noynoy aquino oath taking – new politics, new governance

the inauguration of the new president, noynoy aquino , his first day in office defines further what the aquino administration is all about. aquino will dispense with the traditional parade and for something new, 100 T volunteers who helped aquino get elected will deliver an “oath to change”.

these are not the only new components of the aquino’s oath taking – a major new component is he will not take his oath from the supreme court chief justice renato corona but instead take his out from upreme Court Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales. corona is the poster boy of gloria macapagal arroyo’s midnight appointment binge while morales is the lone sc justice who gave a dissenting opinion on the SC ruling allowing corona to get arroyo’s midnight appointment.

these othe two changes announced today is a refreshing change and a very welcome one. these changes signal a diferent kind of presidency that the country needs – one that i practical and very much in touch with the reality of the philippines, a country that is facing great challenges economically. we are a country that needs to save as much money as we can given the  economic growth challenges we face, the high deficit he will inherit from arroyo and the high debt.

aside from the money saving aspect, it also sends a signal that this presidency is much less about itself but of the people. the parade’s purpose is to pay tribute to aquino, to celebrate the beginning of his presidency but canceling the parade says it is not that at all, it is about the people selecting a new leader.

the other component  of aquino volunteers administering an “oath to change”  completes that picture.  aquino started on his quest for the presidency from a public clamor to run, launched his campaign on a pro-people, people-supported campaign and won the election on the same basis. the oath by the volunteers tells us the people promising to continually support aquino, saying aquino’s power come from the people and that the change that aquino will bring to the country will be complimented  by change from the people themselves.

all of the above is a stark and refreshing change from the previous arroyo administration where it seemed to have been obsessed on doing thins its way regardless of what the people say, want and don’t want. the arroyo administration has been faulted for being blind, deaf and mute on the needs of the people. it was governing the country in its own terms and for its own benefit, not the people.

it is those reasons that most of  the people cannot wait for arroyo to leave office. their disappointment on the arroyo administration has been expressed time and again on surveys after surveys and in the recent election where  aquino’;s candidate, gilbert teodoro never had a chance at winning  the election, remaining fourth in the surveys till election time.

a change in the presidency.. a change in the people. the change the country needs.

No parade for Aquino on June 30 inaugural
By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:16:00 06/20/2010

TO SAVE ON COSTS, PRESIDENT-ELECT BENIGNO “Noynoy” Aquino III will break tradition and do away with the parade at his June 30 inaugural.

“Since the first regular inauguration in 1935, this is probably the only one without the inaugural parade,” historian Manuel Quezon III told the Inquirer Saturday on the phone. “He (Aquino) wants to save money, and because from his point of view, it’s really unnecessary.”

Aquino will take his oath as the Philippines’ 15th President and deliver his speech at high noon on June 30 at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, in keeping with pre-martial law tradition.

So far, three Asian leaders—East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak—have confirmed attendance at the inaugural, a foreign affairs official said.

“But we expect a number of foreign ministers and special envoys to attend,” said the official, who asked not to be named for lack of authority to speak for the inaugural committee.

Their attendance “indicates solidarity and friendship” with us, the official said.

Secretary Ricardo Saludo, deputy spokesperson of President Macapagal-Arroyo, agreed, saying: “That’s a vote of confidence.”

Ramos-Horta is a friend of Aquino’s family. He was the only head of state who flew to the country in August 2009 to attend the wake and funeral of Aquino’s mother, former President Corazon Aquino.

Thailand and Malaysia have been “longtime” partners of the Philippines in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, aside from Malaysia’s role as a facilitator in the government’s negotiations with secessionist Moro rebels, officials said.

Innovation: Oath of change

In the past, an inaugural parade preceded the singing of the national anthem, the invocation, the oath-taking and the address of the incoming President.

While Aquino is dropping the parade, his inaugural team has introduced a novelty: The volunteer groups that helped in his campaign would deliver an “oath to change” at the Quirino Grandstand in response to his address.

“That’s an innovation,” said Quezon, the spokesperson for the inaugural, and also Inquirer columnist and host of ANC’s “The Explainer.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100620-276542/No-parade-for-Aquino-on-June-30-inaugural

final results – aquino gets 15.2M, 42.1% of votes

post your Goodbye Message To Gloria and your Hello Message To Noynoy

we are counting just days before gloria macapagal arroyo leaves office and noynoy aquino takes over. here is a place where you can tell gloria what you feel and think as she leaves the presidency and as noynoy takes office.

click  here: http://goodbyegloriahellonoynoy.wordpress.com/

how a small Yellow Army helped aquino gain a landslide win

 

there is a popular bulletin board for pinoys in the internet with a lot members very much involved in the may 2010 elections. in that bulletin board is a small Yellow Army who mounted efforts to help noynoy aquino win this election. they were a very small group, no more than 20 members compared to their “opponents” in that bulletin board who supported other presidentiables.

the bulletin board had very active and very noisy supporters of gilbert teodoro, manny villar and richard gordon. easily, the small band of yellow army was outnumbered at least 4 to 1. with each presidentiable opponent having at least 50 to 60 members, multiply that by 4 presidentiables  and we have 200 to 240 individual posters outnumbering the no more than 20 members of the yellow army.

we have started in this blog a chronicle of the exploits of that small yellow army and how they were able to stand their ground and in the end win in their efforts.

here is one juicy part —  with just a few days before election day, the small group of individuals decided to organize themselves. more on this later.

click to read more: http://wp.me/Pnw03-1gA

is kris, president noynoy’s sister a liability or an asset?

no, we have not forgotten kris aquino’s stament on national tv that she will leave the country should noynoy win the presidency. (read here, and post your commments : should kris aquino make good her promise to leave the country should noynoy win the election?)

noynoy is set to be proclained president very soon. have we changed our mind on kris aquino? we did ran a poll on kris here where we asked if kris is an asset or a liability to the aquino campaign, read here : is kris aquino a liability or an asset to the noynoy aquino campaign? .

for now, we want to ask you this one:

video where kris said she will leave the country if noynoy is elected:

read other posts:

• is kris aquino a liability or an asset to the noynoy aquino campaign? <— look at the poll results here
• gary olivar, malacanang spokesperson 5 thumbs down on kris aquino’s tears, will hurt teodoro
• the kris aquino drama – to leave The Buzz TV show?
• should noynoy aquino be happy or sad that he has kris aquino as a sister?
• for the sake of the philippines – ban annabelle rama from tv and the country!

your sentiments and reactions on the 2010 election experience, voice them out here

first time that the country is conducting an automated election in its history. aside from that historic omoent, this election is also one of the most important in the country’s history.

you have gone to the polling places and casted your vote, now let us know how you feel, how the experience went and whatever your thoughts are.

tell us what you think, some leads for your to answer:

• areas of improvements
• what were the problem areas
• where were the problems
• what irritated you the most
• what went well
• what made you happy
• what are the good things
• what did you like the most

89% of count – updated partial unofficial tally for president

source: http://www.gmanews.tv/eleksyon2010/nationalcount

no question, noynoy aquino’s win in this election is a landslide win.

manny villar shows class, first to concede to aquino, others follow

we thought  manny villar showed class and character in being the first to concede the election to noynoy aquino, the presidentiable who has a commanding lead in the elections. aside from the action of conceding, we thought he gave an excellent concession speech with words of encouragement to the winner, mea culpa, personal touch and words of support and reconciliation with his opponents.

to us manny villar had his ratings go up.

4 presidential bets concede defeat

 INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 11:12:00 05/11/2010

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE 2) A day after the election, four presidential candidates conceded to Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, currently the frontrunner in the political race that saw over 40 million Filipinos vote electronically for the first time for their leaders in the national and local levels.

Senators Manuel Villar and Richard Gordon, former defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro, and JC de los Reyes of Kapatiran Party issued separate statements giving notice that they were dropping out of the contest and expressed their support for Aquino who was expected to be proclaimed the next president.

Villar and Gordon said that “the people have spoken” and congratulated Aquino on his impending victory.

“Nagpasya na ang mga mamamayang Pilipino. Malinaw na sa kabila ng ating pagpupunyagi, hindi tayo nabiyayayaan ng tagumpay sa halalan noong Lunes [The Filipino people have decided. It is clear that despite our efforts, we were not blessed to win in Monday’s elections],” Villar said, reading a prepared statement before members of the media in his headquarters at the Starmall in Mandaluyong early Tuesday.

why will gilbert teodoro lose this election?

a lot has been written in this blog on why gilbert teodoro will lose this election. across the time frame of the campaign period factors that will make teodoro lose the election has been identified in this blog.

this will provide the key points:

• arroyo’s kiss of death on teodoro we think is the biggest factor for teodoro’s loss. everyone knew and that included teodoro himself , his political party lakas-kampi-cmd and arroyo herself knew that. we saw arroyo’s kiss of death in action during the last senatorial election where most of the admin senatorial candidates lost and almost all the opposition candidates won. the sentiments and scenario that was operating then is still present in this election and in fact even more intense than before – based on polls, the people failed arroyo on her performance as president,  trust rating have been negative and people see arroyo as most corrupt next to ferdinand marcos. romulo neri called arroyo “evil”, the people agrees with that sentiment. they all knew arroyo is a problem so much so that arroyo has distanced herself from teodoro, hardly saying anything about teodoro, did not campaign for him and did not even have a picture taken with teodoro.
• teodoro is an unknown. before his proclamation as standard bearer of the admin party, people hardly knew teodoro. he was a congressman in his hometown for some time but he had no national constituency to speak of. all he had was two years of chief of the defense portfolio which was not at all enough for him to gain national prominence or even some  name identification.
• although he had spent a lot of money on his ads, at some point second highest spender, that did not help him as we think his ads were ill-conceived, was fatally flawed on the ad strategy and the execution faulty.  teodoro spent most of his advertising money on his “resume tv ads” which was too basic and had no power to persuade.
• we think the teodoro campaign knew teodoro had no national standing that is why they launched those ads. that was fine but they stayed on it too long. all the ads did was create brand awareness while they should have moved to a more persuasive and meaty ads.
• teodoro’s “ego trip” tv ads, telling the voters he has “galing at talino” were not at all persuasive to the voters. people wanted to know what he will do for the country, not his resume, harvard education and being pilot included. these things simply did not ring a bell among the voters.
• the executions of his ads were also flawed as they appeared to be too elitist while  most of the voters come from the poor. would the poor who comprise most of the voters be able to relate to teodoro for being a pilot? will they be able to appreciate he knows how to fly a plane? we did not think so.  the teodoro campaign was thinking and doing these ads for themselves, not for the voters. we suspect the ads were feel good ads but feel good for themselves and not the voters or target audience.
• the teodoro campaign and that includes teodoro himself were perpetually in denial in this campaign from start to finish. we think they knew things were not going right in their campaign even from the very start but they did not seem to want to accept the problems and even much less did not want to do something about it. all they did was they kept telling themselves everything was doing well, nothing was wrong and nothing can go wrong even though they knew what was actually happening was the exact opposite. sadly, we think this is the exact same attitude and problem of the arroyo and her administration for themselves and specially in the way they governed the country.
• teodoro even failed in showing his “galing at talino” during the onody and pepeng floods and the maguindanao massacre. the ondoy and pepeng floods was a dream come true for any presidential candidate. teodoro was handed in a large silver platter the opportunity to perform and demonstrate to the people he had what it takes to be president. he among everyone else had the best opportunity to make something out of it – he was the admin, a cabinet secretary and the DND to which he was chief was actually in charge of disaster coordination’s. he failed in hos duties, his mandate and as a candidate. had he performed well during the floods, he would have won the election by a landslide.
• teodoro’s campaign never really took off.  the campaign had failings from the very beginning and almost in every step of the way as the it progressed. we will remember teodoro’s  campaign on the basis of the failings of the campaign that occurred from time to time rather than success points.   
• lakas-kampi-cmd, teodoro’s political party is a failed political party.  we do not think lakas-kampi-cmd was any help to teodoro. we are not even sure if the party wanted to help him at all.  we think the rumor that the party lost interest on teodoro was not a rumor but the truth.

looking at teodoro’s results and what he had done during the campaign and if you were an alien looking in, you would have not guessed that teodoro belonged to the dominant political party in the country.

teodoro lost this election from day 1.  

~~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~~
carlo arvisu

the 2010 philippine election exit poll – gilbert teodoro dominates

this survey is now open. please let us know who you voted in this election.

also vote in the exit poll for vice-president here –> Now open – The 2010 Presidentiables Blog Exit Poll For Vice-President (who did you for vice president?)

vote here: your sentiments and reactions on the 2010 election experience, voice them out here

noynoy aquino

jc de los reyes

joseph estrada

richard gordon

jamby madrigal

nicanor perlas

gilbert teodoro

eddie villanueva

manny villar

COMELEC website is down, precinct finder overwhelmed by hits, telephone numbers given

Comelec website down, hotlines announced

abs-cbnNEWS.com

Posted at 05/10/2010 9:23 AM | Updated as of 05/10/2010 9:25 AM

MANILA, Philippines – Due to the unexpected number of hits on Election Day, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) website has become unavailable for voters and the general public, as of posting time.

“Unfortunately, there are too many people visiting the website now. Obviously, the service is not accessible as we want it to be,” Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said in an interview on ANC Monday morning.

“Traffic to visit the Comelec website was more than what we had anticipated. We doubled the bandwidth. Unfortunately, things happen so we’re taking remedial steps to still allow people to check on the precincts,” he added.

Larrazabal, chairman of the poll automation steering committee, announced that the precinct finder on the Comelec website will be taken out.

Those who want to find their precincts may call the information technology (IT) department of the Comelec. The hotlines are

• 527-0841
• 527-2773
• 527-2772
• 527-0822
• 526-7769
• 526-7770

The Comelec commissioner noted that the bandwidth of the poll body’s website was increased to 10 megabits per second (Mbps) from 5 Mbps.

As for the election results, Larrazabal said the Comelec will release the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) later in the day.

source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/05/10/10/comelec-website-down-hotlines-announced

the misunderstanding on automated election – not for speed of voting process but for accuracy of counting

the election is on going in most parts of  the country. the complaints are not on the PCOS machine malfunctioning but on the long wait for voters to get on with the voting. this is frustrating a lot of voters specially now that we experiencing a heat wave.

voters are complaining about the long lines leading to the polling precinct, the inability to quickly confirm the precinct number and the wait to get a ballot and vote. once inside the polling precinct,  it takes the voter anywhere from 6 to 8 minutes from filling up the ballot and getting the PCOS machine.

the long lines are  not being caused by the automated election system that the country is doing for the first time  in its history. unfortunately most people thought that speed in voting is one of the things it is supposed to solve.

automated election was meant to solve accuracy in the counting of the votes, also to a large degree prevent election cheating and speed up the counting process, not speed in voting during the election process. where before it took the country to get election results after several weeks, the automated election  will enable the country to get the results after 2 days at the longest.

what the voters need now is patience, an umbrella and water to drink while in line.