UNHR: “The President-elect (Duterte) fools no one when he says he is not calling on people to be killed.”

 

 

Journalists’ killings: UN experts urge Philippines president-elect to stop instigating deadly violence

GENEVA (6 June 2016) – Two United Nations independent experts on summary executions, and on freedom of expression today urged Philippines president-elect Rodrigo Duterte to stop instigating deadly violence immediately. The experts strongly condemned Mr. Duterte’s recent statements suggesting that journalists are not exempt for assassination.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr. Duterte reportedly stated that most journalists killed in the country have done something wrong. ‘You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,’ the President-elect said, suggesting that victims were partly to blame for their fate.

“A message of this nature amounts to incitement to violence and killing, in a nation already ranked as the second-deadliest country for journalists,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on summary executions, Cristof Heyns. “These comments are irresponsible in the extreme, and unbecoming of any leader, let alone someone who is to assume the position of the leader of a country that calls itself democratic.”

For the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom opinion and expression, David Kaye, “justifying the killing of journalists on the basis of how they conduct their professional activities can be understood as a permissive signal to potential killers that the murder of journalists is acceptable in certain circumstances and would not be punished.”

“This position is even more disturbing when one considers that Philippines is still struggling to ensure accountability to notorious cases of violence against journalists, such as the Maguindanao massacre,” the human rights expert added.

Mr. Duterte is further reported to have questioned the legal guarantees to journalists who are perceived to have made defamatory comments. ‘That can’t be just freedom of speech. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person,’ the President-elect stated.

“Such provocative messages indicate to any person who is displeased by the work of a journalist or an activist, for example, that they can attack or kill them without fear of sanction,” Mr. Kaye stressed.

The President-elect has also been reported as promising to pay bounties to police and military officials for every drug lord they turn in. ‘I’m not saying that you kill them, but the order is dead or alive,” Mr. Duterte reportedly said in a televised news conference.

“Talk of ‘dead or alive’ has no role to play in any state that claims to uphold human rights in law enforcement,” Special Rapporteur Heyns stressed, while recalling the limits imposed by international instruments on the conduct of law enforcement forces.

“Intentional lethal use of force may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life and not for common policing objectives,” he said. “The President-elect fools no one when he says he is not calling on people to be killed.”

 

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20061&LangID=E

change has arrived – PDI uses the word “fuck” on its front page, a first in PHL journalism

today, June 3, 2016 is a news day in the philippines. you may not feel it yet but you can certainly read it off at today’s issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

for the first time in this country’s history and history of Philippine journalism, a national newspaper has used the word “fuck” on the title of an article on its front page. no bleeps, no asterisks but good old, plain “fuck” in all it’s four letter glory.

not only was it used on the front page, it was used on the second lead article in the newspaper, right below the lead article for the day.

beyond the initial shock or glee from reading the word on the newspaper, we think there is a deeper reason for its use.

we are describing it as poetic. in simple terms, it can be described as PDI is making a point here.

first the poetry in today’s PDI issue – look at the whole front page. top of the page is a big photo of outgoing president Noynoy Aquino beside the losing LP presidential candidate and Aquino’s cabinet members having wholesome fun on the videoke.

from that giant wholesome picture, right below it is the headline: “Seek to understand Duterte, aides urge” accompanied by a photo of Duterte here he seems to be smirking and close to looking arrogant and below it the magic word “fuck” in the article “Don’t fuck with me, he tells media”. then on the far left is the article explaining the wholesome picture on top of the newspaper “P’noy. Mar lead LP in singing blues away”

next, we think all that was intentional. it was designed and laid out that way with exact purpose. these are the messages :

• draw  contrast between the outgoing and incoming presidents of the country
• the outgoing president ad administration is all about fun and wholesome
• the incoming president and administration of Duterte is all about “fucking” (“we are all fucked”?)
• if not that, well at least the incoming president Duterte is not wholesome
• the big irony of it all is that as the headline says, we are supposed to “understand” the incoming president

the contrast that PDI painted is clear, done in words and pictures that we all understand even if we didn’t think about it too much. it is obvious and plain to see.

but none of this is PDI’s fault – they are just giving it to us in words and pictures the thoughts that we have been suspecting specially in the past few days if not thoughts we have known all along and all that based on actual words and actions by Rody Duterte.

PDI’s front page just might be the signs of the times. and the sign starts with the word “fuck”.

why Rody Duterte is wrong for the country – he inspires us be our worst #2016PHVote

this picture of a Duterte supporter displaying this poster during the last presidential debate in Luzon is prime example of why Rody Duterte is not right, is bad for the country and our people  – Duterte inspires us to be our worst. with Duterte, we think being stupid is the right thing to do and to be.

this Duterte supporter thinks telling those who will not vote for their candidate that they will be killed is okay, even smart and for sure something to be proud of. the supporter forgets or ignored that killing is a crime and not something decent people wish for others.

i am thinking this supporter thinks this is okay, as he will probably say it’s just a joke or these are just words. but that on itself is also wrong. it’s not a joke when you kill someone or when you are killed, the same way as it is not a joke to say you would have wanted to be the first to rape a dead victim who has been gang raped.

we take decency so lightly now, even our values and principles. Duterte has given us the example to do that. and by Duterte’s example we can be harming and hurting others now and just give it an excuse later or just apologize after the harm has been done.

this is now who we are as a people. we do not teach these things these values and thinking to our children, in fact we teach our children not to be like these. why then do we tolerate and follow the example of Rody Duterte?

 

 

Daang Matuwid – the Mar Roxas presidential bid killer #2016PHVote

This is a journey that started sometime in October 2015. that was a few weeks when Mar Roxas officially announced his candidacy with a big gathering at the historic Club Pilipino in Greenhills, San Juan City. The LP faithful were all there and President Noynoy Aquino was the main speaker who announced to the country that he was endorsing the candidacy of Mar Roxas for the presidency.

Daang Matuwid was the over-all theme of that launch. Aquino had declared that Mar Roxas was the best among the presidentiables who can continue Daang Matuwid. It worked, Mar Roxas ratings in the polls jumped from an anemic single digit to double digits. Around September 2015, Roxas’ ratings were at a number that made him competitive.

At around October, I sat down and did an analysis of what was happening. There were no data available yet at that time but based on my analysis, I thought Daang Matuwid would eventually hurt Roxas.

At around that time, I started to tweet about my thoughts about the Mar Roxas campaign. I did not exprssly say Daang Matuwid was an error, but I was tweeting about problems on the Mar Roxas campaign. I kept the Daang Matuwid as the problem to myself because I thought the Roxas campaign will eventually get it and change their campaign strategy. I thought it was best to keep it a secret, not revealed publicly as I did not want to give clues to Mar Roxas’ competitors,

 

 

 

The qualitative data are those available in the media – survey results from Pulse Asia, SWS and the Laylo Report.

 

 

 

Daang Matuwid is Mar Roxas’ brand positioning, it is what he wants voters to remember him by and in effect the basis for their support for his candidacy. He used Daang Matuwid in most of his TV ads either as a tagline or in the copy. Based on news reports, he  also mentioned this during his campaign sorties.

 

The power of an advertising positioning which in this case is Daang Matuwid is best measured by results. If this was the advertising positioning of a consumer goods brand, the best measure is market share first and box sales next. When market share and box sales go up or the goals are achieved, the advertising positioning is judged as successful. If it gives the opposite result, then it is a failure.

In this case the presidential surveys results is the best measure of how effective Mar Roxas’ Daang Matuwid brand positioning. The results are bad – after 8 months all that it got Roxas is flat ratings and flat ranking at 4th out of a field of 5 candidates.

There is no better quantitative data that proves Daang Matuwid killed the Mar Roxas presidential bid than the poll results.

 

 

we did an analysis of Mar Roxas’ Daang Matuwid brand positioning and from that analysis, though still not benefitting from data, the conclusion was it is bound to hurt Mar Roxas in this election.

this was posted here : http://wp.me/pnw03-1Z5 why Mar Roxas’ “Daang Matuwid” ad campaign is failing

 

Ads that have elements that are polarizing tend to fail / not do well in the market place. The ideal ad among other things is that it should only contain positive elements in it, and no negative elements.

 

 

Looking at the US elections, even Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders who belong to the same political party as Barack Obama are promising change. This is most obvious with Clinton who is a strong ally of Obama. She has never said she will just continue what Obama has done. In fact Clinton is promising many changes, some of them very major changes.

That is not true with Mar Roxas. Roxas very clearly states, he will just continue Daang Matuwid.

 

 

we have heard Mar Roxas very defensive on Daang Matuwid and the achievements of the Aquino administration. this did not help Roxas as it took away from him telling the people what his plans are for the country.  also, Daang Matuwid is the work and program of Aquino, not his and yet all its failings is being attributed to him too.

in effect, the more Roxas talked of Daang Matuwid either in its defense or to make a promise of continuing it, it is hurting the presidential bid of Roxas.

 

 

After 8 months of Daang Matuwid as Roxas’ brand positioning and spending more than P1 Billion pesos on it and getting only 4th in the ranking at the most, it should have been obvious that changes were needed  for the Mar Roxas campaign.

Being stuck at 4th for 8 months, they should have changed their campaign objective to getting switchers from the supporters of the other candidates. And if they thought of that as a campaign objective, then they would have looked at what needs to be changed in their campaign strategy,  Getting switchers mean attracting them to change sides. And in attracting them, they would have looked at what are the barriers as to why they have not switched to Roxas and/or what they can say to attract them. In political campaigns removing the negatives is as important as offering the positives. The Roxas campaign did not seem to do this.

This data was released sometime in February 2016. That was the first quantitative data that I saw which confirmed my analysis and conclusion on Daang Matuwid. The core of the points I was raising was that Daang Matuwid was hurting the Mar Roxas campaign. That was purely based on analysis using leanings and principles in marketing, advertising and brand positioning. This quantitative data confirmed my analysis.

And that was what led me to publish in my blog my thoughts on the Mar Roxas campaign, I finally had 2 quantitative data – this one and the trend line that was obvious in the Pulse Asia poll results.

 

 

The data speaks of what voters think of Mar Roxas, it tells us specifically why they are not voting Mar Roxas. They were not voting Mar Roxas because he was “masungit”, “elitista” or the allegations of his failures in his previous cabinet member jobs, it was about questions on his leadership qualities, his not having his own views and vision and his relationship with Aquino. They saw Roxas as a puppet of Aquino. And I suppose because of that they saw him unfit to be president.

We think this is the result of Roxas continuously talking about Daang Matuwid, something that everyone knows to be Aquino’s. Aquino per se or his close relationship was not hurting him but it was that he failed to show his own brand of leadership. Contrast that to his opponents, most notable Rody Duterte whose platform was essentially based on bravado and strong leadership. We are sure that if you ask people to compare Roxas to Duterte, they will say Roxas is a wimp compared to Duterte’s super hero status. On the basis of character, Roxas was inferior compared to Duterte.

The second biggest reason they are not voting Roxas is “might just be like Aquino, no change” at 16% directly supports the point I have made – that Daang Matuwid is a platform for the status quo, no change and no improvement.

 

 

–more to follow–

 

 

 

 

 

Rody Duterte on rape : “Dapat ang Mayor muna ang nauna (sa rape)”

English title : Rody Duterte on rape: “It should be that the Mayor be first (in raping her)”

this is the transcript of the video:

English : “They raped all the women. During the first assault, they retreated, they left behind who they used as cover. One of them is this lay minister who is Australian. I thought this was already a big problem. The Australian Embassy kept on calling.

When they went out, she was covered. I looked at her face. Mother fucker she looked very fair (?). She looked like an actress from America who is beautiful. Mother fucker what a waste. 

What went into my mind was that they raped her, all of them gang raped her there. I got angry because she was raped. Yes, that is also one reason, but she was very beautiful, it should be that the Mayor would have been first with her.”

this is the video :

 

the attack ad memes that the Mar Roxas campaign needs – since yesterday

sometime mid March, we posted a chart over twitter for the Mar Roxas campaign. at that point there were many data points that were showing the Roxas campaign was not going anywhere. Roxas’ ratings in the polls were not going up.

in many of Mar Roxas supporters’ minds was the question – can Mar Roxas till win the election? and other questions like – what can Roxas still do to win? is it too late for him?

those questions were being asked of me over at twitter since i had taken the view that the Mar Roxas campaign was failing. having a weak campaign was a view i took since November 2o15 when i started tweeting about it. that POV was based just on an analysis of the Mar Roxas ad campaign and the resulting brand positioning that Roxas has taken. it was anchored the ad campaign and brand poisoning of “Daang Matuwid” which is the main weakness.

at that time in November there were still a few quantitative data points to support my analysis and point of view. but that changed by  February 2016 when there were already an avalanche of data points that showed the Roxas campaign was failing –  poll results showed he was stuck at 4th place in a field of 5 candidates and his ratings were not moving at all, it was flat within the 18% to 20% range.

 

this will deal with number 3 on the above – “air attack ads vs Binay, Poe and Duterte”. they are Mar Roxas’ opponents who occupy the first 3 positions ahead of  his 4th ranking.

at this point, Mar Roxas’ campaign objective need to be : add  supporters by gaining from and converting supporters of his opponents to his side.

he is 4th and at best has 20% in the polls. those will not win the election for him. he will obviously need to go up to 1st with at least a 35% rating. that means he needs to take 15% points from his competitors. he needs to convert that many supporters of his opponents to his side,

one of the most effective ways to do that is to air attack ads against his opponents. attack ads are ads that question the credibility, put in doubt the abilities and correct the wrongs said or done by Roxas’ opponents. the target audience are the supporters of his opponents and the goal is to convince them that they are supporting the wrong candidate and instead shift their support for Roxas.

today, we saw over at twitter memes on Grace Poe based on her performance during the last second presidential debate. these are “fact check” memes – these memes are correcting the wrong things that Poe said during the debate. these to us is a form of attack ads.

there were many more “fact check” violations committed by Grace Poe during the debate. and even much more committed by the other candidates, Rody Duterte and Jejomar Binay.

over at Twitter, i suggested to the mar Roxas campaign and Mar Roxas supporters to do more fact check memes on Poe and specially the other opponents of Roxas.

memes are cheap to make but we think if done well and in good numbers, it can be effective specially if traditional media picks them up.

attack ads are what Mar Roxas needs. they are not a WAWAM!

 

 

ads of Mar Roxas’ competitors that worked for them, hurt Roxas

Part 2.

 

 

 

 

 

Mar Roxas 2 mini-attack ads – view them here

finally completed – these are the two (2) mini attack ads by Mar Roxas

this was the first one aired:

the emphatic ending of “higit sa lahat hindi ko kayo nanakawan” is an obvious reference to Jojo Binay.

 

this is the second one:

Roxas says:

• “walang drama” – refers to Grace Poe and her dramatics
• “hindi ako paawa” – refers to Jojo Binay
• “hindi ako siga-siga: – refers to Rody Duterte
• “hindi run ako abusado” – most probably refers to Jojo Binay
• “at hindi ako magnanakaw” – definitely refers to Jojo Binay

we think Binay had the most mention, 3 mentions out of 5 because he is #1 in he presidentiables survey. Poe and Duterte got one mention each because they are the other two contenders. Santiago did not get any mention because she is even lower than Roxas at the surveys.

what do you think of these ads? let us know by posting your comments here.

 

Duterte’s “bowling ball” TV ad is not a joke, it’s a wawam!

we first saw that ad on the internet. we found it amusing and we thought it was just a joke. a joke as in an ad that some teen-ager made on his computer and posted it on the internet. maybe the teen-ager submitted the “ad” to his high school teacher as a project for his Arts subject. we wondered what grade the highs school teacher gave the project.

we were wrong, it’s a real TV ad as we saw it aired at TV Patrol tonight. it was not a joke.

the ad is very simple, it communicates its message very simply. the analogy of Duterte as a bowling ball rolling over the pins of problems of the country. the visualization is something even young kids will understand. that is a good thing.

that is fine except that the ad has too many pins or problems of the country that as Duterte as the bowling ball rolls and each pin falls, we are unable to read the supers on each of the pins. in other words we could not read what problems Duterte promises to solve.

there are just too many pins or problems of the country that Duterte is promising to topple down. that leads to the biggest weakness on this ad – it is an over-promise. the ad is promising too many things that people might find it unbelievable.

it does not help that the ad does not say how Duterte will topple these problems or what is it in Duterte that will make him solve all the problems. in advertising terms, it does not have a “reason why”.

this is what this ad is all about :

• lists too many problems of the country that Duterte will solve
• too many for us to read what they are
• without telling us how Duterte will solve them
• or what in Duterte will allow him to solve them
• and that high number makes the ad unbelievable

conclusion : it’s a wawam!

 

Mar Roxas for the win – launch attack ads

this afternoon, we posted these on twitter :

we didn’t think the Mar Roxas campaign is doing well. in fact we think it is doing badly. we have the numbers on our side – Mar Roxas’ ratings in the surveys are flat at best and more importantly a slight decline in ranking.

while Roxas’ results  are flat and slightly declining, his key opponents Jejomar Binay and Rody Duterte are surging upwards.

the most impressive of the two is Binay who not only recovered but reversed his declining trend to a surge that has placed him at the top. that is a reversal in fortune in a most dramatic way.

Duterte who was a late entry into the race saw his numbers rise up to a competitive ranking in the surveys,

Binay zoomed up on the basis of his “nognog” ad campaign which he started to air a few weeks ago. Duterte has aired ads but his strength is on his positioning of tough on crime.

Roxas on the other hand aired forgettable TV ads based on “Daang Matuwid” which we thought was close to being boring and did not make any remarkable impression for Roxas.

we thought Roxas’ anemic TV ads is costing him the election. Roxas’ numbers remained flat behind these campaigns.

we thought attack ads would do Roxas well. actually, more than building Roxas, it will stop the rise of his opponents. Roxas’ opponents are clearly on an upward trend and that trend needed to be stopped. the attack ads will do that.

we also posted this chart:

the chart defines in broad, general terms the compass direction that the Roxas campaign should take.

we think Mar Roxas is the most qualified and most deserving among the presidentiables but that is not reflected in the results from the surveys. and we think that is being caused by the misplaced and weak marketing and advertising strategies and executions they have been airing.

the attack ads would be a great step in the right direction.

the winning ads of the 2016 Philippine election : as of January 2016

in no particular order:

Presidentiable Jejomar Binay’s “Nognog” TV ad campaign 

there is a new version under the “nognog” campaign that was aired today but it is not yet available at YouTube.

these two ads were the start of the “Nognog” campaign and these ads are associated with reversing Binay’s declining numbers at the presidentiable polls and in fact had put him back at the #1 spot.

we were shocked when these ads aired. the ads directly addressed the issues of allegations of graft and corruption on Binay which have been on the headlines for many months and the reason for the dramatic declines Binay have been suffering at the polls. Binay was definitely on a steep declining trend when these ads aired.

after the ads aired and the surveys released covering the period of airing, the numbers of Binay spiked up. in fact they were a dramatic reversal of the umbers and placed Binay back on top.

the ad effectively redefined the allegations of corruption and graft against Binay. he has been saying these to the press and in appearances in the provinces but it really didn’t do much to change his ratings. that is, until the ads were aired.

we think what made this ad work was the term “nognog” that he called himself in the ads. “nognog” is a derogatory term used on dark skinned Filipinos that was often used against him by anti-Binay voters. Binay is dark skinned and short (pandak).

“nognog” is also something that most Filipinos can relate to. while it may be a negative or derogatory among the Filipino rich who are fair-skinned Filipinos, it is a fair and acceptable description used by the masses among themselves. its use suddenly allowed the masa to relate to Binay.

we think Binay’s “nognog” has the potential to be the “Mr. Palengke” of Mar Roxas when he resoundingly won his senate seat.

 

Senatorial Leila De Lima’s “Justice without fear or favor”

this just aired today. it was different and called your attention. you paid attention to this ad. it is highly creative and you do get the message. this ad  is able to give De Lima an excellent brand positioning among the senatoriables. this ad was so good that De Lima was trending on twitter after the ad aired. the Philippine Daily Inquirer also had an article on it at their website. this extra mileage is what you get when you air a good ad. this ad can push De Lima to the number 1 spot among the senatoriables.

what got us going crazy in this ad is the use of umbrellas. the story of corruption, crime ad drugs is plain to see in the ad. nothing really special about that. but what set it apart aside from the retro feel to it is the use of the umbrellas.

think about it – why did they need to do  a rainy scenario out of the bar? it is January, it is not the rainy season now. the only explanation is that they wanted to use umbrellas in the ad.

and to us, the umbrella is the symbol of corruption, arrogance and power tripping that we saw when Junjun Binay, the mayor of Makati and the son of presidentiable jejomar Binay was caught in a video being shielded by a bodyguard with a giant umbrella on a  non rainy night at Urdaneta Village when he harassed the security guards to let him exit the gate of the village while they were not supposed to .

this ad firmly defines De Lima’s band positioning – as the anti crime and corruption super hero, a role she fulfilled admirably while she was DOJ chief. this cements that positioning for her.

in some way, we think this positioning of hers and this ad has the potential to take away the thunder from Duterte’s tough on crime positioning.

the ad also has excellent production values. the cinematography, direction, lighting, casting and acting were very topnotch. its fun to watch!

 

Presidentiable Rody Duterte’s “Merry Christmas”

Duterte is a presidentiable that you either hate or love. and there is no in-between – either you passionately love him or passionately hate him.  but this ad you take notice and the ending of the ad makes you smile. do not know if the haters have changed their minds about Duterte, but this ad you like for its wit and unexpected ending.

these ads are not a wawam!