ITs all about trust baby

Only 17 days to go and still a measly 15% of absentee voters were able to vote. Probably the remaining 85% will do so come election time. Or most likely they will not.

A big chunk of the population, according to a recent survey, is still largely undecided on who to vote for as their president. Some do not even want to vote. And this reflects the history of voting in this country--it's always ten to twenty percentum of the population that are unable to cast their votes for numerous reasons.

One, they belonged to the disfranchised. Two, some of these people work during elections and three, they simply don't want to vote.

In this automated elections, expect a bigger disfranchisement of people largely due to technical reasons. One, if some of people vote while their hands are dirty. Two, if they're eating suman or sticky rice while voting and three, there's this technical problem of transmission.

That justifies a parallel manual count.

Moreso, demands for a parallel manual count stems from mistrust. People simply do not trust the judgment and "wisdom" of the Comelec. Comelec simply don't want a parallel manual count--they just want a manual audit. The poll body says they lack the time to prepare and second, why waste billions of pesos spent for the lease of these PCOS machines when people don't trust the results anyway?

That's the thing--nothing will ever be changed in this country simply because we don't trust our fellow Filipinos.

Erap spent US$ 1.6 million for choppers

In the last ANC leadership forum, former president Joseph Estrada revealed that he's now penniless. He is, as he claims, property-less. He already gave everything, every single penny to the Ejercito Foundation.

Then, this news hits us.....

Erap just spent US$ 1.6 million pesos for helicopters. WTF? Where did he get that? Thought that he's "for the Filipino masses"?

That's a whooping 50 million plus pesos which should have been properly spent in either soup kitchens or other means in helping poor and destitute Filipinos.

Don't tell me that Erap will just use this to go the rounds throughout the country?

Aside from a brand-new helicopter, Erap also bought a jet and 20 vans. Wow.

The elites in this country are all the same.

Mrs. Arroyo as Modern day Maria Clara

Allies of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the purported president of the Philippines, says that no one has the right to ask Mrs. Arroyo about her plans in post-Arroyo 2010. They say her plans are private. And we have to respect that.


Ah, so that's it. We, the people who pay for her administration's survival with our taxes, are not entitled to peer into her malevolent mind. As the highest official in the Executive department, who commands millions of bureaucrats and trillions of pesos worth of public funds, Mrs. Arroyo has the responsibility of revealing what she plans to do after she relinquishes power in 2010.

What her allies intend is picture Mrs. Arroyo as our modern-day Maria Clara---a coy, shy and a decent Filipina, who hides behind a flowery panella. She loves the scent of power of an Ibarra yet is too shy to tell us about it.

The minute Mrs. Arroyo snatched power away from former president Joseph Estrada, she lost all the rights of privacy enjoyed by many. The only time she enjoys such privacy is when she goes to the toilet or signs her resignation letter.

We need to know if she plans to carve a family dynasty out of the Lower House; or if she wants to take her husband along for an extended honeymoon in a posh Portuguese villa or spends it in one of the slums of Sao Paolo, Brazil. Or, if she intends to snatch the honor from ex-strongman Macoy as the most villified and the most hated second dictator of these islands. We have the right to know. Why? So that we know what places to avoid having our vacations to or where to send our supoenas to the second we file tons of cases against Mrs. Arroyo and her family.

We don't want to live in the same neighborhood as the Arroyos. Do you want to live in constant fear, knowing that one of the biggest operators of the Philippines just lives nearby and thinks of how to get your precious family heirlooms?

Kidding aside, the reason why Malacanang refuses to reveal what Mrs. Arroyo's true intentions are is really simple---they don't want us to telegraph Mrs. Arroyo's escape routes come 2010. Yeah. Remember that the palace is paranoid on that. If Mrs. Arroyo says she intends to run for a Congressional seat, then, she has to step down first. If Mrs. Arroyo plans to do a Marcos, then, she needs stealth to do just that. Or, if she intends to just retire in the big arms of her sickly husband, then, she needs to tell us this early so that, we the Filipino People, would have the luxury of really getting down to business and choosing who among the present crop of counter-elites deserve a crack at the presidency. It's all simple really.

Who benefits from Philippine elections?

Only half of the expected 2 million Filipinos registered as new voters, says the Commission on Elections. As of June 2009, the total number of Filipino registered voters stand at only 44 million, down by about 4 million. COMELEC expects the number of registered voters to about 49.5 million before May 2010.

I also received distressing news that overseas Filipinos have not registered themselves yet. Only about 220,000 have registered. There is an estimated 10 million Filipinos working abroad and this is dismally low. What is the problem?

Are Filipinos giving up on elections as a democratic way to change things? Are they expressing their silent dissent that these elections are just a mockery of democracy and like always, nothing will change even if they register and vote come May 2010?

Many people whom I talked to express their disappointment with our democratic process. They said that nothing will ever change in this nation of 90 million Filipinos. And I can't blame them.

For the past twenty years after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, with more than ten elections participated in by the people, was there any real, substantial change in the way we do things? There is none.

The poor gets poorer and hungrier by the day, while the rich becomes richer by the minute. Grafters like Jocjoc Bolante still roam the hotels, coffee shops and streets of Manila while the likes of Legacy owner Celso delos Angeles and that Sulpicio Lines owner remain outside the reach of Justice.

Those road contractors who amassed billions of pesos enjoy their steaks while big-time operators have their field day buying properties left and right, using those hard earned taxes paid by the people.

Food, oil and electricity prices have started to strain the pockets of the middle class. The high costs of tuition fees are getting on the nerves of parents. Telecommunications companies, particularly Globe Telecommunications, act like tyrants and brutes, even blaming their subscribers for their vanishing pre-paid loads.

For all of these things, the poorer sectors of our society continue to get the brunt end of the bargain. They are the ones being victimized by VAT. They are the ones being asked to pay additional taxes. And they are the ones who are always blamed by the middle class whenever someone like a big-time gambler and womanizer wins the presidency.

In all of these, the elites are sure beneficiaries of democracy. They scot around the law whenever they are being accused of violating them. They get billions from public coffers. They swim in a pool filled with gems and jewels, while their farmers and feudal peons work the fields to harvest sugarcane.

They act like they're the leaders of this country, telling the people what to say, think and do. Every other three or six years, they go around town, urging people to vote just so that these people forget all their hardships and sufferings and take part in this charade called democracy.

Who are the prime leaders of this call for elections? Analyze and observe, my people. They are those who benefitted from public monies paid by us. They are part of the elite class who use elections as a social heroin and a pretext that we are in a democracy instead of a plutocracy. They are members of civil society who are part of the counter-elite, the social conscience of this despicable class. They don't want us to revolt. They don't want an authentic revolution here. They are the stooge of the ruling class. They are a big part of this decrepit system of virtual slavery. Through this thing called elections, the down-trodded and the poor, the disfranchised and the sufferers, the penniless and the powerless all continue their sorry stories of oppression and poverty. Elections are Greek tragedies that are used as bait to further enslave the huge mass of Filipinos.

So, who benefits from elections?