Archive
senator jamby madrigal declares candidacy for president
‘I’m running for presidency’—Jamby Madrigal
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net First Posted
12:14:00 07/31/2009
MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE 2) Senator Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal has announced she will join the 2010 presidential race.
“Today I cross the Rubicon. I am certain in my decision to run for the presidency of the Republic of the Philippines,” Madrigal said at a press conference in Makati Friday.
She said she would file her certificate of candidacy on November 30. Madrigal said her goal was to serve the nation faithfully. “It’s time for the nation to recover,” she said, adding she had no intention to settle for a vice presidential candidacy.
With Michael Lim Ubac, Philippine Daily Inquirer
tie a yellow ribbon for tita cory
yellow ribbons are now everywhere – in all types of walls, posts and fences around the city. it’s a testament to the outpouring support for cory. it’s telling everyone else that cory is in our prayers and by the millions.
as in real life, this is also true in the internet. putting the yellow ribbon has taken many forms to honor cory.
this is our contribution – we have added a yellow ribbon to our picture that we use in the internet. the yellow ribbon on the picture also mimics the letter “C” to remind us all for whom the yellow ribbon is.
that is the image that will appear in all our postings on the internet.
there are other versions. this one is from another blogger.
“In my own way of recognizing the importance of Cory Aquino’s contribution in restoring democracy and, for short period, unity in this country, I am encouraging all bloggers to include a 125×125 yellow ribbon avatar on their sites. You can get the codes to the 125×125 picture on the sidebar of this blog: PolitEkon“
in twitter, there is the twibbon, sample on the left. “Show support for “Yellow Ribbon for Pres. Cory” and add a twibbon to your twitter profile image”
to get the yellow ribbon, go to this site: http://twibbon.com/join/Yellow-Ribbon-for-Pres-Cory
at facebook users are being asked to change the picture in their profile to the yellow ribbon.
get your own yellow ribbon at the internet.
the obama-arroyo meeting: arroyo says obama “cordial, warm, welcoming”; obama says “i’m sure she thinks i’m much younger than she expected”. huh?
Pool was ushered into the Oval Office about 3:45 p.m. for statements by Obama and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines. The two leaders sat on flanking chairs in front of the fireplace.
Obama praised Arroyo for her efforts to fight terrorism, and her help in dealing with the problems of Burma and North Korea. He noted the Philippines is hosting a conference next year on nuclear non-proliferation. “We’re going to have a busy agenda together,” Obama said.
He said the Philippines is a small country, but, to use a boxing metaphor, it “punches above its weight in the international arena.”
Arroyo thanked the U.S. for its “soft power” in helping the Philippines build roads, schools, and bridges. She said her country backs U.S. efforts in Burma and North Korea. Praised Obama’s plans to battle global warming, which threatens “disaster 
for our country.” She thanked Obama for his “new engagement in our part of the world.”
A Philippine journalist asked each leader his or her impression of the other. Arroyo called Obama “cordial, warm, and welcoming.”
Obama joked, “I’m sure she thinks I’m much younger looking than she expected.”
David Jackson
USA TODAY
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/07/68495803/1
————–
read other reports on obama-aroyo meeting:
- RP-US ties at forefront of Arroyo-Obama meeting – http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/30/09/rp-us-ties-forefront-arroyo-obama-meeting
- Pelosi welcomes Arroyo to Capitol Hill – http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/30/09/pelosi-welcomes-arroyo-capitol-hill
obama-arroyo meeting: talks can touch on arroyo’s legacy (patay tayo dyan!)
obama being elected as the first black president has made history in the 
US in a most major way. his taking on the presidency has inspired not only the whole nation of the america but also many other countries around the world.
arroyo is the president of the philippines, a third world country where even her countrymen do not see favor in her. arroyo’s performance ratings have been on the negative quarter to quarter for many years based on nationwide surveys. her trust ratings has gone through the same dismal performance.
arroyo has violated the constitution a few times. election cheating has been a lingering issue that continue to be an open wound where no closure has been achieved either way. allegations of corruption have been hurled a few times over many years.
and the latest one is the unsaid plans of arroyo after 2010 – will she step down from power and transfer it to the next elected president of the country? arroyo would have laid that one ot rest in her last SONA but chose to pussyfoot on it.
if obama touches on arroyo’s legacy will be touched on as the State Department executive has said – what will obama say? what will arroyo say?
will arroyo whip up a powerpoint presentation too?
US STATE DEPT EXEC SAYS
Talks with Obama could touch on Arroyo legacy
By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr
WASHINGTON – The talks between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and US President Barack Obama
have no fixed agenda and could touch on Ms Arroyo’s “legacy” when she leaves office next year, an official of the US Department of State said on Wednesday.
the SONA after – estrada says its ARROYONOMICS, bishop says macro is not down to earth reality
sttange bedfellows — a convicted criminal and a bishop of the catholic
church. but that is what happened – erap estrada and bishop lagdameo of the CBCP said the same thing.
erap just had it sexier with a new word – arroyonomics.
Estrada said that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s claims of economic gains in her Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) were “fiction,” charging that she “either lied or was gravely mistaken.”
“Arroyonomics is a kind of economics that is out of touch with reality and real facts,” Estrada said in a statement.
bishop lagdameo has this to say. not as sexy as estrada’s “arroyonomics” but with more details.
“The state of the nation should also be looked at from the experiences and eyes of the remaining millions who are still suffering from hunger, illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness and sickness,” said Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
“This would balance the picture,” Lagdameo said. “They were outside the SONA site.”
The Jaro archbishop said that Ms Arroyo spoke of macro-level “statistics which most do not understand.”
Macro not micro
“But the macro is not always reflective of the micro. Therefore, the state of the nation must also consider the millions who make up the micro-level and are missed in the statistics,” Lagdameo said.
estrada and lagdameo are making good points here. on the same day of the SONA, SWS released the latest hunger data where it said a high number of filipinos continue to experience hunger and has increased from previous. (click here: on the day of arroyo’s SONA 2009 – SWS survey release – hunger rose, 3 points to all time record high hunger)
Bloggers Says No to ConAss
Bloggers have shown their disgust over recent moves to amend the Constitution of the Philippines through a Cyber Protest vs ConAss called for by Bloggers Kapihan and other groups. Here is the article by E. Eder at The Manila Blog TimesA day before President Gloria Arroyo’s state of the nation address, Bloggers Kapihan and Facebook group Pilipinas Kontra ConAss led a blog action day against House Resolution 1109, which seeks to convene Congress into a constituent assembly.
The House of Representatives adopted the resolution last July 3.
Bloggers Kapihan compiled a list of bloggers who participated in the blog action day:
- {caffeine_sparks}: Cyberprotest Blogaction Day against Conass
- adarna’s attic: A Legacy of Bribes, Betrayal and Blatant Corruption
- Alleba Politics: Blog Action Day 2009: No To Con-Ass
- ang lungga ng babaeng otes: Hihikab ka lang ba sa bahay mo? o Hihiyaw na…
- Ang Sa Wari Ko: Blog Action Day: No To Charter Change! #conass
- as is: BAD Day for Gloria in HK
- ch_ar_me: Dahil dapat lang na manindigan ako.
- Digiputz.com: Nothing short of humiliating
- Digital Manila: Blog Action Day for Real Change & SONA 2009
- ederic@cyberspace: Bakit nga ba ayaw natin sa #conass?
- Filipino Voices: Remembering ConAss
- inghinyero.com: Blog Action Day: ConAss My Ass
- JuanDerPul PINOY: Blog Action Day: No To ConAss
- kamalayan: (15.) do bad against con-ass!
- Lakan’s Blog: In Support to Blog Action Day 2009 – Condemn Con-Ass!
- Manual to Lyf: Blah Blah Blogs: Ayoko ng Chacha! hmph!
- MenardConnect.com: July 26, 2009 is Blog Action Day
- MGA KATHANG KATOTOHANAN: Break through the Wall
- New Philippine Revolution: No to CON-ASS in SONA
- Newz Around Us: We Join the Cyberprotest, Blog Action Day vs. #conass
- Pagod Ka Na Bang Maging Si Juan?: Pagod Na si Juan sa Con-Ass!
- Radical Pinoy: “Conasse” means…
- The Four-eyed Journal: Blog Action Day: No to #conass
- The Marocharim Experiment: Enough
- The Philippines and Beyond: Cyberprotest, Blog Action Day vs. #con-ass
- tonyocruz.com: Bring it on, Mrs. Arroyo. Filipinos raring to kick your #conass.
- Topics of surprising obscurity and variety of other small concerns…: NO to Constitutional Assembly !!
———–
wawam:
at the time HR 1109 early part of june, we ran a similar campaign – a call to pinoy blogs and bloggers to link blogs on Con-Ass HR 1109 . that effort yielded at least 103 blogs.
QTV Video – A look at Nicanor Perlas and Alternative Presidentiables
There are many alternative candidates for 2010. In fact it is the election wherein credible and worthy alternative candidates have finally emerged. Let us give them a chance to serve this country. Although I am not discredeting the other alternative presidentiables, it is just for me and based on credentials and accomplishments NICANOR “NICK” PERLAS is the most qualified among them… and can really make a difference for this country.
Orientation of Core Volunteers with Nicanor Perlas himself in Davao City on August 1
We are inviting those in DAVAO and NEARBY AREAS to help build and forge a country in which we can all be proud of…
I would like to cordially invite you to an Orientation of Core Volunteers with Nicanor Perlas himself in Davao City on August 1, Saturday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
The Orientation is an opportunity for Core Volunteers and potential volunteers to interact with Nicky for a full day, know more about his vision and political agenda and plans for the presidency, and exchange ideas on how to effectively help in supporting his candidacy. The Orientation is self-organized and we are pooling together whatever little resources that can be mustered locally to help Nicky at this stage, thus any help and resources that you can offer is most welcome
For those who are interested please contact Neth Dano –>by email at <nethdano@pacific. net.ph> or <nethdano@yahoo. com>, or through my mobile phone at (0917) 532-9369.
See you all on Saturday, and looking forward to productive collaborative efforts that we can all be proud of.
(Forwarded from original invitation to volunteers)
arroyo, one hot mama pussyfooting gives the bitchiest SONA
we are printing her excerpts of the reactions on GMA’a SONA 2009 from the press.
as you can read from the materials, the columnists seem to be enjoying themselves. we think this creative fun that these journalists are taking was spawned by the use of the word “pussyfooting” by arroyo in her SONA and specific words and thoughts delivered by arroyo in her SONA which we think amounts to no more that 4% of all the words but the things we remember from her SONA. the balance 96% of the words and thoughts? well, we’re not sure what they were. will review later.
we like to know the speechwriter of arroyo’s SONA. it is an interesting word, this “pussyfooting”.
i have to be honest, i was shocked by the word. okay, okay so the shock might have come from my mind taking a fall into the gutter. i knew what it meant but somehow my mind kept going there. perhaps it was the spam emails i was trying to delete from my in-box right before i read the transcript that got my mind into the gutter. my blog email account all of a sudden got impregnated with porn email of all sorts from debbie going to a lot of places and this certain pill that was colored blue.
remote, but was it also because there was so much talk about arroyo’s breasts and the implants that were not but turned out they were? having these thoughts that are about on the same page gets you lucid on the possibilities.
pussyfooting! whew!
it looks like i digressed from the topic. back to the topic…..
The ‘bitchiest SONA’
By Rina Jimenez-David“The bitchiest SONA ever,” is a general, if somewhat cheeky assessment of Monday’s State of the Nation Address, which is expected to be the last of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 9-year term.
Others have characterized it as her “payback SONA,” which gave her the chance not just to refute charges against her but to get back at her critics and opponents. Expectedly, the pro-Arroyo crowd greeted each barbed remark and pointed reference with laughter and applause, even if the targets remained unnamed. But the most telling indicator of the President’s intent was her own smug smile, displaying just how satisfied she was, having just poked and jabbed at people who had publicly castigated her.
That she should have used the occasion to deliver a valedictory, a summing up of her nine years of governance and an articulation of her philosophy of government, instead of a petty vendetta, seemed lost on her and her speech writers.
So when she side-stepped the issue of her leaving office by saying that the remaining year left to her term was a “long time,” she simply lent credence to speculations that she has plans of staying in power beyond 2010.
Never mind that the lasting legacy she leaves after “the bitchiest SONA” is of a leader intent on putting down those who dare cross her, more concerned with put-downs and insults than elevating rhetoric that should have prepared the nation for a new beginning at the end of her legal term.
No matter how tempting it was to use the SONA platform to respond to charges of corruption, incompetence and overweening ambition, the President should have resisted it, which is what true leadership is all about. Setting aside juvenile urges for the greater good and the sake of one’s legacy is a sign of maturity, after all. And that’s not what we saw that rainy Monday afternoon.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090729-217722/The-bitchiest-SONA
the title of today’s editorial at PDI:
Pussyfooting
She did this by means of trumpeting her achievements and more significantly deviating from the post-Edsa tradition established by President Corazon Aquino of making the last SONA of her term not merely a valedictory address, but also the formal start of the transition period from one administration to the next. Presidents Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos made such commitments in their final SONAs and categorically stated that they would hand over office to whoever was their duly-elected successor come June 30 of the following year. To borrow a word revived by Ms Arroyo, instead of following this democratic precedent, she pussyfooted around the question of handing over power on June 30, 2010.
What she didn’t pussyfoot around was the question of a transition. There will be none. “There is much to do as head of state, to the very last day,” she declared.
—
The President may have virtuously declared that she is more interested in governance than politics, but her determination to cling, limpet-like, to every single one of her presidential prerogatives makes her a compleat politician. Again, her apologists might object that every president is a politician, too, but there comes a time— specifically, the final months of a president’s term—when the politician must at least attempt to transform into a statesman.
This, the President refuses to do. She remains in campaign mode, demonstrating every indication that she intends to maintain a vise-like grip on her administration coalition and compete with her potential successors.
The result of the President’s pussyfooting around the question of her leaving office—not only when, but under what circumstances—will guarantee more politics, not less. It ensures that whatever governance takes place will be firmly subordinated to politicking since she will be aggressively ensuring that everyone continues kowtowing to her until high noon of June 30, 2010, not least because she refuses to commit to a specific role beyond that hour.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20090729-217716/Pussyfooting
Mixed message in Arroyo’s SONA
By Amando DoronilaThe speech disappointed civil society and political groups which demanded that she should use her last SONA to declare unqualifiedly that she is stepping down at the end of her constitutional term on June 30, 2010 in order to calm widespread public unease over her political intentions after she serves out her term. Instead, the President stoked public uncertainty with glib prevarications and double talk that indicated that she is not exiting but clinging tenaciously to office.
In a well-applauded segment of her speech, the President said: “At the end of this speech, I shall step down from this stage… but, not from the presidency.” She added emphatically, “My term does not end until next year. Until then, I will fight for the ordinary Filipino. The nation comes first. There is much to do as head of state—to the very last day.”
Stepping down after the closing bar of the SONA was not the clamor. The clamor is, “Quit on June 30, 2010. We have had enough of you.”
But she said, “A year is a long time. There are many perils that we must still guard against.” She did not say that the “many perils” might include the usurpation of power.
She did not touch the contentious issue of constitutional change that has stoked political unrest each time it is pushed by her congressional cohorts. All she said was, “I never expressed the desire to extend myself beyond my term.”
True, but this is dishonest. There were many voices who expressed this desire on her behalf as proxies. One of them was former Speaker Jose de Venecia, whom she lambasted in her speech by inference. De Venecia sponsored proposals to amend the Constitution to a shift to a parliamentary system, which could have given her the opening to run for member of parliament and from there stand for prime minister. She said, “The noisiest critics of constitutional reform tirelessly and shamelessly attempted Cha-cha when they thought they could take advantage of a shift in the form of government. Now that we feel they cannot benefit from it, they oppose it.”
Prayer Vigil In Washington DC on July 30 for the obama-arroyo meeting
received from wawam twitter account:
Pray for the Philippines
President Barack Obama will host a visit from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines this week.
Recognizing the human rights abuses that have occurred in the Philippines in recent years, a Prayer Vigil (PDF) will take place in Washington, DC on July 30, 2009 at noon.The Presbyterian Washington Office is among the sponsors of the vigil.
If you cannot come to Washington at that time, consider organizing a prayer vigil where you are.
If you cannot organize a vigil, consider praying on your own that justice and peace will be attained in the Philippines.
If you cannot pray on July 30, pray on another day. Pray every day.
http://presbyterian.typepad.com/peacemaking/2009/07/pray-for-the-philippines.html
2nd milestone reached by 2010 Presidentiables Blog – 35,000 hits
sometime yesterday july 27, 2009 2010 presidentiables reached the second milestone – it got 35,000 hits. this is an impressive growth considering as recent as july 22, it reached the first milestone of 25,000 hits.
as of this writing, it is at 36,000 hits with 11,000 hits made in the last few days on the SONA 2009 topic. this growth represents a +44% growth in 5 day’s time behind the SONA.
as of this writing, 2010 Presidentiables has tripled in hits versus previous month june 2009. from the beginning of the year, at 2,000 hits, the blog grew to 36,000 or x18.
we like to think all the readers and contributors to this blog for reaching this new milestone.
here now
1mprayers
2thousand10
alexangelph
antenna1
dandansoy
doorkn0b
shenbrood
wawam
xyz123
The Presidentiables Blog 
Readers Speak Up