Nicanor Perlas and Our Battle for New Politics and Inner Change

Immediately upon the disqualification of Nicanor Perlas, this blog had removed him from the poll and perhaps some smiled and said, “I told you so…”  But is it something to be happy about or is it something that we have to take a deeper meaning into account?

Conrado De Quiros, a known opinion maker and columnist of the inquirer gives us a glimpse of the reality about Nicanor Perlas in his article, “Nuisance“

Perlas’ credentials are unassailable. He is easily the most brilliant mind to have joined the presidential race. I know what you’re thinking: “If he’s brilliant, why did he join the race?” Precisely because he is—in ways that defy conventional wisdom. Whether he personally wins or not, he gives this country a chance to win. Not least by listening to his views on the environment, a thing that holds life-and-death consequences for us today.

What most of us fail to see is that although Perlas is not as eloquent as others in terms of public speaking he had already done so much for our country and even contributed to the change in the world politics.  He was the one which convinced then President Ramos and then APEC to adapt sustainable development principles in 1992 which stopped the APEC rich nations into overrunning the economies of poor countries including the Philippines, not to mention of course his contribution in stopping the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, banning of 32 pesticide formulation, fighting against corruption in government, microfinance, bio-dynamic agriculture and more.

In an online petition, “Let Nick Run” which was spearheaded by International supporters of Nicanor Perlas you can’t deny how he was respected by people from around the world.

Rebekah Rice, New York says,

“I have deep respect for Nicanor Perlas as a serious candidate for president of the Philippines. His international contacts in the United States are superb– here we recognize him as a past and future world leader.”

David Suzuki Professor emeritus of the Sustainable Development Research Institute University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., Canada states,

Nicanor Perlas is a serious candidate for political office, not a nuisance. Humanity has undergone an enormous change in numbers, technological prowess, consumer demand and a global economy. We have become so powerful that we are undermining the very life support systems of the planet. But we cling to our political and economic priorities, that we are blinded to the reality that it is nature that sets limits that we have to respect or else our survival is put at risk. The Philippines illustrates the problems afflicting all of humanity – unsustainable population growth, pollution, deforestation, ocean depletion and pollution, and so on. The challenge we face is to shift our perspective from one in which we and our political and economic institutions set the priorities to one in which we recognize that our health, well being and survival are utterly dependent on the state of nature and the natural world must be respected as setting the limits and parameters for human activity. As we saw at Copenhagen, the meetings failed because we cling to our political borders and raise economic issues and fail to acknowledge the supremacy of nature’s limits. I believe it’s people like Nicanor Perlas, who is internationally recognized for his work, who are providing the perspective we need to find truly sustainable solutions. You are fortunate in the Philippines to have a candidate like Perlas to raise these issues. I wish we had such prominent people in my country and I urge you to approve of his candidacy so that serious issues can be faced in public discourse.

Anatoli Cepeda, Sweden shares his views and says,

It is clear why I want Nicanor to be the next president of the Philippines; the reason is that he has always done what has been the best for the people, even when he had to put his own life at stake. He is giving hope to millions and made, and is still making a contribution to the worlds nature, spirit and morality. He is not keeping a secret what he stands for and he always tries to live up to his word. I had the pleasure to meet him once during a weeks workshop together with him, but he made a strong impact on me beyond of what I had read about and of him. To have Nicanor Perlas as the president of the Philippines will not only be a great victory for the people of the Philippines, but for the whole world. He has made the impossible possible before, its time again.

The petition was at present signed by 1,865 individuals representing more than 50 countries.  It is remarkably the first ever petition and protest of the disqualification of a presidential candidate that involved people from around the world.

Will we, his own kababayan and fellow Filipinos not realize the chance Nicanor Perlas offers us?  Will we just let it past and again vote for candidates who offers us much of the same?

This is not more about Nicanor Perlas but about our resolve to finally rise from the ashes and be reborn as a Phoenix in a process of inner change and new politics.

Are we ready for our full potential as a nation and as a people? I hope we are for the time is now and tomorrow might be too late.

manila standard today poll – aquino maintains dominant front runner lead

this manila standard today survey is the 4th nationwide survey conducted in early december that has consistently put noynoy aquino as the dominant front runner in the 2010 presidential elections. the other hree  are the SWS poll commissioned by Business World (click here: SWS Business World Presidentiable Poll – aquino has dominant lead at 46.2%), the december 2009 Pulse Asia poll (click here:  pulse asia december 2009 senatoriables poll – to win, the challenge is differentiation)  and the December 2009 SWS best leader poll (click here: SWS November Presidentiables Poll – aquino holds dominant lead, villar moves up to be a real threat, teodoro stays at no consequence).

all 4 nationwide surveys have basically the same results:

• noynoy aquino is the dominant dront runner with at least 45% rating.
• 2nd is manny villar at best 27% and a far second to aquino.
• 3rd is erap estrada, at best 18%.
• gilbert teodoro is among the laggards, at best geting 5%.
• villanueva consistently gets 1%-2%.
• gordon whose name was included only in the december polls get 1% to 2%.
• all others get negligible ratings.

with 4  nationwide surveys having basically the same results says they are pretty solid and is a strong view of voter sentiments.   

SENATOR Benigno Aquino III has maintained a double-digit lead over Senator Manuel Villar Jr. in the race for the presidency, the latest poll commissioned by Standard Today shows.

The nationwide face-to-face survey of 2,500 respondents conducted from Dec. 6 to 12 showed Aquino with 46 percent of the vote, followed by Villar with 27 percent and ousted President Joseph Estrada with 17 percent. Administration candidate Gilberto Teodoro garnered 5 percent.

The survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

All candidates improved from the previous Standard Today poll in November, picking up votes that had gone to Senator Francis Escudero, who has dropped out of the race, and from the ranks of the undecided, which fell to only 2 percent from 4 percent last month.

In the December poll, Aquino picked up 5 percent, Villar 3 percent, Estrada 5 percent, and Teodoro 2 percent. Evangelist Eduardo Villanueva, who was unlisted in November, managed 2 percent in December. Senators Richard Gordon and Jamby Madrigal each got less than 1 percent.

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2009/december/28/news1.isx&d=/2009/december/28

SWS Business World Presidentiable Poll – aquino has dominant lead at 46.2%

22 December 2009

BusinessWorld-SWS December 5-10, 2009 Pre-Election Survey: Aquino (46%), Villar (27%) and Estrada (16%) lead Presidential race; Roxas (43%) and Legarda (32%) lead VP race; Santiago, Revilla, and Jinggoy Estrada lead Senatorial race

Social Weather Stations

The new national scores in the Presidential race show Senator Noynoy Aquino, Senator Manny Villar, and former President Joseph Estrada ahead, according to the BusinessWorld-SWS Pre-Election Survey of December 5-10, 2009.

Aquino, Villar, and Estrada lead the Presidential race

The question asked for the Presidential preferences was, “Sa mga sumusunod na pangalan sa listahang ito, sino po ang malamang ninyong iboboto bilang PRESIDENTE ng Pilipinas, kung ang eleksyon ay gaganapin ngayon?” [Among the names found in this list, who will you probably vote for as PRESIDENT of the Philippines, if elections were held today?]. The respondents were furnished with a BusinessWorld-approved list of 11 candidates to choose from, and gave their answers orally.

All lists were in alphabetical order, and included nicknames, as practiced by the Commission on Elections on election day.

From the list of 11 Presidential candidates, 46% chose Benigno Aquino III, 27% Manuel Villar, Jr., 16% Joseph Estrada, 5% Gilberto Teodoro, Jr., 1% Eduardo Villanueva, and 1% Richard Gordon [Chart 1].

Jamby Madrigal (0.2%), Oliver Lozano (0.1%), Mario Crespo (0.1%), John Carlos delos Reyes (0.1%), and Jesus Nicanor Perlas (0.03%) each obtained fractional numbers. Four percent could not give an answer.

http://www.sws.org.ph/

eddie villanueva’s “eddie ako” tv ad going for wonder girls’ “nobody”?

eddie villanueva’s tv ad using the  music video approach has made us wonder - did eddie villanueva attempt to go to the wonder girls’ “nobody” dance step phenom that has swept the country?

“nobody” is the undisputed national dance step of the year where is is danced by everyone, children and adults in all sorts of gatherings and parties. you can’t be in if you do not know the dance steps.

we wonder if villanueva was able to achieve what the wonder girls were able to do to our dance crazy country? 

there are other things that bothered us about villanueva’s tv ad:

we understand the intent of this sequence - to show that people from all walks of life are helping the villanueva campaign to move ahead. but this sequence also shows, unintended perhaps, that the villanueva campaign has stalled, that it has failed to move forward. you want to show only the good side in any ad.

this one made us cringe - the roof of the mini-bus was full of people, most were seated, some were standing while the bus was moving. i was half-expecting to see people falling off the roof and getting crushed by the bus. again, we understand the intent - to show that there is an over-flow of people joining the villanueva campaign, but they did not have to dramatize that by showing something very unsafe as this one where people are on the roof of a moving bus.

The 2010 Presidentiables Blog about to reach 200,000 hits, a new milestone

As of this writing, The 2010 Presidentiables Blog is set to reach 200,000 hits within the next 10 days or so. This is once again a new milestone for the blog. We like to thank all the readers who come to this blog, those who add the link to this blog in their own blogs and various bulletin boards for helping this blog grow to where it is now.

We also like to acknowledge and thank those who come to this blog to post their comments and views on topics discussed in this blog. This blog has 443 posts or topics and it’s readers have posted 3,088 comments, an amazing display of reader participation and interaction among readers. We think this kind of participation and interaction is one of the key reasons that make this blog special and relevant to readers.

We thank all of you for your patronage of this blog.

richard gordon’s “the transformers” tv ad – a boring calling card

richard gordon is a creative man. who can forget his wow philippines campaign when he was with tourism? he also had “aim high olongapo” when he was rebuilding the city while he was mayor. it did not surprise us that he has “the transformers” as the line for his and fernando’s presidential and vice-presidential run.

but this ad does not deliver and in fact disappoints in creativity. it did not have the spark of the slogans we have come to know gordon is popular for. it has “the transformers” as a tagline in the end but it ends there.

we do not think the idea of “the transformers” was played up in any meaningful way in this ad. what this ad is a straight short resume of gordon, highlighting the key achievements in his career as a national leader. it is a short introduction of who richard gordon is.

it is not a failed ad, it is just too straight forward and close to being boring. it is certainly not creative. it’s a ho-hum ad, something you will be satisfied to see once and will not look forward to seeing it again. you would most probably leave the tv set to go get a snack or take a leak when you see this ad come up again on the tv.

we think this ad had a simple objective – introduce richard gordon to the voters. it is like sending out calling cards to the voters. it has achieved that in some measure but what a pity they did not make this ad more hard working.

the ad fails in one aspect – it did not make something out of the idea of  “the transformers”. the line was there but it was not the core message nor was it dramatized in any meaningful way in the ad. the line has a lot of potential for creative work but they did not take it.

to successfully make use of the line,  a lot of strategic and creative thinking need to be done. it is an idea that many of the young are familiar with, the transformers movie being one of the most successful in the last couple of years. the line being so much connected to the movie, the strategic and creative work need to find a way to pull it down to election talk and the presidency in ways easily understood and persuasive to a mass market and those who has not seen the movie. in fact even to those who have seen the movie, it needs some re-tooling for them to appreciate the concept for a presidential bid.

perhaps gordon will make use of it in the next ad, with the richard gordon calling card already distributed to voters. caution – it is a line pregnant with risks.  

happy new year – 2010!

manny villar’s “all out war on poverty” platform

“We in the Nacionalista Party will fight for the poor. No single person or political party has waged a full and all-out war against poverty and sincerely fought for genuine social reform in our country. We rise up to that challenge now,” NP spokesman and senatorial candidate Gilbert Remulla said in a statement issued Sunday.

read in full here: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20091227-244174/Villar-launches-all-out-war-platform-against-poverty

we don’t know if this is a real change or evolution in platform for many villar, but this announcement takes the villar presidential campaign on an “all out war on poverty”.  we will assume this is a real change in platform but the reason why another thing crossed our mind is that this “announcement” was paired with a spill on manny pacquaio joining the Nacionalista Party and how both manny and manny were once poor and through their own efforts became well off.

The latest member of the NP family, People’s Champ Manny Pacquiao, also came from the poor and, like Villar, has experienced what it feels like to be impoverished in this country, said Remulla.

“Senator Villar and Manny Pacquiao represent the ideals of the Nacionalista Party. We believe that all of us can rise from poverty through hard work, perseverance and a sense of pride in ourselves.”

(read in same article, above.)

the pro–poor platform in philippine politics is not new. almost all politicians promise to solve the country’s poverty problem. and rightly so,  it is the country’s number 1 problem. while many politicians make the promise of solving poverty, almost an equal number have failed at delivering their promise.

it is a populist political platform with erap estrada winning the presidency based on that promise. estrada seem to have dropped that platform, he is now on the idea of sentimentalist platform of the return of an ex-presidency to presidency.

a big difference in villar’s battle poverty problem is that he has laid down what we think are very strong foundation or in advertising terms strong ”reason why” on how he intends to solve it. based on villar’s ads, he will be able to solve the country’s poverty problem on the basis of his own experience where he (and pacquaio) was once poor and now he is rich. he intends to fix the country’s poverty  based on his own experience.

“But the government has a role to play, like making available livelihood opportunities for all those who need a helping hand and making sure that the funds intended for the welfare of the people do not end up in someone else’s pockets,” the spokesman said..

A self-made businessman, a respected statesman and an experienced executive officer, Villar remains the “single, most competent” presidential aspirant among the list of hopefuls in next year’s elections, Remulla said.

same news article: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20091227-244174/Villar-launches-all-out-war-platform-against-poverty

we are expecting new tv ads for villar, this time including manny pacquaio touting this new platform. will villar’s anti-poverty platform work for him?

view villar’s new ad here, click: manny villar’s “magtatapos ng kahirapan” tv ad – a bold shift in advertising strategy, 5 stars!

 

read about villar’s new tv ad, click here :  manny villar’s “magtatapos ng kahirapan” tv ad – a bold shift in advertising strategy, 5 stars!

merry christmas to all!

merry christmas to all!

who will be the better president – noynoy aquino or manny villar? the 2010 Presidentiables Blog Face-Off #2, the poll leaders

we have face-off #1 among the laggards in the polls, villanueca vs.

manny villar

noynoy aquino

gordon, we are now opening this face-off between the leaders in the polls – noynoy aquino versus manny villar.

we will not include any write-up on these two leaders as they are already well-known and does not need any introduction from this blog. though we will not include an introduction, we encourage their supporters to post the information on these two candidates in the comments section.

just a few things on these two leaders:

noynoy aquino has been dominating the surveys done by practically all polling companies and even the two major companies SWS and Pulse Asia. aquino has stood his ground at being the dominant leader in the polls.

villar has also been a strong achiever in the polls. although he is at 2nd place and his ratings are almost one half of aquino, he has been consistently at the 2nd place spot also in all polls. not only that, villar;’s ratings has not dropped and even experienced growth despite the aquino onslaught.

we think villar is the only true contender among all the presidentiables. to put it another way – we think the 2010 election is for aquino to lose or for villar to win.

between the two leaders, who are you voting for in may 2010? tell us why.

views from a fil-am living in NY on choice of presidentiable

posting here a comment by Frank from NY, Wall Street posted here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/presidentiables-as-of-mid-november-2008/#comment-4175

——

You know, I have been living in the US for over 30 years and I am still waiting until the Philippines becomes a “First World” country. I have been to Europe like Spain-Italy, Africa, and China.

I cannot believe how they perceive and think of Filipinos. I almost got involve with a physical fight when they said Filipinos are DUMB and STUPID! Yes, they said Filipinos are stupid and dumb! This one hurts me because it reflects on every Filipino people who are living outside of the Philippines. “I’ve been to your country; your country is full of thieves and corruption in your government! Too many beggars, street people living in shanties along the river and using the river as their own bathroom”. I rather go to Thailand or Malaysia than go to your dirty country”.

I can go on and on… I cannot believe that this is how the world perceives us. I told my wife, this one starts from the top. If the Philippines have good leaders in the past and our country is prosperous, we will not hear this kind of comments.

Now, I do not know every presidential candidate, all I know on what I heard in the news. Going through and reading all the blogs, I became curious and did my research on every candidates and what they represents.

pulse asia december 2009 senatoriables poll – to win, the challenge is differentiation

with so many candidates, the key challenge for the senatoriables is differentiation. there is a good number of candidates who already have a national persona and a politicial base, the key for newbies is to get at least one head higher than the rest.