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.

—-

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

president noynoy aquino makes history – net satisfaction rating beats all presidents since cory aquino

the SWS through businessworld released the latest presidential public satisfaction survey results, the Third Quarter 2012 Social Weather Report. the survey was conducted on august 24 to 27, 2012 which is period 9 of aquino’s presidency.

we did an analysis of the survey results and one of the headlines from the survey results which has not been mentioned in news reports is that president aquino’s period 9 rating compared to similar period 9 net satisfaction ratings of other presidents before him is the highest among all of them (chart below).

• cory aquino : +32% points
• fidel ramos : +49% points
• erap estrada : +19% points
• gloria macapagal arroyo : +28% points
• noynoy aquino : +67% points

comparing aquino’s latest net satisfaction rating to the same period 9 of the other presidents is the proper way to compare these ratings. comparing it to the same period of the administration of the presidents remove the “seasonality effect” of the ratings. removing that makes the ratings comparable and “of the same kind”.

satisfaction ratings of presidents normally drop the longer the presidents sits in office. this happens as people remove more and more of the honeymoon feeling with the new president and as the president performs his duties on a regular basis. it is normal to see more people getting disappointed as the people see that the president is unable to fulfill his election promises and as the president fumbles on day to day performance.

the chart above shows the cory, ramos and erap saw their net satisfaction ratings drop from the high at the start of their administration to period 9. only arroyo enjoyed a slight increase. it is interesting that aquino was able to beat the performance of his mother, cory who undoubtedly was one of the country’s most popular presidents.

to see president aquino’s ratings rise at this level and beating all the other presidents is a testament to the huge popularity of the sitting president among the people.

in a previous post in this blog (click to read : ABC socio eco class gives aquino satisfaction ratings rebound, hits highest level in his presidency) we also said that aquino’s latest satisfaction ratings got a boost from the rich or the ABC socio-eco class (chart below).

aquino getting a boost on his over-all net satisfaction rating because of the rich or the ABC socio-eco class is more significant as the lowest net satisfaction rating he got in the last period (period 8) was caused by the rich or the ABC socio-eco class abandoning aquino together with urban areas and ncr. (read blog post here: the rich from NCR & urban areas abandons aquino, grossly dissatisfied with president’s performance – SWS survey). the latest satisfaction rating of aquino marks the return of the rich or the ABC socio-eco class in supporting aquino.

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo p arvisu

the rich from NCR & urban areas abandons aquino, grossly dissatisfied with president’s performance – SWS survey

president noynoy aquino’s net satisfaction hit rock bottom since he took office in the latest SWS  presidential performance survey, going down to +42. while this is still on the “good” level as SWS categorizes it, the worry part is that it may be the start of a  perilous  dropping trend.

aquino is admittedly the country’s most popular president of the country when he won the election in a landslide  and his net satisfaction ratings starting off at a very high level. the contrast of his net satisfaction rating reaching an all time low came as a shock to malacanang that it has taken the silly step of asking SWS to explain the drop.

source : http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/261508/news/nation/malaca-wants-sws-to-explain-drop-in-pnoys-ratings

the biggest contributor to aquino’s over-all net satisfaction rating is the rich or the ABC socio-eco class abandoning aquino.   his net satisfaction ratings suffered a significant deterioration on all key indicators, with a  total net satisfaction drop of 37% points to +25% net satisfied from +62% in the most recent May 2012 poll from the previous March 2012 poll.

this total net satisfaction was pulled down by a significant deterioration of +25% points. that is about a one third drop among the ABC socio-eco class.  there was also a significant increase of ABC respondents dissatisfied  with aquino with an increase of +13% points. almost a doubling from previous poll from 16% dissatisfied to now 29% dissatisfied.

another contributor to the drop  in net satisfaction rating of aquino  is NCR, where it also showed a dramatic deterioration  of -34% points in net satisfaction,  almost as large as the drop among the ABC, to only +18% from the previous period of +52%.

there was a significant deterioration in number of people from the NCR who were satisfied in aquino’s performance from +72% to +48% a drop of -24% points. consequently the number of people dissatisfied in the performance of aquino from the NCR increased from 20% to 30% , a huge increase of +10% points. that is a huge 50% increase.

in this poll period, those from the urban areas also showed a big drop in net satisfaction in the performance of aquino to +35% points from +45% points from previous polling period. this shows a high -10% points drop. the  huge drop in net satisfaction among those living in urban areas was driven by a high drop in number of people who were satisfied with the performance of aquino with a -9% point decrease from previous period; to 59% from 68%. dissatisfaction ratings stayed about the same at 24% in this polling period from 23% of previous period.

in summary the group of pinoys most responsible for the drop in net satisfaction rating of president aquino are the rich who belong to the ABC soci-eco class who live in NCR and urban areas. it appears to us this group of pinoys have abandoned aquino.

this group of people are the educated and the more enlightened  about national issues and problems. it is interesting to note that this kind of dramatic drops did not occur in the rest of luzon, visayas, mindanao and other socio-eco classes including rural areas. the period was marked with almost weekly news of price increases in oil and transport fares.  these increases in prices may be added to the perception that the aquino administration has not been doing enough to help the economy.

 

satisfaction ratings do shift over time, and almost always they drop from its peak which usually is at the start when the president assumes office. gravity applies to these performance satisfaction ratings as they usually erode. people give the new president high ratings at the start as it comes from a just concluded election. as everyday problems and challenges of governance occur, people change their minds as they are able to gauge the president up close and over and beyond election promises which are almost always good things.

 the upside for president aquino is that the drop that his net satisfaction ratings  have suffered from the start of his office to period 8 of the polling time frame is not the worst among the four presidents before him.

aquino’s net satisfaction ratings drop  is just the third worst  with -18% points  following erap who is on top with -47% points and followed second by arroyo at – 20% points. in this comparison, to us the most telling for aquino is the closeness to arroyo’s drop in net satisfaction ratings. to be compared to arroyo is perhaps the worst that anyone can do for aquino.

erap’s massive drop in net satisfaction ratings after 8 polling periods is understandable as he was involved in an impeachment trial during the time of the survey while the drop in arroyo’s net satisfaction may be attributed to mostly disappointment in performance as president.

it is difficult to find comfort in these numbers for aquino. it may be just a fluke or this can be the start of a real strong downtrend net satisfaction rating for him. while the president is still on the positive side, getting a negative as arroyo had gotten during the last years of her term would be very disappointing.

source : rappler.com

in many ways, it is understandable that malacanang is anxious about these poll results.

the economy has done well during the polling period  in march 2012 as the government reported a very impressive +6.4% GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2012, the second highest in asia next to china and one that surprised and exceeded expectations and forecasts.

add to that the stellar performance of the philippine stock market where it is the best performing in the world  which has broken historic highs 20 times since january this year alone.

there is difficulty in reconciling  how the rich who belong the ABC socio-eco class has abandoned aquino and whose ranks have shown dramatic shifts in satisfaction disfavoring the president when it is this group who invest in the stock market and who most likely benefited from the 6.4% GDP growth rate.

it makes you wonder what is it that has caused the rich to abandon aquino and give the president dramatic drops in satisfaction.  if the rich are not benefiting  from the GDP growth rate, who is? if it is not economic reasons that  is disappointing them, what is it about aquino and his job performance then?

aquino during the election campaign has kept harping on how well he listens to the people. in fact he even carried that election campaign positioning through his administration via the no wang-wang policy and the often quoted “kayo ang boss ko”  spin.  now is the time to actually do what he says he is good at – it is time for him to listen and listen hard to the people and find out why the rich from NCR and urban areas have abandoned aquino and has given him the worst net satisfaction rating of his administration.

~~ carlo p arvisu ~~
mindscape landmark 

why pinoys who are single or married need family planning in their relationship

some years ago, a comprehensive research was done on the habits and attitudes of pinoys on family planning.  both qualitative and quantitative researches were done on a nati0nal basis.

first to be conducted were a series of qualitative research, focus group discussions in metro manila, davao and cebu among several groups of women and men with varying age groups. and marital status. the qualitative research was done  to gain possible consumer insights for the development of advertising that will promote family planning use, advocacy work and public relations efforts. equally important, the qualitative researches were conducted to serve as inputs for the design of the quantitative research that was going to be done nationwide.

these charts are only a small portion of the whole research but it is quite telling on where the minds and hearts of pinoys, specially filipina women are in relation to family planning to themselves and their families.

the first part of the FGDs (focus group discussions) was a discussion on values and dreams of the respondents for their families.

an interesting methodology was designed. a drawing of a tree with roots, trunk and leaves were placed on the board. respondents were given post it pads where they were asked to write on them the values they believe  in, those that are important for them or their dreams. they were asked to put the post its on the board, place it anywhere inside or outside the tree. once everyone has done this, their answers were processed and discussed with the moderator.

where the respondents placed the post it in relation to the tree had meaning to them. post its placed outside the tree meant whatever was written there was not very important for them. those placed on the leaves were more important and down to the roots. to the respondents, those they placed on the roots were the most important for them.

these were the findings:

first, everyone in the FGDs said their family is the most important to them. that is true even among singles, specially more for those married or with children,  across all age groups and in both sexes.  in fact most of them even said their family is more important to them than themselves. they are absolutely willing to do anything and everything for their family.

they said that what they are working and living for is to fulfill the dreams of their families as a unit, to secure the future of their children and the family’s  well-being. this is not necessarily just about  money or wealth, in fact those were hardly mentioned.  what was more important to them were the emotional aspect, the joys and happiness that their families felt or aspired for. most of them said it is these priorities that they are presently working for and making such a huge effort for.

after  this  was discussed extensively, the respondents were then asked –  how will you feel when you find out today that you are pregnant? (or for male respondents if their spouses or significant others were pregnant?) the idea was to present to the respondents a simulation of what happens in real life – how an unplanned pregnancy happens to people.

to most of the respondents, pregnancy was something that is planned. for those who were married, they discuss it and plan for it with their spouses. the planning usually is just to agree if they want or do not want to have a child or an additional child at the moment.  for single respondents, it is normally not thought of as it was certain they did not want to have children out of marriage.

while they had these in their minds, the respondents know that getting pregnant was always a possibility as most of them were sexually active, even those who were single. they saw sex as part and parcel of having a relationship with the opposite sex.

to the question how will they feel or what is their reaction if they found out they were pregnant now, these were their answers to that question:

the respondents saw unplanned pregnancy essentially as a major disruption, something that will stop or derail the plans that they have been pursuing and currently working on for their families.  there is nothing else in their lives that had quite the same impact and effect on their lives than an unplanned pregnancy.

all of them considered being pregnant and having a child as a blessing, even among the singles. but they would rather plan it or get pregnant out of a determined, clear and agreed to goal and at the  right timing with their partners. an unplanned pregnancy to them is very unwelcome.

the respondents knew that having a baby at that point in time of their lives mzy not be the best time. they do not take having a baby lightly. they know it is a big responsibility and will involve giving most if not all of  their time and effort for the caring of the baby. that would necessarily take time and effort from their work and the duties and responsibilities they were presently fulfilling. most of them said life at its present state was already difficult, having an unplanned pregnancy will make everything more than doubly difficult.

that was the mindset by which advertising and marketing efforts on family planning will be set on in getting the target audience to use it. this and other researches were conducted to get a good picture of the user mindset.

but over and above the advertising and marketing use, this explains very well the challenges faced by family planning advocates.

~~midscape landmark~~
carlo p arvisu 

“It’s More Fun In The Philippines” – new tourism slogan. pinoys will make the difference

the DOT, secretary mon jimenez in particular is explaining the new slogan for philippine tourism as you read this.  live tweets from reporters in the venue have said this is the new international line : “It’s More Fun In The Philippines”.

we like the line. the power of the line rests on the key  insight that tourists really want to have fun. it is the first and last goal of every tourist.  filipinos too are fun to be with. we  in fact can find humor in almost everything.

another core insight is what sec jimenez said – “It is the Filipino that completes the Philippine experience”.   that could very well be the secret weapon of this new tourism campaign. the philippines do not have a monopoly of mountains, beaches and other tourists sites, every other country has one. but it is only in the philippines where filipinos are everywhere. it  will be the filipinos themselves who will make a difference  for tourists to enjoy themselves during their vacation.

a country can have the best beaches in the world, but a rude and an unpleasant encounter with the people will delete all that joy.

however, we have not seen the execution of the filipinos as key to the campaign in the ads so far. they are still about tourist spots. jimenez in his speech this morning and in other times have been talking about the importance of the contribution of pinoys to the success of the tourism campaign. we will need to see how this is executed in future ads.

the line is also a competitive line. it does not just say what the philippines is all about, it says the philippines is better than other countries in giving them what they want which is fun.  in advertising terms, that is a powerful slant.

images from here : http://www.rappler.com/business/725-new-tourism-campaign-out-philippines-is-fun?utm_source=RapTwitter&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=SMTrack

but then again “#1forFUN” is included in the local line. this is not an original as it is in the amazon.com website.

first, we are unable to appreciate the need for a local line. this line, though simple is also in english. in twitter, singer and songwriter jim paredes of the APO said the tagalog translation of the international line also works very well – “Mas Masaya Sa Pinas”  we agree with paredes. we think that is a great line for pinoys in the country.

we do not see any value in having two lines for the same thing. besides the line “#1forFUN” is not an original. we do not think it has any place in the slogan we want to use for the ocuntry.

so far pinoys seem to take to the line looking at the number of tweets it was able to get from everyone so much so that it was trending worldwide. practically all the tweets were positive with almost all giving their own example of why it is more fun in the philippines.

this is a far cry from the precious DOT chief who had to junk the line they developed where people were vjust divided plus the fact that there logo design was just too close to the the Poland tourism logo.

we will see how the ad agency will take this further if this line has legs.

the DOT also has a new website – http://www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.com/

~~a mindscape landmark~~

Pro-RH Bill TV Ad – in a strategic move, “pro-chance” renames an old issue

this ad defines the RH Bill squarely on the positioning of helping the poor.

it says the RH Bill will give those born in poverty a chance in life, chance to continuous education, to eat properly, to have ambition and not just dreams, and a chance to get out of poverty and in summary – a chance to life.

after that list, it said “yun lang naman ang hinihingi natin” (those are just the things we are asking for).

poverty alleviation or as we prefer  to put it, to  give the  people the tools to help themselves get out of poverty is what sectors of the pro-RH Bill is promising. we don’t entirely agree with that thinking as we do not think the RH Bill is the lone silver bullet for poverty alleviation, we think the RH Bill as we have said previously is just one of many tools that the government can give the poor ro use in taking themselves out of poverty.

the cause  of poverty in our view is mutli-faceted and its solutions need to be multi-faceted as well. the government, civil society and the poor themselves need to offer multiple solutions, from all sides and levels to solve poverty.

this outright positioning of the RH Bill as poverty alleviation solution while we think it makes sense at a certain level brings it right smack to what anti-RH Bill proponents are saying about their opposition to the RH Bill. one of the things they are saying is that the RH Bill is not the solution to poverty. that there are many other solutions that the government can employ to solve poverty,

we are not however saying the ad is making the wrong argument, we are just saying this jumps directly into the frying pan of debate that anti-RH Bill proponents can have very good arguments for.

we like the ad just the same for the  very idea of redefining the RH debate in favorable terms for the RH Bill. it is a very clever advertising strategy – this ad defines the RH Bill as a pro-chance, adding a new term to the debate and a dig at the traditional debates lodged by the anti-RH Bill proponents in saying the RH-Bill is anti-life,  they are pro-life and that the RH Bill is pro-choice.

actually these terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life”  are being misused in the RH debate in the country. pro-choice in the western countries mean women hace the choice to abortion while pro-life is  anti-abortion and protecting the unborn child.

in the philippines, the anti-RH Bill proponents have demonized it to mean the RH Bill is pro-abortion, which it isn’t and modern methods of contraception as abortifacient, which they are also not.

this ad in a way corrects the misinformation advanced by the anti-RH Bill proponents and very smartly re-defines the debate  by making  the RH Bill to mean pro-chance for the poor to remove themselves from poverty,

it is excellent strategic thinking and excellent copywriting. we applaud PLCPD and the ad agency who developed this ad.

~~a mindscape landmark~~

president noynoy aquino wrong on flaws of SWS (march 2011) hunger survey results

the latest (march 2011) hunger and poverty survey of SWS got a reaction from president n0ynoy aquino –  he said the SWS  was unable to properly capture the efforts they did in visayas and mindanao where he said many of the government poverty alleviation programs were implemented.  from the point of view of statistics, he means the respondent sampling done by SWS was incorrect.

Aquino finds flaw in hunger survey

“I myself can’t reconcile that sometimes,” Mr. Aquino said, referring to the contrasting survey findings and the claimed achievements of the government’s programs to generate employment and reduce poverty.

President Aquino said the bulk of the data in the SWS survey came from Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.

He said that 400,000 new beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer program, or CCT, were from the Visayas and Mindanao but this was not reflected in the survey.

“It so happened that the statistical sample used didn’t capture the ones helped by the CCT. If it was reversed, the result would have been skewed to show that more people experienced their hunger being alleviated,” Mr. Aquino said.

The President said the CCT was first rolled out in the Visayas and Mindanao because the poverty incidence was more serious in those areas compared with Metro Manila and Luzon.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20110408-330059/Aquino-finds-flaw-in-hunger-survey

aquino is wrong in what he said.

it is not true that the survey failed to capture the government’s poverty alleviation efforts in visayas and mindanao where the government did bulk of their efforts. the hunger ratings in fact in visayas and mindanao went down from previous with 14.7% in march in visayas from previous 18.2% and to 16.7% in mindanao from 21.1% of previous period.

self-claimed “mahirap” or poverty ratings however climbed up in visayas and mindanao. visayas went up to 61% from 53% and mindanao to 49% from 44%.

aquino’s complaint about the sampling skew towards NCR and Luzon is also baseless. bulk of the respondents come from NCR and Luzon for the simple reason that most of the population of the philippines come form these same two areas.  that is how sampling design is supposed to be done – you get more respondents from the areas where most of the population are for the sample size to be truly representative of the country. the sample size is supposed to mirror where the people are in the country.

in other words, there is nothing wrong with the sampling design of the SWS survey as aquino is saying.  there is only something wrong  with aquino’s understanding of what is a good sampling design.

also,  one can expect a difference in results between the SWS survey and aquino’s efforts at poverty alleviation for the simple reason that SWS used random sampling while  the aquino government’s efforts were not random but purposive and specific. given that, it is possible results will be different.

for the aquino government to find out how effective their efforts are , the aquino government should do a purposive sampling of the actual people they helped and see if their economic lives have changed. in simple terms they should do a before and after study on the specific people they reached.

these are the rest of results:

source: http://www.sws.org.ph/

2M/year added to philippine population, will reach 100M by 2014 – can the country afford it?

with a growth rate of 2.04%, the country adds 2M to the population every year. ithe population is expected to reach 96M this year and at the current rate, it will reach 100M as soon as 2014.

100M in the philippines is very hard to imagine but it will happen sooner than what we want it to be.

source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=644561&publicationSubCategoryId=63

by rank, the philippines has the 12th largest population in the world. bur the story should not end there. size of population per se is not a bad thing. we need to look at other things to see whether the size makes sense or not.

for sure, population growth rate matters.  growth rates show the number of people we add to the population given a specific cycle. it makes sense to conclude that from a population growth standpoint, the slower, the better. after all, we live in a finite world and that includes the philippines. the country has very defined boundaries, it is a finite space. we just can’t pile each person on top of the other when horizontal space runs out.

we should look at other things – one is nominal GDP.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

This article includes a list of countries of the world sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP), the market value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given year. The GDP dollar estimates presented here are calculated at market or government official exchange rates.

Several economies which are not considered to be countries (world, the EU, Eurozone, and somedependent territories) are included in the list because they appear in the sources. These economies are not ranked in the charts here, but are listed.

The first list includes 2010 data¹ for members of the International Monetary Fund.

The second list shows the World Bank‘s 2009 estimates, and the third list includes mostly 2009 estimates from the CIA World Factbook.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

a country is like a family – a family has a size, a specific number of people and it also has income. the family uses this income to support the family’s needs like food to feed it’s members, clothing,  medicine, rent, education, transportation and leisure plus other needs of the household.

the more income you have with the same family members the better. when the number of people in the family increase, then the amount of income needs to increase as well for the family to be able to maintain the same lifestyle and needs. that can be difficult for many families as it is not easy to increase income – one cannot  easily get a promotion or other members of the family take on new jobs or source of income.

“living  within your means” comes to mind as the smart thing to do.

family income is GDP to a country and population of a country is to family size to families. both have expenses.

common sense tells you and it is the smart thing, that since the philippines has the 12th largest population in the world, the country needs to have GDP or income that ranks also 12th in the world. the 12th most populous should have the 12th largest GDP in the world.

that is not the case.  here is the top 20 GDP ranking in the world.

source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

okay, the philippines is not among the top 20 in the world in GDP, so maybe it is slighly lower, say to 40.  it is not ideal but at least it is close.

well, not true. the philippines GDP size is not even among the top 40.

the fact is in terms of GDP, the philippines ranks among the top 50 in the world, 47th largest to be specific.

the country has the 12th largest population in the world and yet it only has the 47th largest GDP in the world.

your conclusions and thoughts?

the police should set guidelines for hostage taking coverage, not media

Palace wants media to have own guidelines on hostage crisis coverage

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang wants media to lay down their own guidelines on covering hostage crises instead of having the government impose prior restraint.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma said media should know how to avoid endangering the safety of hostages.

“Our stand is that we should not restrain freedom of expression,” he said.

“We should keep in mind that we fought for freedom for us to express what’s on our minds in this country.”

Coloma said media practitioners should evaluate their coverage during Monday’s hostage crisis at Rizal Park in Manila where eight Hong Kong tourists were killed.

source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=606530&publicationSubCategoryId=63

‘Media, not gov’t, should set coverage guidelines’

MANILA, Philippines – It is the media, not the government or the police, which should establish the guidelines on coverage of life-threatening incidents such as hostage-taking, an expert has advised.

“You never want to interfere with covering. But when you come up with voluntary guidelines that people agreed to and try honestly to adhere to, it’s much better than having a government say these are the guidelines, this is how you behave, this is what you do–that really becomes quite onerous,” said Bob Dietz, Program Coordinator for Asia of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told ANC’s Top Story on Thursday.

The hostage drama started when dismissed police officer Rolando Mendoza hijacked a bus full of tourists in Manila in an attempt to get his job back.

Local and foreign journalists flocked to the Quirino Grandstand to cover the incident. Some were criticized for delivering the critical moments of the crisis.

“When we’re in a middle of a news coverage situation, we’re really going for the best that we can get, especially the people on the street–the cameramen, the producers, the soundmen at that level,” Dietz said.

Dietz, however, pointed out that people back in the newsroom should be the one to decide when to call the shots.

“What has to happen is back here, where there are cooler heads in the newsroom, sort of saying ‘that’s too much’, ‘let’s pull this back’, ‘get these people out of that position’,” Dietz said.

http://beta.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/08/26/10/media-not-govt-should-set-coverage-guidelines

we think it is wrong that the government is asking media to set its own guidelines on media coverage of hostage crisis situations.

a hostage taking  is a matter of security and safety, it is a police and law enforcement matter, why is media being asked to develop the guidelines?  that is the reason why the police or the military is given the responsibility and the power to take over the whole situation for  resolution. among all government agencies, they are also the only group who has the arms, the technical skills and experience in resolving such matters peacefully. in other words, they are the ones who know what is needed and what is not needed to succeed in the resolution of the hostage taking situation.

media does not know anything about  such things, what media knows is how to set up the camera to get the best shot, what to say to the audience during the coverage to sustain interest and viewership to their media channel. what they were trained for is how to get the best camera shot possible for great tv or radio. their work  mostly has nothing to do with safety and security.

it does not make sense that the government is asking  media to develop the guidelines on matter they know nothing about.

the guidelines are meant to make sure the police has free and unhampered reign on the whole situation to be able to satisfactorily resolve the hostage crisis. the guidelines are there for the objective of the police successfully achieving their goal, not for media to do it’s job best. the goals of successfully resolving the hostage crisis and getting the best tv shot are separate and distinct, performed by two very different groups with one, the media  negatively affecting the other if they make a mistake.

the guidelines should come from the police, not the media. the police should develop guidelines just like the way they ask the government for new equipment, tools and training to help them become better at what they do and to succeed at achieving their goals.  the media guidelines is exactly the same thing as the police setting up a perimeter around the area where  the hostage taking is to prevent everyone else from interfering with their work.

one of the top key things the police want is control of the situation and that includes media coverage as that affects the hostage taker, the family and co-conspirators of the hostage taker, copycats and the public.

the thinking behind the malacanang direction is on the wrong places and comes from the wrong perspective. hostage talking guidelines is not about good media relations, it is about life and death.  media’s failure only results to lower tv ratings while the failure of the police results to death. there is no comparison at all.

we think malacanang’s media group, one secretary of whom used to work for abs-cbn,  is being given too much voice on this matter. it is all wrong.

~~mindscape landmark~~
carlo p arvisu

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

dramatic losses in internals for top 3 presidentiables but aquino leads, erap 2nd, villar drops to 3rd – May 2010 SWS-Business World presidentiables survey

the sws-business world may 2-3 poll shows some interesting developments in the internal scores with major changes in them although the over-all outcome did not show any changes.

noynoy aquino continue to be the front runner but has gained significantly from previous to now 42% from 38%, a 4% point gain. the survey has a 2.2% margin of error.

erap estrada also gained significantly from previous to now 20% from 17% and overtakes manny villar who suffered a major drop to now 19% from the previous 26%. the significant drop for villar and significant gain for erap has put them now on a statistical tie. although the momentum is on the side of estrada.

it appears to us villar has not found the correct formula to arrest his declining numbers. we have said previously in this blog that villar’s drop has been caused by the unresolved C-5 corruption scandal, concretized by the Villarroyo name and villar’s move from the side of good to evil in his parties efforts at black propaganda most of which backfired and hurt his campaign instead.

(read here: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/category/why-manny-villar-will-lose-the-election/)

the over-all ratings and rankings have not changed  from previous. however, it is noteworthy that aquino’s lead over estrada is dramatic, a +22% lead, more than double than what estrada has. aquino has 42% versus estrada’s 20%.

the internals of their scores are quite interesting to look at.

aquino’s NCR ratings grew significantly to 43% from 35% while his socio-eco class rating among the ABC dropped to 44% from 53%. we find that a very unusual movement as most of the ABC class are located in NCR. these ratings seem to be contradicting each other. we wonder if there is a tabulation error in this report.

estrada’s mindanao rating has gone up dramatically to 30% from 22%.  this is probably driven mostly by estrada’s mindanao-specific tv ad that he has been airing in the past weeks. estrada may have found a very strategic move in this election. he is the only presidentiable who ran mindanao-specific tv ads.

another notable movement in estrada’s internal scores is his ABC rating which is now 14% from the previous 6%, more than doubling from previous. we wonder if this is related to the question we have posted on the ABC tallies in aquino’s scores.

villar’s significant drop in over-all rating to 19% from 26% may have been brought about by dramatic deterioration of his ratings in the NCR, from 18% to 10%, a cut of more than half; balance luzon from 25% to 20%, a quarter drop and mindanao , another drop by more than half from 31%  to 15%.  we think these are very alarming deterioration of villar’s ratings.

significant drops in villar’s ratings occurred across all socio-eco classes, -9% pts in ABC, -7% in D and -10% in E. across the board drops in geography and socio-classes is showing villar supporters are showing fluid movements confirming what we said previously that villar’s supporters are most vulnerable to poaching by other presidentiables.

these movements should tell the presidentiable campaigns to look into geographic and demographics segmentation to improve their over-all ratings. unfortunately, because it is just a few days before election, there is not much they can do to recover or push their ratings in the direction they want it to be.

Aquino pads poll lead

Gap now 22 points; Estrada overtakes Villar

WITH THE MAY 10 elections just around the corner, Sen. Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” C. Aquino III has picked up steam to widen his lead in the presidential race, results of the final BusinessWorld-Social Weather Stations (BW-SWS) Pre-Election survey showed.

The May 2-3 poll, conducted roughly a week before Filipinos troop to the precincts, gave Mr. Aquino the support of 42%, up four points and ahead of former President Joseph “Erap” E. Estrada of the Pwersa ng Masa who was now in second place with three-point gain to 20%.

Erstwhile second-placer Sen. Manuel “Manny” B. Villar, Jr. of the Nationalista Party (NP) was a point behind at 19%, a result within the survey’s error margin of 2.2%. His support was down seven points from the prior BW-SWS poll of April 16-19.

The gap between the top two was 22 points, wider than the 12 Mr. Aquino enjoyed over Mr. Villar in the last survey.

source:  http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=10589

 

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

Villarroyo – the most powerful word of the 2010 election

the 2010 election will be remembered for many things some good and some bad. there will also be losers and a winner. but one word will stand out, it can be the word for the 2010 election – Villarroyo.

it is a very creative term, two names moulded into one, giving it a precise meaning to a complex concept – that villar is arroyo’s secret candidate in the 2010 election.

it did not matter that the declared candidate of arroyo is gilbert teodoro, the idea was putting a seed of doubt in the minds of voters about who the candidate is of the evil one.

arroyo has been seen as the exclusive owner of  the kiss of death for those seeking public office. she showed she had that during the last senatorial elections where almost all of  the administration candidates lost in that election while  almost all of the opposition senatorial candidates won senatorial seats.

the administration during that time was boasting of its good economic record. the malacanang press bureau was releasing a lot of economic data boasting it was under the arroyo administration that had good economic results.

the numbers were  good but real life was not for most of the people – jobs were scarce, unemployment high and hunger were also high. since that was just a senatorial election, the people took its anger towards the administration candidates by voting those who were going against them who were mostly opposition senatorial candidates. that election was a protest vote against arroyo, a referndum on her perfromance as president.

arroyo’s kiss of death is as potent then as it is now with gilbert teodoro, the newest recipient of arroyo’s kis of death. his ratings continue to suffer in the polls with just 7% in the latest reading, getting only as high 9% on previous tallies. his ratings hardly moved from the time he entered the competition.

teodoro was largely an unknown candidate to voters having no previous elected national position and just two years of a cabinet post in the arroyo administration, the defense portfolio which by its very nature is a low key cabinet position.

he came into the election as an unknown and unmarked. arroyo’s kiss of death was the only mark that was on him and that did not help at all. the teodoro campaign was obsessed with playing it down, the two of them never photographed together and the traditional raising of hands to proclaim a candidacy not done when teodoro was proclaimed standard bearer of arroyo’s political party, lakas-kampi-cmd.

the villarroyo name may not have have the same kind of power asarroyo’s kiss of death on teodoro had, but we think it certainly played a crucial role in this election. we think it had the power of concretizing the idea of the negative in just ten letters.

developments in the campaign also helped give the term villarroyo some potent life. at the time this was coined and released into the public’s mind, the headlines talked about the disintegration of the administration party, lakas-kampi-cmd, with many of its members and even its key officers abandoning the party to join the LP and the NP.

there were also reports that mike arroyo, gloria’s beloved partner was in talks with manny villar and had dropped support on teodoro. teodoro’s own party helped to put very dry wood into the smouldering  fire with it’s members, some key officers and even those working for the teodoro and manzano campaigns complaining about lack of funds to no support coming from lakas-kampi-cmd to their campaign efforts.

they did not have to tell us that as we witnessed that by ourselves. during that time, we hardly saw any tv ads for teodoro and manzano. (in fact todate, manzano has had no tv ad for himself or with him with his presidential candidate).

taking all of it together, it forms into a composite of many different things that actually fit and made sense. we saw that villar was continuing to put on air heavy advertising at that time and that true to critics, he really never went against arroyo as much for example mar roxas or even noynoy aquino.

our simple minds, picking up simple things did form a great, sensible and powerful word – villarroyo.

if you think about it – the whole story seems like a complex plot from a political drama movie. it looked like a script was written for it and got unfolded right in front of our eyes.

or is it destiny speaking here? there is no way any human could have conspired to make the last two letters of villar as the first two letters of arroyo’s last name.

villarroyo –  a perfect fit of two names, the most powerful word in the 2010 election. it will be the one word that was able to bring down billions of pesos in advertising and marketing expense and a presidential candidate who almost made it.

~~mindscape landmark~~
carlo arvisu