendy’s or Bill Frist impersonating a Bible thumper. This week, witness Pelosi going on her all-about-me inauguration tour, which is designed to rebrand her as a regular Catholic grandma from Baltimore. Members of the middle classes never have to mount campaign swings to prove how regular they are, but these upper-bracket types can’t help themselves, and they always lay it on too thick.
So I harbor my dreams of reconciliation, but in the meantime, why oh why can’t we have a decent overclass in this country  a group of highly attractive dimwits who spread bland but worthy stability over our political scene. Why oh why do we have to have this endless canapé war  the people of the vineyard against the people of the ranch.
From Bill Moyers on social change in the land of empire.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/04/the_narrative_imperative.php
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/22/a_parable_for_our_times.php
World Bank and subsidies for oil companies for blood oil.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/05/world_bank_ok_with_blood_for_oil.php
Why no outcry on the interruption of internet service in the Philippines.
The three stages of the industrial revolution as pronounced by Alan Blindner formerly with the Federal Reserve was the move to industrial manufacturing that eventually reached back and mechanized farming and moved people from the countryside to the cities then the second stage was mechanization producing productivity that produced the service economy that moved people from manufacturing to the service sector and now finally the information revolution that is moving jobs across national boundaries in outsourcing.
The first two stages depended on industrialization that produced the infrastructure to move goods and services around. That infrastructure now has expanded to include the so called information highway.
For a country like the Philippines that has not even entered the first stage of the industrial revolution a breakdown in the infrastructure for the third tier of the industrial revolution will naturally affect only foreign companies who have outsourced their processes here. The effect is obviously miniscule to the still developing economy.
Now try the example of a vicious typhoon that could cut off Northern Luzon from Central Luzon from the NCR and you would see massive dislocations in deliveries of goods and services. When Katrina happened in the U.S. shipments were diverted to Houston and other Southern ports.
The physical infrastructure that is necessary for productive markets still does not exist.
That is the key to the process of industrialization. George Washington and his cabinet started this by building the canal system to facilitate trade between the states. Then came the railroads, then the interstate system. The U.S. government has promoted the expansion of fiber optic cables (broadband) throughout the States to bring in the information revolution. Trade and commerce would be crippled without it today.
Can a country that has a foreign debt of over $60 billion dollars leapfrog into the third stage of the industrial revolution and become a first world country in less than 20 years.
That is an example of the truthiness of the Bunye brand of realities. FVR’s idea of jumping over the natural evolutionary process of economic development guided by the strong hand of the state was a cruel canard done to enrich himself and his cronies.
Welcome to the third world that is the Philippine islands guys even in this internet world.
PLDT which is the largest component of the PSE index at 30% is simply a distribution utility. That is how developed the islands economy is.
The country is a product of empire, get used to it and lie back and enjoy it. The women are gorgeous.
just like in the energy sector, there is so much money to be made by the brokers when foreign companies provide a certain service. wallace’s bright idea which suggests that the dotc should invest in undersea cables, will meet strong resistance.
there are traitors in high places who play middlemen for industries traditionally serviced by foreign entities. they are out to make a quick buck for every independent power production deal, reinsurance, foreign loan, consultancy, representation or lobbying services, mineral exploration and of course, major communications and transportation infrastructure.
during erap’s time, since the backbone of his economic policy team was composed of u.p. professors headed by diokno, he had a more or less protectionist/nationalistic program such as food self-sufficiency, putting an end to sovereign guaranties and foreign loans. the hypocrites, these seekers of payback from their western principals, suddenly found themselves in limbo. a number of them bankrolled some of the big groups that convened edsa dos but are conspicuously absent in the rallies now against gma. thaksin paid the same price for his nationalistic policies.
“the women are gorgeous”. Thanks, hvrds. Is the compliment directed to the Pinay expats too?
The flowers are awesome too. Nowhere in the world will you find as beautiful an orchid as the Waling-waling, and nowhere on earth is there a scent as divine as the sampaguita and the ylang-ylang.
cvj said: “My concern with bringing up policy matters during the campaign is that it conflates issues of governance with the primary issue of legitimacy. However, i think Mong’s suggestion of focusing on the issue of hunger and proposing workable solutions that could be incorporated in the Opposition’s platform is worth a serious look. At the very least, it would serve as a response to any smart aleck who asserts that you cannot eat legitimacy by calling attention to the fact that under Arroyo, large numbers of people do go hungry.”
So what criteria do you propose for voting for senators and congressmen? Is it simply that they would vote for Arroyo’s impeachment and conviction (regardless of why they would do so)? What about their other qualifications (or lack thereof) to serve as lawmakers?
Aames, a candidate’s willingness or unwillingness to impeach or convict Gloria serves as a measure of his or her character as well as his or her ability to discern reality. Even if that candidate has a formidable background in terms of education and experience, if it is shown that he or she is willing to surrender to expediency just to get the support of the administration machinery, then those qualifications become moot. A candidate in such a situation has revealed himself or herself to be a willing tool of someone who has disrespected the electoral process.
And if the candidate ostensibly lacks the credentials to be a lawmaker but has vowed to vote for Arroyo’s impeachment and/or conviction, you would still recommend voting for this person?
Aames, what are the proper credentials to be a lawmaker?
politicians can be compelled to provide a concrete program on how to feed 90 million Filipinos. Mong
but hey, what’s Mong’s concrete solution to begin with, something our dumb politicians can look at or adopt? shall we compel Mong to provide one?
Aames, where possible, i would recommend voting for a candidate who both has the qualifications to be a good lawmaker (however that is defined) and the commitment to impeach and/or convict Gloria Arroyo. However, since your question has a different premise, i have to respond differently.
According to the BBC’s online glossary, ‘ostensibly’ means when something seems to be the case but probably is not. Given this, i would be careful to base my judgement on a quality that is just ostensible. It is better to ground my decision on something that is tangible, such as the commitment to impeach or convict.
For example, Teddy Boy Locsin is ostensibly a smart and principled individual who has the qualifications of a lawmaker. Unfortunately his actions have shown that he is willing to compromise with Gloria. Therefore, I will not recommend voting for him. On the other hand, i ostensibly find Jinggoy Estrada barely qualified to be in his position as Senator, but since he clearly opposes Arroyo, i am seriously considering voting for him.
watchful eye said: “Aames, what are the proper credentials to be a lawmaker?”
I refer you to mlq3’s November 16, 2006 entry with which I agree for the most part.
And that would mean the decision to impeach Gloria is not really based on the evidence presented.Now I believe this is very wrong and will definitely result to more confusions and chaos.
Watchful eye…. Mong’s idea to require politicians to describe their programs on how to feed 90 million Filipinos makes sense. There are different ways to raise a few billion pesos to feed 90-million Filipinos — you’d want to know the people whose proposals you disagree with.
One person may say “modify the tax code so that the tax rate increases by an extra 2% for anyone earning over P200,000 a year”. Another may say impose an extra $2,000-a-year fee on OFW’s. Another may say renege on the remaining “Marcos-nuclear-plant” debt obligations. Another’s answer may be to raise taxes on text-messaging and on gasoline, while while another may say that his supporters among the Saudis and Syrians will donate an extra $150Million a year to the Philippines when he (as president) assigns peacekeeping efforts in the Sulu Archipelago exclusively to the MILF.
There are many ways than one to feed fifty-million Filipinos. There will probably be one who will say “baka kopyahin ng kalaban….” so he will make his proposal public a month after he has moved into Malacanang.
And there may be one who will say … ” poverty??? Who cares about poverty. Elect me because I will vote to impeach!!”
And another who will say… “of course, I care about poverty. Doesn’t GMA care about poverty? Elect me because I will vote against impeachment.”
Rego, the May 2007 elections is a rare opportunity to directly influence the legislative process so that is the time to take a clear stand and not be wishy washy. I will leave it to you to vote for a candidate who would more faithfully reflect your own undecided viewpoint.
On a more personal note, I hope Korina Sanchez won’t run.
I can’t believe the administration is even eyeing on putting Korina Sanchez and Mike Enriquez together. There’s this scientific rule that “same charges repel”. Whoever is the think-tank behind the desperate administration line-up better offer Korina and Mike with unimaginable offers for them to join.
…as with Daniel Smith, so has it been with everything: a calibrated, preemptive response suffices for all crises and conditions…
yes, FORESIGHT’s still the name of the game.
Aames, mlq3 had a great entry on Nov 16, 2006, but sa palagay ko the reactions of his readers are even more impressive. Sa akin lang, ang mga lawmakers ay ahente lang ng taong bayan. Kaya, their primary credentials, as cvj seems to suggest, are their ability to read the will of their constituencies and then their faithfulness to ensure that that will is so reflected when they participate in policy making. To me, intellectuality, educational attainment or even experience is secondary, if not mere icing on the cake.
UPn, I think Mong deserves more credit than you are giving him. My post was a taunt if you notice it because my feeling is Mong has something up his sleeves ideologically and mere fiscal measures could be way off his philosophical screen.
I also endorse what one David San Juan wrote to PDI’s Letters to the Editor today –
“Public service is not a question of having a college degree; it is a question of sincerity. You can have all the college, masteral and even doctoral degrees in the world, but these won’t guarantee sincerity in serving the poor and the underprivileged. A sincere candidate is better than a corrupt one even if the latter is educated. As the Romans say, “Corruptio optime, pessime (The corruption of the best is the worst).†Just the same, a candidate who is both sincere and educated would be better than a candidate who’s only either sincere or merely educated.
We have had enough of “educated†politicians like GMA and Jose de Venecia …â€Â
I will probably be the minority here, but I view elections to be that process where a number of candidates are given the opportunity to state what they intend to do should they get elected (along with a definition of their guiding principles so the voters can understand how the candidate will probably react to new situations). The voters then choose the candidates they prefer.
The elected official is then given the mandate to vote his conscience, which is different from the elected officials always surveying their districts and voting what the majority of his/her district says to do on the hot issue of the day.
Watchful eye, i also agree 100% with David San Juan’s letter. Besides, we have to be realistic about these things. None of the civil society, third plank candidates fared well even in the wake of EDSA Dos (i.e. during the 2001 Senatorial elections). What more now that its credibility has been compromised by Arroyo’s cheating, and the middle forces’ own proven corruptibility and apathy towards that issue? Until our agenda becomes the majority’s agenda, we in the middle forces would be better off advocating, repenting and incubating in the public sphere (i.e. the realm of people power).
UPn Student, i also agree that it is impractical and undesirable for the people to micro-manage their representatives. However, as much as i hate making corporate analogies, i believe that the latitude given to these political representatives by the people should be similar to that given by a vigilant and responsible board of directors towards its corporate executives.
cvj, no one can be wishywashy with objectivity, fairness, and justice. You can NEVER EVER break that principle!
rego, that is something i hope Gloria Arroyo will finally learn once she’s convicted.
cvj, unfortunately, you are do the same bad thing that you accused her. becuase you believe that he is unfair, you would rather be unfair to her too. becuase you believe she rules by breaking the fundamental principles you will break all these principles too. What if your perception of her is not all true??? Then you end up doing more damage to yourself than on her……
Rego, just to clarify my position on the principles of objectivity, fairness and justice. Since i believe she is guilty, i don’t think i’m going against any principles of justice by voting for the Opposition. After all, they are elected precisely to represent the will of the voters. In the matter of fairness, as long as the elections themselves are fair, i think fairness will emerge as a collective property of the system as honest and fair elections would mean that our respective, opposing viewpoints would be represented in the right proportion. The opposition would be stupid if it relies on wishy-washy types like Locsin in the House or Recto and Pangilinan in the Senate as there would be no upside. If the impeachment fails, the people who fancy themselves as being in the middle would just criticize the opposition for being soooooo ineffective the past three years (and by then it would really have been three years). As for objectivity, i will just have to delegate that matter to the great undecided. I’ll use my vote to take a stand.
In any case, let’s continue to compare notes on candidates. Maybe we can still come up with mutually acceptable choices.
cvj,
you become unfair when you choose to put an impeachment judge that is so biased towards the accused. how can a sentator like Jinggoy or Richard Gomez be an effective judge when you know very that they are bitterly and despeartely and pathetically out get her head.
eh di kung ganyan ganyan din lang eh di wag ng mag impeachment. nag sasayang lang tayo ng panahon. pag upo upo lang mga biased senator na eto din i announce na kaagad na guilty si Gloria. but what happen to the principle of justice in that case? and the impact to the refutation of the nation? unimaginable!
objectivity? well your reply clearly shows that you refuse to live by it. you quickly delegated that to “great undecided” sector. you would rather choose to wallow on your very negative emotions. then you proudly claim to the whole world that your way of handling the nations issues is best way.
Principels CVJ, are fundamental just like law of Physics and mathematics. There is NO WAY you can break them. You will just break YOURSELF against them!
CVJ,
With your “unprincipled” way of choosing a candidate there is no way that we can have an mutual candidates. The candiates that you rejected are my preferred candidate.
I believe we need people like Teddy Boy Locsin, Winnie Monsod, and Joker Arroyo. People who can objectively opposed Mrs Arroyo when she behaving badly but can also objectively work with her in a reasonable project.
I would also want the likes of Congressman Nerios Acosta( a low profile congressman from Mindanao but was able to work on Clean Air Act.) He is also a PhD holder from University of Hawai And Former defense secretary Avelino Cruz (because I wanted to him to continue working on the reforms in the military that he started)
I woudl like some one who can help improve the enterpreneurship in the country like Joey Concepcion III, the scion of Concepcion industries. And Illac Diaz (yes that nephew of Gloria Diaz) a former model and actor, who has a degree in Enterpreneurship from Asian Institute of Management and won a grand prize the enterpreneurship competition when he took some course in MIT in the US.
I believe that the greatest asset of our country is the people. So I would love to see Human Resource experts in the Senate like Bong Austero (I know a lot of you here will be raising their eyebrows)
Im a believer in Good education so I wanted some passionate educator in the senate. I wanted to see people like that teacher in Phil Science High School in Ilo-ilo who won the grand prize in Intel Science and Engineering Fair in the US as the best teacher in the world. She has a PhD and suppose dto be teaching in collge but he opted to teach high school student. And of at a lower wage too.
Of course I will vote for Margarito Tevez and Marita Diokno to work on the economic laws of the country.
I also wanted to see Meliton of Bahay kalinga and Ramon Magsaysay awardee last year. I believe he can do work on the housing problem of the country.
And I defintely will not vote for Mike Defensor, Chiz Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano, Kiko Pangilanan and Ralph Recto. I believe Chito Gascon if he run for the senate is much better choice than them.
And for the Party List, Im definitely supporting Ang LadLad, the LGBT Party List that will be joining for the first time in party list election this year. I believe its about time. One of our nominees ( Danton Remoto) are actually pro impeachment and anti Gloria ( he was very active in anti Gloria Rallies. But I OK with it, I talked to him and I believe in his objectivity . Im actually the prime mover in New York City so right now Im busy helping the party raise funds. I am not party member though but I might volunteer to be the poll watcher here in NYC if my sked will allow it.
Rego, your pontificating about principles would sound less hollow if you give proper recognition to the continuing injustice of Gloria Arroyo’s illegitimate regime. When you say above that ‘I believe we need people like Teddy Boy Locsin, Winnie Monsod, and Joker Arroyo. People who can objectively opposed Mrs Arroyo when she behaving badly but can also objectively work with her in a reasonable project., it is clear that you still think Gloria’s illegitimate rule is a benign condition that can be set aside and/or traded-off against a laundry list of other issues related to governance. We should not confuse the legitimacy issue with matters related to governance. That’s the admin’s gameplan.
Anyway, thanks for profiling your wish list. I think the information you provided is useful and i will consider them in the next elections when Gloria would hopefully no longer be the problem. (For the party list, for now, consider me part of the great undecided.) In the meantime, as Stephen Covey says in his Seven Habits, ‘First things first‘. The overriding issue today is Gloria’s legitimacy and we have to resolve this before we can move on to tackle issues related to good governance.
There is nothing unfair about voting for honest to goodness opposition candidates (e.g. like Jinggoy and Goma). Unlike the judiciary, the legislative branch does not assume that its members will be non-partisan. In fact, partisanship is built into the selection process. With wishy washy candidates, it’s hard to know where they stand, what their true agenda is and whether or not they represent the will of their constituencies. It has been all too easy to project an image of staying above the fray (a-la Pontius Pilate) and hide behind a veneer of objectivity which in reality is just a code word for duplicity.
Impeachment itself is a public process so both sides will have the chance make their case in front of the people. If the process is seen by the people as unfair or not credible either way, then the aggrieved side can always resort to People Power.
Or the first thing that need to be done is to realy understand where your negative feelings are coming from and deal with it and be responsible about it….
Rego, let’s dispense with the pop-psychology and stick to matters of public concern so the discussion stays relevant.
the thing is there will never be public victory without private victory. you have to deal with your self first and foremost before you can effectively deal with other people or even public officials like GMA and other politicians.
That’s a motherhood statement that i could agree with. However, in this forum, it is the message and not the messenger that matters.
A quote…
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
— Mohandas Gandhi
Gandhi does not know Philippine politicians.
UP student, Are you saying that Filipino politicians do not have disagreements? Do not have honest disagreements? Or do not have honesty?
Tony… were you the one asking me about a peso-value to a Filipino life? The Philippines has codified the answer, and it is fifty-million pesos.
…
Sec. 2. Any public officer who, by himself or in connivance with members of his family, relatives by affinity or consanguinity, business associates, subordinates or other persons, amasses, accumulates or acquires ill-gotten wealth through a combination or series of overt criminal acts as described in Section 1 (d) hereof in the aggregate amount or total value of at least Fifty million pesos (P50,000,000.00) shall be guilty of the crime of plunder and shall be punished by reclusion perpetua to death.
(REPUBLIC ACT NO. 7080 :[As Amended by Republic Act No. 7659 (The Death Penalty Law)] AN ACT DEFINING AND PENALIZING THE CRIME OF PLUNDER )
rego
there is no way you could change the mindset of cvj. personality driven arguments rather than hard facts. in fact I also have doubts if they really are for love of country.
from D. Torrevillas of philippine star
Clearly, there’s a lot going for the Arroyo administration in terms of its capacity to deliver on its social payback tone. What really matters is that it has the funds to deliver on its promises to the people, having nursed the economy back to real good health with its fiscal reforms. This makes me wonder if anyone outside of its forces will even bother to take the opposition seriously during the mid-term elections. With its agenda solely to topple the President (that’s according to the united opposition’s campaign manager, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay), the opposition might as well have said its main goal is to disrupt this virtuous cycle of growth and development at all costs. Only extremists can appreciate that sort of crusade. And there are very few of such ilk among us Filipinos.