will Grace Poe lose when her SET case goes to the SC?

the SET (Senate Electoral Tribunal) has voted not to disqualify Grace Poe with a 5 – 4  vote with the 5 voting not to disqualify Poe. the 5 votes are from senators Aquino, Sotto, Legarda, Villar and Cayetano. the 4  who voted for disqualification came from the 3 SC justices who are members of the SET and senator Nancy Binay. the SC justices are Carpio, Brion and de Castro.

her disqualification case will surely reach the SC no matter what the final decision is at the SET. when that happens, will she lose at the SC case given what the SC justices decided who are members of the SET?

in recent days, copies of the explanations from the SC justices have been released. we have here the explanation from Carpio and de Castro. the two justices voted on the basis of law, their reading of the constitution and what they mean.

—

Justice de Castro: Poe’s citizenship claim constitutionally objectionable November 22, 2015 10:54am

Senate Electoral Tribunal member Associate Justice Teresita de Castro maintains that presidential aspirant Senator Grace Poe’s citizenship claim is constitutionally objectionable.

In her separate dissenting opinion released days after the SET voted 5-4, junking the petition against Poe over citizenship issue, de Castro said the respondent based her claim only on “generally accepted principle of international law that stemmed from a theory of incorporation … but not on the constitution.”

She said Poe claimed to be a natural-born citizen, with a Filipino father or mother, on the basis of “a supposed legal fiction which will run afoul of the concept of natural-born citizenship under the 1935 Constitution…”

The 1935 Constitution—still in effect when Poe was born in 1968—follows the principle of jus Sanguinis” or natural-born citizenship based on blood relationship to a Filipino father or Filipino mother.

De Castro said that Poe anchored her claim of being a natural-born on international conventions such as the the 1930 Hague Convention on Certain Questions relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

These conventions particularly provide for the right of a child to nationality.

But de Castro said the conventions are not self-executing as they are not binding because the contracting state is free to determine the international agreements’ application based on national laws.

Besides, she said the Philippines has not ratified the 1930 and the 1961 conventions.

Moreover, de Castro wrote: “Even then, the citizenship, if acquired by virtue of such conventions, assuming the latter are implemented by Philippine law, is akin to the citizenship falling under the Section 1(4), Article IV of the 1987 Constitution, recognizing citizenship by naturalization in accordance with law or by a special act of Congress.”

“The definition of a natural-born citizen, under Section 2, Article IV of the 1987 Constitution, cannot be met by a foundling even if the disputable presumption is applied because before the said presumption can operate, the fact of being a foundling must first be established by a legal proceeding, as illustrated by Section 5 of R.A. No. 8552, and Sections 4, 5 and 8 of R.A. 9523, which require an official declaration tha the child is a foundling or an abandoned child before he/she can be entitled to the rights of a Filipino child under the aforesaid laws,” she added.

– See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/545348/news/nation/justice-de-castro-poe-s-citizenship-claim-constitutionally-objectionable#sthash.RbhJNkyB.dpuf

—-

Carpio: Poe is Filipino but not natural-born
November 21, 2015 8:27pm
By JOSEPH MORONG, GMA News
Presidential aspirant Senator Grace Poe is a Filipino but not a natural-born one, Senate Electoral Tribunal chairman Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said.

In his dissenting opinion released four days after the SET voted 5-4, junking the petition of Rizalito David against Poe over citizenship issue, Carpio said: “there is no dispute that respondent Mary Grace Poe Llamanzares is a Filipino citizen, as she publicly claims to be.”

“But [she] has failed to prove that she is a natural-born Filipino citizen, and is thus not qualified to sit as a member of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines.”

This echoes the justice’s earlier pronouncement during the oral arguments at the SET that Poe is a naturalized Filipino citizen.

Carpio wrote that even the framers of the 1935 Constitution did not intend to consider foundlings in the Philippines natural-born citizens at birth.

Carpio pointed out that those who argued during the deliberation of the 1935 Constitution that international law principle recognized a foundling to be a citizen at birth of the country where the foundling were misplaced. This includes, former President Manuel Roxas.

“There is nothing in international law that which automatically grants citizenship to foundlings at birth. In fact, Delegate Roxas did not cite any international law principle to that effect,” Carpio said.

According to Carpio, only the 1930 The Hague Convention was in existence during the deliberations on the 1935 Constitution.

“Therefore, there was no prevailing customary international law at that time, as there is still none today, conferring automatically a nationality to foundlings at birth.”

Any international law conferring natural-born nationality to foundlings at birth runs contrary to the concept of jus sanguinis under the 1935 Constitution which requires blood relation to the father to establish the natural-born citizenship of a child, Carpio said.

He wrote: “The 1935 Constitution clearly required blood relations to the father to establish the natural-born citizenship of a child. The 1935 Constitution did not contain any provision expressly or impliedly granting Filipino citizenship to foundlings on the basis of birth in the Philippines (jus soli or law of the soil) with the presumption of Filipino parentage as to make them natural-born citizens.”

“Only those citizens at birth because of jus sanguinis, which requires blood relation to a parent, are natural-born Filipino citizens under the 1935, 1973, and 1987 Constitution,” he added

Citing deliberations on the 1935 Constitution, Carpio also pointed out that when it came to the discussion on the qualifications President and Vice President, delegate Roxas pointed out that “natural-born citizens, means a citizen by birth, a person who is a citizen by reason of birth, and not by naturalization or by a further declaration required by law for his citizenship.”

Citing delegate Roxas, Carpio wrote: “In the Philippines … under the provisions of the article on citizenship which we have approved, all those born of a father who is a Filipino citizen, be they persons born in the Philippines or outside, would be citizens by birth or ‘natural-born … According to this interpretation, the child of a Filipino mother with a foreign father would not be a citizen by birth, because the law or the Constitution requires that he make a further declaration after his birth.”

“In short, under the 1935 Constitution, only children whose fathers were Filipino citizens were natural-born Filipino citizens,” Carpio said.

He further said: “It is also the height of absurdity to presume that all foundlings found in the Philippines, by sole reason that their parentage is unknown, are not only Filipino citizens but also natural-born Filipino citizens. To illustrate, if in 1968, on the same day that respondent was found in a church in Jaro, Iloilo, three infants were also found in front of the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, will all the three infants be considered natural-born Filipino citizens?”

Carpio said that it would lead to a “preposterous situation which could not have been intended by the framers of the 1935 Constitution.”

“If the first infant was an African black, the second a Caucasian white, and the third infant with Chinese features, would all three infants be automatically considered natural-born Filipino citizens with the conclusive presumption that their parents were Filipino citizens? … If at all the framers intended a strict interpretation of the term natural-born citizen, considering that they limited the term natural-born citizen to those who fathers were Filipino citizens and did not extend it to those who were born of Filipino mothers and alien fathers.”

Carpio also addressed the issue of the plight of foundlings if found not to be natural-born Filipinos as argued by Poe’s camp.

“The sentimental plea, however, conveniently forgets the expressed language of the Constitution reserving those high positions, in this case the position of Senator of the Republic, exclusively to natural-born Filipino citizens … being sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, the members of this Tribunal have no other choice but to apply the clear letter and intent of the Constitution,” he said.

Carpio however added that Poe may still be declared a natural-born Filipino if she can find a match to a Filipino parent.

All three Supreme Court justices in the nine-member SET—Chairman Carpio, Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, and Associate Justice Arturo Brion have separte dissenting opinions on the SET ruling favoring Poe.

Four other cases of disqualification anchored on citizenship and residency issues are currently lodged with the Comelec.

A fifth disqualification case, an election offense case of misrepresentation, also filed by Rizalito David, is being heard by the Comelec Law Department. — LBG, GMA News

– See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/545323/news/nation/carpio-poe-is-filipino-but-not-natural-born#sthash.Hf2m1JgX.dpuf

The 4 PDAF Scam “Napoles Lists” compared here

the “Honor Roll” or “Dishonor Roll” of the philippine senate?

(pics source : http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/05/27/1327759/18-senators-final-list)

some points:

• the most recent janet napoles “long list” for the PDAF scam has 20 names, closer to the PDI List which had 25 names
• napoles added 8 additional names, the “long lisy” now having 20 names compared to the short list that she gave SOJ de lima which had 12 names on it
• the following 9 names (in green text) appear in all 4 lists : ap cayetano, bong revilla, honasan, jinggoy estrada, enrile, koko pimentel and barbers.
• the ping lacson list has 10 names with 9 appearing 4 times and 1 appearing 3 times

 

MANILA, Philippines – Twenty Senators, 100 congressmen, and all of their agents in the pork barrel transactions were named in the affidavit of Janet Lim Napoles submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Monday.

“To the extent of my knowledge, the following are the Senators, Congressmen and their agents and the officials or staff of implementing agencies of government that had connections with me and received part of the pork barrel,” Napoles said in her affidavit.

read in full here :
20 senators, 100 congressmen named on Napoles’ long list
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/605682/20-senators-100-congressmen-named-in-napoles-long-list

compare the 3 PDAF Scam senators list : Napoles, PDI and Lacson Lists

 

• the “janet napoles list” comes from the document SOJ leila de lima submitted to the senate blue ribbon committee.
• “the PDI (philippine daily inquirer) list” is a list PDI made based on the benhur luy’s computer hard disk. PDI made a copy of the contents of the hard disk.
• the “pin lacson list” according to lacson came from jimmy napoles, the husband of janet.
• nine (9) names appear in all 3 lists : cayetano, revilla, honasan, estrada, enrile, pimentel, legarda, villar and barbers
• three (3) names appear on 2 lists out of 3 : escudero, ejercito and sotto
• nine (9) names belong to 4 families : loi, JV, jinggoy – estrada family; bong and ramon sr – revilla family; cynthia and manny – villar family; koko and aquilino – pimentel family
• comparing the ping lacson and janet napoles lists, there are 2 names missing from the lacson list – JV ejercito and tito sotto.  lacson reportedly got his list from the husband of janet napoles, presumably given by janet napoles.

the Benhur Luy List on the PDAF Scam

 

in the Benhur Luy List :

1. Manny Villar
2. Cynthia Villar
3. Ralph Recto
4. Koko Pimentel
5. Aquilino Pimentel
6. Tito Sotto
7. Miriam Defensor Santiago
8. Bongbong Marcos
9. Jun Magsaysay
10. Loren Legarda
11. Lito Lapid
12. Bong Revilla
13. Ramon Revilla Sr
14. Robert Jaworski
15. Greg Honasan
16. Loi Estrada
17. JV Ejercito
18. Frank Drilon
19. Alan Peter Cayetano
20. Rodolfo Biazon
21. Jinggoy Estrada
22. Robert Barbers
23. Tessie Aquino-Oreta
24. Juan Ponce Enrile
25. Edgardo Angara

the families in the list :

Estrada Family – Loi, JV, Jinggoy
Revilla Family – Ramon Sr., Bong Jr.
Pimentel Family – Aquilino, Koko
Villar Family – Manny, Cynthia

 

 

 

 

 

 

25 senators on Luy list

Estrada, Revilla, Enrile biggest pork beneficiaries

By Nancy C. Carvajal
Philippine Daily Inquirer

 

Third of a series

 

MANILA, Philippines—The names of 25 past and present senators are in the digital files of whistle-blower Benhur Luy detailing transactions Janet Lim-Napoles made from 2002 to 2012—a period during which she channeled congressional Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations to ghost projects and kickbacks.

 

The entries were made upon the instruction of Napoles to Luy, who was then her finance officer. The files were copied by the Inquirer from a hard disk drive (HDD) that Luy’s parents handed over during a visit to its newsroom last year to ask for help in exposing the alleged plunder of state funds by Napoles and her highly placed clients.

 

Luy said his parents did not know the explosive contents of the disk drive.

 

The files showed that the funds were from projects for members of the Commission on Appointments, the minority bloc in the House of Representatives of 2003, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), savings from the Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reforms, allocation for the Senate President Pro Tempore, majority floor leader, and for budget insertions.

 

The records showed that 15 incumbent senators had transactions with Napoles: Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Vicente “Tito” Sotto, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Gringo Honasan, Loren Legarda, Aquilino Pimentel III, Manuel “Lito” Lapid, Cynthia Villar, JV Ejercito, Franklin Drilon, Ralph Recto and Alan Peter Cayetano.

 

Also in the records were the names of former Senators Edgardo Angara, Manny Villar, Tessie Oreta, Nene Pimentel, Rodolfo Biazon, Robert Jaworski, Robert Barbers, Loi Estrada, Ramon Magsaysay and Ramon Revilla Sr.

 

Luy’s records also showed that Enrile, Revilla and Estrada were Napoles’ longtime clients.

 

Enrile is on record as having used P683 million from 2004 to 2012. But this is still an incomplete figure. The Inquirer still has to complete checking Luy’s records on Enrile’s total PDAF disbursements to Napoles NGOs.

 

Revilla used a total of P1.2 billion, again a figure that is still incomplete as the Inquirer continues to check the Luy files.

 

Estrada tops them all at P1.6 billion, which is still an incomplete figure as the Inquirer continues its examination of the records.

 

Apart from being regular clients of Napoles since 2004, the three senators were also the biggest contributors to the pork barrel funded projects who repeatedly funneled billions of funds to her bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs). They received at least 50 percent in kickbacks of each project, the files showed.

 

First senator-client

 

Lapid was the first senator to become a client of Napoles. He was then governor of Pampanga. At that time, he received a total of P1,132,500 total cash advance—in US dollars and pesos—on Dec. 20, 2002, March 23, 2003, and May 7, 2003.

 

The first transaction with Lapid, according to the records, was P500,000 on Dec. 20, 2005, with the remarks “given at the Manila Hotel.”

 

In another deal, described as a Commission on Appointment project under the Department of Agriculture, Region 3, but realigned to Guagua, Pampanga, Lapid allocated P5 million and received a “rebate” of P2 million representing 40 percent of the project, the records showed.

 

Cayetano returned money

 

Luy’s records showed that Cayetano allocated P3 million of his PDAF while he was the Taguig-Pateros representative in 2003 intended for communication supply with the DOTC as implementing agency.

 

The records also showed a cash advance of P639,625 was received by “VLL,” but other details in the records showed that P500,000 of the amount was returned by Cayetano to JLN, Napoles’ company. Luy in earlier interviews with the Inquirer said Cayetano declined to enter into transactions with Napoles.

 

Santiago in a letter dated Sept. 5, 2005, and addressed to a Dennis Araullo, regional executive director of the Department of Agriculture, allocated P5 million to Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, for financial assistance to coffee growers under ASA-no. 101-2005-315 dated June 14, 2005.

 

Santiago’s rebate

 

On the same date, under Voucher No. 09-4780,  Zenaida Ducut also received “cash bonus from Sen. Miriam Defensor P10 m project DA savings .05 the amount of P100 thousand.”

 

On the Sept. 30, 2005, entry of Luy’s financial records, under the heading JLN cash/ check disbursement, showed that Ducut, the current Energy Regulatory Commission chair, received the rebate in behalf of Santiago.

 

“Full payment received charged from (Santiago) DA savings the amount of P2.5 million under voucher 09-4779,” the records indicated.

 

Marcos, a first-term senator allocated P360 million of his PDAF in 2011 and 2012 covered by 10 special allocation release orders (Saros) through the government-owned National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC) as the implementing agency and designated local government units (LGUSs) as conduits to the Napoles organizations.

 

Sotto, senator from 1992 to 2004 and who returned for another term in 2010, also funneled from 2010 to 2012 P228 million of his pork barrel funds to Napoles NGOs through the NLDC and selected LGUs. Sotto also repeatedly assigned the same towns and cities as recipients of his PDAF from 2010 to 2012 with Napoles NGOs as beneficiaries under 12 Saros.

 

Legarda, a senator from 1998 to 2004 and again in 2007, also allocated P200 million of her PDAF in 2010, 2011 and 2012 to NLDC, LGU and Napoles’s NGOs as beneficiaries. Legarda’s allocations were covered by eight Saros.

 

Honasan channeled P107 million of his PDAF to Napoles groups twice, through the NLDC on Sept, 18, 2009 and to the DA on April 1, 2008.

 

‘For Gringo Honasan’

 

On Oct. 22, 2009, another Luy document stated that P1.750 million was transferred to an account of JLN Corp. at the Metrobank Ortigas branch “for Gringo Honasan.”

 

Sen. Cynthia Villar supposedly received P500,000 as kickback allocated for members of the House minority bloc in 2003 with the DOTC as the implementing agency and Jo-Chris Trading as the link to Napoles.

 

JV Ejercito allocated P5 million through the Department of Interior and Local government when he was still San Juan representative in 2011, the records showed.

 

Also on the file was a letter supposedly from Recto dated Aug. 30, 2010, for Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes in which he requested  P10 million for agrarian reform projects nationwide. No other record on Recto appears in Luy’s files.

 

In one of Luy’s records under the CA-DA 2005 allocations, Drilon was listed to have been allocated P5 million as head of the Commission on Appointments.

 

One of the letters in Luy’s files showed that Drilon wrote to budget Secretary Florencio Abad on Nov. 22, 2011, and requested for P100-million financial assistance, to be coursed through the DAR secretary. But according to Luy, speaking through his lawyer, Raji Mendoza, “the letter was drafted but no transactions took place, as far as his recollection” was concerned.

 

An April 3, 2007, entry in Luy’s records showed that Angara allocated P50 million of his PDAF in 2007 to 10 municipalities in Mindanao as beneficiaries.

 

Senator Manny Villar in 2003 with his allocation from the Congressional Initiatives Funds and the DOTC as the implementing agency procured equipment supplied by Jo-Chris Trading, owned by Napoles.

 

Pimentel’s cash advances

 

In 2003 and 2004, then Sen. Nene Pimentel allegedly funneled his PDAF to Napoles organizations and received cash advances of totaling P7.6 million in cash and checks all received by a Mon Arcenas between Sept. 9, 2003 and Nov. 6, 2003. The entry also showed that a delivery of a check “was at the Senate.”

 

Oreta, in 2003, allocated P45 million to various soft projects and received P10,890.00 as “cash advance received by Caloy and Johnny,” but Luy’s record showed that she returned the money. The entry also stated that a balance of P1 million was to be returned by Brian Yamsuan, Oreta’s chief of staff, and the project would be completed by another contractor.

 

Oreta also was included in the list of lawmakers in the DOTC project allocation of P4.5 million.

 

Biazon, now Muntinlupa Representative, allocated P92 million of his PDAF in 2004 and 2008 using various agents under implementing agencies Technology Resource Center and the DA based on cash releases records of Luy.

 

Former Sen. Loi Ejercito was also among the lawmakers who allocated the most number of pork barrel projects to Napoles’ NGOs between 2004 and 2008 using P285 million of taxpayers’ money.

 

Jaworksi in 2003 and 2004 allocated P29.l25 million of his PDAF to Napoles NGOs through LGUs in Mindanao and also to the DOTC.

 

Magsaysay allocated P4 million to two provinces in 2004-2005 through the Napoles organizations.

 

Revilla Sr. allocated P169.07 million of his PDAF in projects “nationwide” in 2003 and 2004. His cash advances were in manager’s check and cash received by a Rowena Mendiola. Other cash advances were given by Napoles herself, the records showed.

 

Barbers, who died in 2005, allocated P89 million of his PDAF in 2003 and 2004 in a “nationwide” project. His cash advances were received by a “Canda” and an “Atty. Laloy.”—With Inquirer Research

 

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/602031/25-senators-on-luy-list#ixzz31e6WnUif
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both SWS and Pulse Asia surveys hit 100% match with official senatoriables 2013 election Comelec results

there is no other way to describe it -both SWS and Pulse Asis senatoriables polls during the 2013 mid term election were impressive, both hit 100% in the list of senatoriables they had on their surveys compared to the top 12 on the final & official results from the Comelec.

SWS conducted their last survey for the senatoriables election May 2 to 3 and got these results compared to the actual and final Comelec results:

• 12 out of 12 in the poll came out as top 12 in the Comelec tally, 100% success rate
• 3 senatoriables, Escudero, K Pimentel and Honasan came in at exactly the ranking on the survey and the Comelec tally, a 25% match.
• 5 senatoriables, Legarda, AP Cayetano, N Binay, B Aquino and Trillanes came within 1 to 2 places off in the survey versus the final Comelec tally, a 42% match.
• adding the two numbers, 8 out of 12 or 67% came within a match to 2 places on the survey versus the Comelec tally
• only 4, Poe, S Angara, Ejercito and C Villar was off by more than 2 places from the final tally

Pulse Asia conducted its last survey for the senatoriables election on may 10 to 11. because of the nature of reporting and computation done by Pulse Asia on their poll results which were all expressed on a range, 11 out of 12 senatoriables matched the placements of the senatoriables to that of the Comelec tally. only 1 senatoriable, C. Villar was off.

the range means the Pulse Asia poll results were  showing a lot of ties or statistically insignificant differences from senatoriable to another.

what does this all mean?

it means SWS and Pulse Asia election polls are highly reliable and an excellent gauge of people’s sentiments on elections. there can be no better result than a 100% match rate and specially with a high number of matches coming in less than 2 places off.

that means the vetting of respondents done by the pollsters are excellent and are precisely representative of the voting population. it also means the random sampling done by these two polling agencies are to the point. most importantly, the sample size of 1,200 to 1,500 are good enough to be able to capture sentiments of voters on a national scale.

the above points, specially on the sample size have been the most questioned by non-believers of surveys, SWS and Pulse Asia in particular. not that the haters are able to present statistical arguments against the pollsters, but these have been incessantly raised by them. we have always said, those who raise them are those who are not winning in the polls thus having a skewed agenda. the excellent match up results proves the counter argument correct.

last point on what this means – it will be wise for election candidates in the future to subscribe and pay attention to the SWS and Pulse Asia election polls.

twitter followers of 2013 Senatoriables – how many are real, how many are fake?

we came across an interesting website on twitter the other day (courtesy of @Simply_Clinton) – twitter audit (http://www.twitteraudit.com/). the website analyses a twitter account’s followers and determines what portion are “real” followers and what is “fake”.

we assume “real” followers are other twitter accounts with individual humans behind them that follow a twitter account. they are acquired over time who follows an account based on a match on interest, point of view, tweets that are simply interesting or where to get information from.

“fake” followers are bots (internet robots) who are added to the list of followers just to add numbers to the followers list. the thinking is that, the more followers have or the greater the number of followers, the more popular the twitter user/account is. we have all heard of a twitter following contest of some sort between the likes of justin bieber and lady gaga for example. that is the whole idea behind it.

we are guessing someone having a bigger number of followers will feel important or encourage others to follow the person.

apparently, there are internet services from whom you can buy twitter followers. social media practitioners apparently do this all the time for their clients. when you hire a social media practitioner, adding or padding your follower list is one of the things they do for you.

with this in mind, we ran some 2013 senatoriables twitter accounts to find out what is the ratio of “real” vs “fake” twitter followers they have on their accounts.

we do not know if these politicians actually “bought” followers and we are not even giving an opinion on it. maybe they are all “real” followers and that the twitteraudit.com is wrong or giving us bad data or they have a large number of twitter followers whose accounts have become dormant for a long time. these things happen. and we really do not know how accurate or reliable twitteraudit.com is.

take these with a grain  salt, decide on your own what they mean.

for good measure, we also put here our own (@wawam) twitter audit and other politicians who are active on twitter. looking at the other audit results will give you a better gauge of what the data all mean for the rest.

   

head to head comparison SWS vs Pulse Asia February 2013 Senatoriables Polls

the good news is that the country has two polling companies doing a great job of capturing the sentiments of voters – SWS (social weather station) and Pulse Asia. it also adds to it that they tend to conduct the polls at about the same time. with the respondent criteria about the same and survey timing very close to each other, comparing the two results is a very good thing to do.

surveys give the people a view, scientific and objective, of what others think about candidates and issues. it can help others shape or confirm their own views. in this complex world of ours, more information is always better.

for candidates and handlers of the candidates, it can be more than informational, it can be very instructive. they can use the results to re-shape, change directions or strengthen their winning strategies or fix and avoid their losing strategies.

but that is very much dependent on the skill sets of the candidates and their handlers on analyzing and understanding surveys. that is the first step.

the second and the more important step is formulating new strategies and plans based on the survey analysis and conclusions.

we are providing here a first step analysis of the  survey results. there are a few more steps on analysis that needs to be done and more steps at formulating action steps in strategy change and plans formulation. but those are for another day.

in the meantime….

data sources: Pulse Asia & SWS

• Pulse Asia : http://pulseasia.ph/
• SWS : http://www.sws.org.ph/

also read (click) :

• dramatic gains for aquino & poe, dramatic drops for trillanes, zubiri & enrile – pulse asia february 2013 senatoriables poll
• dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey

dramatic gains for aquino & poe, dramatic drops for trillanes, zubiri & enrile – pulse asia february 2013 senatoriables poll

not much has changed among the top 3 ranking senatoriables, legarda, escudero and cayetano alan peter from previous poll.

for this february 2013 pulse asia 2013 senatoriables survey, 15 senatoriables are competing for the top 12 position. in order of highest to lowest ranks as follows:

1. legarda (Team PNoy)
2. escudero (Team PNoy)
3. cayetano alan peter (Team PNoy)
4. villar, cynthia (Team PNoy) 
5. ejercito (UNA)
6. aquino, bam (Team PNoy)
7. binay (UNA)
8. poe (Team PNoy)
9. pimentel (Team PNoy)
10. honasan (UNA)
11. enrile, jack (UNA)
12. trillanes (Team PNoy)
13. angara (Team PNoy)
14. zubiri (UNA)
15. gordon (UNA)

6 senatoriables  are battling for the last 3 positions, the 10th to the 12th, senatoriables honasan, enrile, trillanes, angara, zubiri and gordon who are all tied.

at the bottom among the candidates of the two major coalition parties, UNA and Team PNoy, are mitos magsaysay and tingting cojuangco  both from UNA. their rankings have not changed from previous.

among the 15 candidates fighting for the top 12 spots, 9 are from Team PNoy and 6 are from UNA.

among the top 9, only 2 are from UNA (binay and ejercito) while the rest are from Team PNoy. among the 6 who are battling for the last 3 spots, 4 are from UNA and only 2 are from Team PNoy.

with those rankings, if elections were held today, Team PNoy has a chance of gaining 9 out of the 12 seats at best or 7 out of 12 at worst, a clear majority of the seats.

Team PNoy has generally done very well in this survey.

source : https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3b9qPFV1cRDNGJWVXpKN0ZhZU0/edit

dramatic increases in rank and rating were gained by aquino and poe, both by +9 places who are now tied at 4th place from previous survey at 13th place; and +11.8 percentage points and +11.2 percentage points, respectively.

3 senatoriables suffered dramatic losses in rank and rating, 1 from Team PNoy, trillanes and 2 from UNA, enrile and zubiri.  all three lost 5 places in the rankings although all three still came within the top 12.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with 47% of voters not completing 12 senatoriables, dynasty candidates & re-electionists enter top 12

source : http://www.sws.org.ph/

based on this SWS 2013 Senatorables survey – 47% of voters cannot complete all 12 senatoriables while an equal number, 47% can complete all 12. (balance 6% are undecided or made invalid markings).  on average, all voters will just be able to write down 9 names for the 12 senatoriable slots.

we think 47% unable to complete all 12 is a huge number. what that may are the following :

• there is not enough 12 “good men” among the 33 senatoriables running for office. most are unworthy of being elected
• not enough information about the candidates are reaching voters for them to complete the 12. this is just the start of the campaign period, let us hope this will change soon.

although still on the early stages of the campaign, at this point in time, these are the candidates who are benefiting from this situation and are getting better chances at getting elected :

• dynasty candidates – children, siblings or spouses of elected officials who are running for senator
• incumbent senators running for reelection  

based on the survey, of the top 12, 6 are candidates for reelection – legarda, escudero, cayetano, pimentel, trillanes and zubiri. we consider zubiri for reelection since he did serve a term in the senate. a large number in the top 12 are dynasty candidates –   villar, binay, ejercito aquino and angara. only 1 senatoriable, poe does not belong to any one of these groups.

the results of this survey would be so different if the 47% who did not complete the 12 spots would complete their list.

dynasty candidates are running on the basis of having the same family name as elected officials, that gives them a built-in advantage of being remembered more easily and have better chances of getting elected. not completing your list of 12 makes that advantage work for them for real.

completing the list of 12, say with names who are not re-electionists or dynasty candidates will have the effect of pushing down the dynasty candidates from the top 12.  

dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey

the latest february 2013 SWS survey, on the 2013 senatoriables is characterized by dramatic drops and dramatic increases in rankings and/or ratings by some senatoriables. the dramatic drops are  all on UNA senatoriables while the dramatic increases were  on Team PNoy senatoriables.

this survey results are grim and bad news for many UNA senatoriables and for the whole party and great news for  Team PNoy and  specific senatoriables.

this is how bad it is for the UNA senatoriables :

• 9 out of the top 12 senatoriables belong to the admin PNoy coalition with the UNA opposition getting only 3
• 3 UNA senatoriables dropped out of the top 12 while 2 from  Team PNoy barged into the top 12
• 6 out 12 Team PNoy senatoriables gained in rank (aquino, poe, villar, madrigal, trillanes and angara), 6 stayed the same (cayetano, escudero, hontiveros, legarda, magsaysay r, pimentel)
• 6 out of 9 UNA senatoriables declined in rank (honasan, ejercito, enrile, gordon, maceda, zubiri), only 2 gained (binay, magsaysay)  while 1 stayed the same (cojuangco)

• 5 in 12 of the Team PNoy senatoriables gained in ratings (aquino, madrigal, poe, trillanes, villar), 4 stayed (angara, escudero, hontiveros, pimentel) while only 3 lost cayetano, legarda, magsaysay r). these three losses were minimal with 2 losing only 1 percentage point while the 3rd lost 2 percentage points
• on the other hand, 7 out of 9 senatoriables of UNA lost ratings (cojuangco, ejercito, enrile, gordon, honasan, maceda, zubiri), 1 the same (magsaysay m)  and only 1 gained (binay).
• most of the dramatic loses in rankings and/or ratings were suffered by the UNA senatoriables – jv ejercito, migz zubiri, jack enrile, gringo honasan and ernie maceda
• consequently, most of the dramatic gains in ranking and ratings were gained by Team PNoy senatoriables – grace poe, bam aquino, jamby madrigal and cynthia villar
• no changes occurred for UNA bottom dweller mitos magsaysay, tingting cojuangco and ernie maceda

what can explain the dramatic loses by the UNA senatoriables?

we think its a brand positioning blunder by UNA. we read it first from statements from mitos magsaysay where she said UNA wanted “aquino to succeed” and that their role is to give “constructive criticism”. (read here: malacanang delivers THE BOMB on senatoriable mitos magsaysay)

a few days after that, jv ejercito basically said the same thing, plus the UNA spokesman. some of them even said UNA was not necessarily an opposition party. instead of saying they are an opposition party, they were saying things like they will be “fiscalizers”. why then would voters favor UNA when the president himself has his own set of senatoriables?

these were very confusing statements by the UNA senatoriables and the UNA party. people must have wondered  if UNA was not the opposition party, what are they then? that can mean they are part of the administration. if they are part of the administration, why do they have competing senatoriables to that of the admin party?

this was a very basic and fundamental blunder by UNA. instead of differentiating  themselves against Team PNoy, they were actually making themselves similar to their opponents. two of the key elements of brand building is uniqueness and differentiation versus competition. instead of achieving those, they were actually making themselves similar. the result is UNA’s brand positioning became invisible in the eyes of the voters. being invisible allows the voters to only see Team PNoy.

Team PNoy released their TV ads soon after. statements by jv ejercito and the UNA party in reaction to the TV ad did not help the party either and made it worst for them.

Ejercito explained where UNA stands when it comes to the Aquino administration. They support his platform of good governance but they want to keep the Senate as an independent institution to keep the administration in check.

“We admit that the President is very popular. We have supported the President on his thrust for good governance. But sometimes when you are too popular, you do not know anymore the pulse of the people,” he said.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/21139-jv-ejercito-to-team-pnoy-why-the-impostor-tag

ejercito’s words explain the problem UNA created for  themselves. he did say the party supports aquino in his platform of good governance. aquino was elected by a landslide vote and continue to be the country’s most popular president on the basis of a good governance election promise and actions during his term. ejercito simply acknowledged aquino is doing well which we think to many voters would mean they should favor the senators aquino is supporting.

UNA was not defining themselves in the mind of the voters. what they were doing instead was propping up even more an already popular president and this president has his own list of senatoriables.

in marketing and advertising, you never talk about your competition, you talk about yourself and how good you are and what you can do that competition cannot. if you talk about competition, you do so only to show their weakness or failure. in this case UNA was not even mentioning any failure or weakness of aquino or Team PNoy. ejercito even praised the achievements and strengths of aquino.

UNA’s blunder is not just very bad brand positioning, we think its really a detrimental strategic blunder. we are guessing that they did research and found out that noynoy aquino is a very popular president and that noynoy aquino is the strongest endorser in philippine politics bar none.

UNA was unable to figure what they can do to counter this high popularity of noynoy aquino. we think their biggest error is thinking that since aquino is very popular, they should not go against him. and that thinking is very much like giving up on the election even before it started.

 this kind of results in the surveys with the kind of competition and smarts or lack of smarts by UNA is not surprising. Team PNoy must be very pleased with the way UNA is handling their campaign.

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source of SWS survey :    http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=&title=Team-PNoy-takes-the-lead-in-latest-SWS-BW-poll&id=66397#

Team PNoy takes the lead in latest SWS-BW poll

2013 Senatoriables Poll now open – vote here

welcome to The Presidentiables Blog 2013 Senatoriables Poll!

the list only has the major senatoriables running for the 2013 election. the list is short of the 30+ official candidates for senators. the pictures of the senatoriables with different sizes and shapes were hardly chosen as they were picked up from whatever our friend Google Image gave us.

this is an unscientific poll given that no random sampling has been done and there was no vetting of respondents. anyone with an internet connection can cast their vote in this poll. obviously only those with an internet connection are the respondents in this poll which is hardly reflective of the actual voting population.

but candidates and supporters can use the results for bragging rights.

they can also use the poll results as a gauge of the size of the support candidates are getting out of netizens. respondents who vote here are social media users and they can be harnessed to promote the candidacy of senatoriables. as it has been shown in the most recent months, Philippine netizens who are in social media is a very potent force who can influence national life and behavior or attitudes of national leaders. a candidate who gets higher votes than others here can say they have bigger netizen support. the question then is how can this candidate harness the netizen support for more support in the internet and how to make this spill over to traditional media and real world voting by election time.

make your vote count! you will be given only 12 votes in this list. come back here from time to time and find out who is being chosen by readers of this blog.

thank you all and good luck, senatoriables.

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please read comments for updates in this poll.

VOTE HERE

notes :

• the software will allow you to vote for a maximum of only 12 candidates.
• after you cast your vote, you can click “view results” if you are not taken to the results portion
• poll opened on february 16, 2013
• poll will close on day before election day
• follow us on twitter -> @wawam

note that the pictures here are arranged in alphabetical order based on their first name. that is nearly scientific.

alan peter cayetano

antonio trillanes

bam aquino

chiz escudero

cynthia villar

dick gordon

eddie villanueva

ernie maceda

grace poe

gringo honasan

jack enrile

jamby madrigal

jc de los reyes

jv ejercito

koko pimentel

loren legarda

migz zubiri

mitos magsaysay

nancy binay

ramon magsaysay

risa hontiveros

sonny angara

teddy casino

tingting cojuangco

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if you have a twitter account, please use these hash tags:

2013 Senatoriables SWS survey – cynthia villar should fire her advertising agency

key points on the top 12:

• top three continue to be legarda, escudero and cayetano (alan peter)  in that order. they have been the same top three in the three surveys conducted by SWS
• among the top 12, poe had the largest increase in ranking, by 10 places to rank #10 from rank #20 in the previous survey
• other biggest increases in rank are for enrile (jack) at +2, now #8  and honasan  at +3, now #5
• cayetano and enrile have been running tv political ads and may be showing its impact in the rankings
• the largest decrease in ranking is with villar (cynthia) who dropped -4 places, now #8 from #4. it appears villar’s heavy tv advertising is not working for her.
• it’s interesting that villar’s first name is officially listed in the Comelec and we assume on the official ballot as “Cynthia Misis Hanepbuhay”. this will probably be villar’s positioning in her ad campaigns
• other biggest decreases in ranking are on binay (nancy), -3 places to now #12 from #9 and zubiri -2 places now #7

key points on the bottom 13 to 24:

• a major increase  was gained by villanueva who now place at #23. he was not on the top 24 in the two previous surveys. this is the result of his announcing his candidacy.
•  the following suffered in ranking –  aquino, madrigal, maceda, magsaysay (mitos) and casino. 

we would recommend the following: 

• villar to fire her advertising agency and immediately change her advertising campaign. her ads even though aired very early and spent heavily is not working for her. 
• it is still too early to tell. these rankings will still change and some could be dramatic changes as the real campaign starts.
• candidates should be doing heavy voter research now for the purpose of improving or airing new political ads.