Akala ata ng mga Noynoyians eh puro integrity lang ang kailangan para ma-resolba lahat ng problema ng Pilipinas. How about real know-how on how to solve corruption for starters? Noynoy doesn’t have that, even if we give him his integrity.

BenK,

It would certainly be on my top ten list of stupid things that occur in the Philippines when people get together on a tropical island and figure out how to make life difficult rather than easy.

The regulatory malfeasance illustrated by the non-availability of banks and ATMs during the spending holidays, when people want their money but the government won’t let them get at it,
ranks high, too.

Most of the stupidities here seem to hinge on the notion of authority over consideration, or what I would term the arrogance of ego that is rampant whenever one Filipino assumes a position of any power whatsoever over another Filipino (shopkeeper to government worker to policeman to bank executive to COMELEC to President). Most guards, strangely enough, are relatively polite, something they deserve to be proud of, as a collective of professionals. People who get their jollies by pretending some God-given superiority over others are insensitive twits who wouldn’t comprehend the Golden Rule if it were explained to them by a five-year old.

The air of superiority in my own judgments are, of course, excluded from such notion of twitishness . . .

Joe

Was that not just about the most idiotic thing you ever heard? I knew Nick Perlas had no chance to win, and quite honestly, he’s a little too Ralph Nader-ish for my tastes, but he was actually the only one who really did a complete job of the preliminaries required to be a legitimate candidate. I took the fact that COMELEC is actually given the authority to pre-judge someone’s ability to fund and manage their own campaign as just another sign of the impending ruin of this country.

I always thought of our Filipino culture as the actual “evil empire” in this country, hehehe.

2010-elections differs a bit from 2004 elections, so says MLQ3. MLQ3 notices more interest in candidates’ platforms (which is true: a few newspaper columnists have asked and asked and asked). Still, the normal arguments of dynasties-”my last name is more odorific than yours!” and rallies with dancers and free medical check-ups persist.

Happy Holidays!!!

Ceteris paribus… with all things being equal… if all the presidentiables are like persons with an LBM and their direction is going to the restroom…. Ignoy is the only without any TISSUE PAPER (platform) or water (to do list) in the faucet.

That’s a good analogy Mr jethernandez.

Everyone wants a Philippines that is just, peaceful, corruption-free, and prosperous. So politicians who say they are going to “implement” those and even present “platforms” that use a lot of nice words that reveal no more than a “will” to implement these in effect say nothing about what they plan to do.

They may as well be beauty contestants saying they wish for “world peace” and “an end to poverty” in the interview portion of the contest.

Unfortunately gone are the days when one can say all of these with the benefit of the backdrop of a Marcos disctatorship providing a stark contrast to all that goodness of intent. Today there is nothing left to “fight” for in the sense that there is no truly “evil empire” to overthrow. There is only the democratic exercise of the 2010 presidential elections that lies ahead — not a “revolution”, not a laban, and certainly not a war — just a routine election of the type that happens every six years under our current Constitution.

The sooner we get over that moronic romanticism of a “fight” or laban that politicians’ campaign strategists frame everything around, the sooner we see with better clarity what the nature of the challenge is that lies ahead. We are choosing the next leader of the land — one who will preside over the fortunes of the nation over the next six years.

It’s simple, really™.

You can take the Pinoy out of the country, but you can’t take showbiz out of the Pinoy.

For most of them, that is…

(sigh)

Hi Ilda

Margallo has a false concept of Ignoy character. He’s trying to build up Ignoy as a cut above the rest of the presidentiables by putting borloloys in his argument the “listening” to the people and “doing their will”. Mababaw yan. E kung mga sira ulo ang pinakingan ni Ignoy. I presume that all of the presidentiables (except Ignoy) knows their priority policies… their experiences or engagements as legislators and appointed government executives speak for their character and their political and socio-economic agenda… reading their platforms will just be an added value to the political packaging. Ceteris paribus… with all things being equal… if all the presidentiables are like persons with an LBM and their direction is going to the restroom…. Ignoy is the only without any TISSUE PAPER (platform) or water (to do list) in the faucet.

Yeah. But it looks like everyone is giving in to their gut feel. Abe Margallo was right after all.

What’s so different about the coming election from the past elections? Nothing. Oh, some would say, we have Noynoy this time.

Celebrity endorsements, dancing and singing on the campaign trail. That’s Entertainment!

The candidates already differ with this  plain-vanilla issue of their support for the United Nations Millenium Development Goals.

It’s one thing to say YES or NO to a GOAL.

it is another thing to state how exactly you are going to achieve a goal, if you said YES to it.

Also, RHB is but one tool to use in implementing a population management policy. How about other tools? Does the candidate have any improvements on the RHB? Does he have proposed amendments? Innovations? Is this something he can achieve in 6 years?

And that’s only one item. How about approaches to global warming. The Philippines is an archipelago. There’s going to be a lot of coastal towns and cities that will be hit when sea levels rise. How are they going to lay down the foundations for an eventual migration for the lowlands to the uplands? Are they going to wait for people to drown? when upland property prices are already exorbitant? Let the 2016 administration figure it out?