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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this is what this ad is all about :

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

conclusion : it’s a wawam!

 

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

in no particular order:

Presidentiable Jejomar Binay’s “Nognog” TV ad campaign 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Presidentiable Rody Duterte’s “Merry Christmas”

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

these ads are not a wawam!

mon ilagan : how not to be the spokesman of the embattled Jejomar Binay

mon iligan, previously from media who was also a congressman from some district was recently appointed spokesman for presidentiable jejomar binay and as we sometimes read also of UNA. he replaced a long list of previous  spokespersons of binay  – congressman jonvic remulla, congressman toby tango and atty jv bautista.

the way we see it, the previous spokespersons of presidentiable binay screwed up or in the case of remulla, maybe he got tired defending the indefensible  binay. tango appear to have been fired from being binay’s spokesman after the residency issue on grace poe was raised by tiangco which had terribly backfired on binay.

mon ilagan is new to his job. but this early, we think he  committed a grave error in his job as spokesman for the embattled  binay.

this came out on twitter :

that “release” has a few things that are wrong with it.

an important basic in being a spokesperson – you are one for another person. as a spokesperson, you speak for your principal who in this case is presidentiable binay. when ilagan opens his mouth, he is speaking the words of presidentiable binay. it is like binay himself talking.

the twitter release was not about binay talking, it was mon ilagan talking about himself, what he thinks, not what binay wants the voters to know and not what binay thinks. the release even has ilagan’s role “UNA spokesman”.

more than mon ilagan being a spokesman for himself, the bigger issue we have with the twitter release is its content. ilagan’s press release about what he wants voters to know about his thouhgts has two parts – the first part is how he sees binay, “I believe in Binay’s capabilities as a leader” and the second part “despite the allegations and issues against him”.

being the spokesman and his salary being paid for by binay, the first part is not surprising. the surprising part is the second part.

in the second part, ilagan actually admits binay has problems – “allegations and issues” against binay.   ilagan is referring to the corruption and dishonesty allegations and issues that have stuck on binay. ilagan is probably the first spokesperson who admitted his principal, binay has problems. he is admitting that binay is damaged goods.

that is a very unusual and very wrong thing to say about your principal if you are a spokesperson. ilagan is reminding the people the allegations being raised against binay. he casted doubt on his own principal, the person he is supposed to speak for and promote.

it is a very strange sales pitch – buy this product even though something is wrong with it. we do not think a lot of people will want to buy a product like that.

in this one, mon ilagan, a spokesman for binay fails in his job – for talking about himself and his thoughts rather than putting forward the thoughts of his principal and for admitting something is wrong with the very product that he is selling to the voters.

it’s a WAWAM!

the unfortunate spin of 2016 presidentiable mar roxas

Christmas in Lent: Roxas to give P4B for survivorshttp://t.co/CfoCv3mLqD | @iammarlonramos#YolandaPH #TabangVisayas

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) April 12, 2014

we saw the above tweet by  philippine daily inquirer this morning. the strong coffee we were drinking was no match to that tweet waking us up.

first thing that popped in my mind was – “what? wow is roxas that rich that he will ‘give P4B to survivors’?”. i thought roxas would be the biggest individual donor to yolanda survivors. i thought roxas deserves a monument with his P4B donation to yolanda survivors.

i immediately clicked the PDI (philippine daily inquirer) link to read the full article and this was what we found out – contrary to the headline of the article, the P4B that “roxas will give to survivors” is not coming from his own pocket but actually from the government.

that headline surely and very strongly communicated the P4B was coming from mar roxas’ own pocket not from any government fund or government project.

the words said it (“Roxas to give P4B for survivors“) and not only that the lead-in to the headline also reinforced it – “Christmas in Lent”. that lead-in clearly says it is like some christmas present that roxas is giving to the survivors.

(full article here : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/593735/christmas-in-lent-roxas-to-give-p4b-for-survivors)

all that of course is incorrect. in fact the whole article talked about the funds coming from government funds. there was nothing at all in the article where it said it will come from the personal funds of roxas but all of it from the government.

it feels like two different people handled this article – the person who wrote the article is a different person who wrote the headline.

The P4 billion is apart from the almost P1.8 billion in rehabilitation funds that the government has started distributing to typhoon-stricken cities and municipalities in three regions in the Visayas, Roxas said at an orientation seminar on the Recovery Assistance on Yolanda here.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/593735/christmas-in-lent-roxas-to-give-p4b-for-survivors#ixzz2ydjv0gSu 

 

misleading headline, its not fr roxas, its from govt RT Roxas to give P4B for survivors @inquirerdotnet http://t.co/IfgowzRyPc

— WAWAM (@wawam) April 11, 2014

so what happened there?

we think the misleading headline is the result of some PR work from Mar Roxas for the 2016 presidential campaign. the roxas campaign was able to get to the PDI reporter and/or the PDI desk editor on this one. often, the desk editor is the one responsible for writing the headlines for articles submitted by field reporters to the “desk”.  the desk editor also has the prerogative to rewrite or add things to the article from the original that reporters write.

it is either the roxas PR team got to them or the PDI writer and/or desk editor somehow found it smart to write a misleading headline on their own. of course the first part is speculation on our part and perhaps even the second one too.

to be fair the PDI is one of the most if not the most difficult to do PR work with. they are very independent will write and publish what they want regardless of who it is trying to influence them.

we suspect that this was PR spin for two reasons – (a) the framing of the fund release is highly suspect, it was being framed as like a christmas gift (“christmas in lent”) and (b) “roxas giving P4B” is an idea that is not at all in the article. it does feel very much that the one who wrote the article is not the same person who wrote the headline.

on the first one, the closest that to the framing of a “christmas gift” was what roxas said was this which was in the article:

“Advance Happy Easter. May you spend your money wisely to help your [constituents],” Roxas told local officials of Capiz as he handed over more than P200 million in rehabilitation aid for his home province.

 

roxas mentioned “happy easter” but somehow the framing morphed into a “christmas gift”. “framing of messages” to favor or skew the message to a particular person or group is typically done by PR practitioners, not editors of newspapers. in this one, it is obvious the effort was meant for the benefit of mar roxas.

the other part of this is that we think saying the money is some kind of “gift” we feel is very insulting and degrading to the survivors. gifts, specially christmas gifts are a happy occasion and a source of joy, something that is given willingly. these funds are not at all in that context, the funds for the rehabilitation of destroyed properties of people. the people suffered and lost a lot. this is being received as  a gift in the context of Christmas joy, it is aid or help to the misery that the people had to endure and are still enduring.

we understand mar roxas has plans to run for president in 2016 and by the looks of it the campaign period has already started with efforts already being done by his main competitor, vice president binay.

with that we also understand that there should now be PR efforts for the presdinetiables, but we think this kind of PR effort for the presdientiable mar roxas is very much misplaced and incorrect from a marketing and political campaign point of view.

if we are right about this being spin for the mar roxas campaing, then we think the campaign has not developed and is not following a strategic plan for the roxas campaign. that is a very dangerous lack and can hurt the presdientiable roxas.

 

 

 

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

jv ejercito’s identity crisis, he is swimming in contradictions

an article on 2013 senatoriable jv ejercito caught our attention. (see below) the headline struck us like a baseball bat – it was a headline that had a contradiction in it. on one hand JV says he wants to be his own man but the lead in  the headline identified him as “estrada’s son”. it’s either you are estrada’s son or you are yourself, an ejercito.

contradictions from senatoriable jv ejercito? we were not surprised. over at twitter (@wawam), we have talked about the many other contradictions from ejercito, including the name change that ejercito had done for himself.

the first paragraph in the PDI article plainly states what it also found as a contradiction:

He likes to be known as his father’s son, yet senatorial candidate Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito also says he wants to be his own man.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/371355/estradas-son-jv-wants-to-be-his-own-man#ixzz2NCVc5Ibm

there were many more contradictions found in the article :

ejercito is very much swimming in contradictions in that article that it almost made us dizzy. at first we thought maybe the dizziness was caused by a poorly written news article. that has happened before. but after reading the article at least three times, we thought the dizziness was not being caused by poor newspaper article writing, it was ejercito himself that was causing it with the contradictions he was dishing out in rapid succession.

this is bad news for ejercito from a marketing and advertising standpoint – an identity crisis is always not  a good thing to have in winning election campaigns. before consumers or in this case voters make a choice, they need to first know who the candidate is. ejercito seem to be using two sets of names, estrada and ejercito in different occasions and media which may put voters confused and unable to pin down who exactly is ejercito.

this identity crisis on its own is bad news but pair that with swimming in contradictions and it can be well, drowning to death. ejercito is obviously unable to adequately explain or give a good reason for the change in name.

half of ejercito thinks the name change is a good thing while the other half thinks its a bad thing, hence he goes to one end to the other like a pendulum gone crazy. ejercito seems to have one of his foot step on the other in every explanation he gives. we find it strange that senatoriable ejercito gives both good and bad things in the change of his name in the same interview.

we think poor or weak brand identification is one of the key reasons why UNA senatoriables suffered dramatic losses in rank and rating in the last SWS senatoriables poll.

(read here : dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey)

is jv ejercito following in the footsteps of UNA?

(note : jv ejercito is one of the top losers in rank and rating in the last SWS senatoriables poll)

(note : knowing PDI editors, we think the contradictory headline was intentionally written by them.)

read in full here : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/371355/estradas-son-jv-wants-to-be-his-own-man

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

Carlos Celdran’s guilty verdict “offending religious feelings”

carlos celdran when he was “arrested” for his “crime” two years ago

this is the court’s official judgement on the case convicting carlos celdran as guilty of  ‘notoriously offending religious feelings”:

http://blogwatch.tv/2013/01/decision-on-carlosceldran-guilty-for-offending-the-religious-feelings/

we are not a lawyer and these are the points we like to raise on the decision of the court:

• how did the court measure and define “religious feelings”? it’s hard enough to measure and define “feelings” on its own, it gets much harder to define “religious feelings”
  
• the plaintiff presented a total of 4 witnesses, is 4 enough to define “religious feelings”? and do these feelings represent the whole catholic church? 4 does not make a whole church
• since this concerns feelings of the religious, why did the plaintiff not present the head of the catholic church  for the court to measure and define feelings?

here is a brilliant answer to the court’s decision:

full text :

comrades,

i believe you are still quite incensed about today’s verdict on comrade carlos celdran’s case. i can certainly understand how you feel. 

while reading the decision of judge bermejo, i searched for justification for carlos’ conviction. remember that he was prosecuted for the crime of offending the religious feelings under article 133 of the revised penal code. art. 133 states that the penalty shall be imposed “upon anyone who, in a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony shall perform acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful.” there has been a lot of back and forth on social media about how backward and stupid this law is. regardless, the fact is that this law exists and can correctly be the basis for conviction if it should be proven that a person was indeed guilty of it.

question is, is carlos celdran guilty? as i said, i think judge bermejo failed to establish a basis for the conviction. note that the law does not criminalize any instance of offending religious feeling. the law requires that the act should be notoriously offensive. what does this mean? 

in the case of people vs. reyes, et al. (gr no. l-40577), the supreme court held that “the construction of a fence, even though irritating and vexatious under the circumstances to those present, is not such an act as can be designated as ‘notoriously offensive to the faithful’ as normally such an act would b a matter of complete indifference to those not present, no matter how religious a turn of mind they might be.” note that in this instance, the accused arrived at a venue for pabasa, “carrying bolos and crowbars, and started to construct a barbed wire fence in front of the chapel. xxx a verbal altercation ensued. when the people attending the pabasa in the chapel xxx, they became excited and left the place hurriedly and in such confusion that dishes and saucers were broken and benches toppled over.” the supreme court instead convicted the accused under art. 287 for unjust vexation.

in the case people vs baes (gr no. l-46000), justice laurel, in his dissent, explained how an act could be considered as notoriously offensive: “i believe that an act, in order to be considered as notoriously offensive to the religious feelings, must be one directed against a religious practice or dogma or ritual for the purpose of ridicule; the offender, for instance, mocks, scoffs at or attempts to damage an object of religious veneration; it must be abusive, insulting and obnoxious.” bear in mind that carlos was actually making fun of damaso, a fictional character. his act was not directed against religious practice or dogma. neither was it directed at a religious ritual since mass was not being celebrated at the time that he staged his protest. and even if he were making fun of priests, an act that is not unequivocally shown by the mere raising up of a damaso sign, the test set by justice laurel is still not met considering that priests are not objects of religious veneration (unless the priests present at the time actually think they are).

finally, in the case people vs. nosce (gr no. l-41757), where the accused went so far as to slap a priest in front of a large congregation, the supreme court held that such act did not merit a conviction under art. 133 but is more properly punished under art. 359 for slander by deed. 

in the case carlos celdran, judge bermejo characterized the instances of “notorious offenses” to religious feelings thus:

for witness no. 1: “however, it did not take long when she realized that such was not part of the activity, and proceeded in front to find out what happened. she then saw somebody taking the accused and there was already a commotion since he started shouting inside the church. witness was offended and was angryof what happened, since it was a solemn activity which was disrupted and disrespected by accused.”

for witness no. 2: “witness cacal explained that the word ‘damaso’ pertains to a priest, who committed something against the church. although she admitted that she did not know the meaning of the word, however, she claimed that every timeshe hears the word ‘damaso’ it is very traumatic for her.”

for witness no. 3: “he was surprised, offended and angry, since he did not expect such incident will happen, considering it was a solemn celebration.” 

comrades, obviously they are a bunch of ultra-sensitive nitwits. it is obvious as well that judge bermejo is either unacquainted with the definition of “notorious” or he has an extremely low treshhold for offense. unfortunately, judge bermejo, under such cognitive and emotional challenges, now proposes to send a man to jail. 

it is painfully obvious that the notoriety of offense warranted by art. 133 is not present in this case. this only goes to show, comrades, that we must renew our efforts toward the revolution. we must be ever watchful, especially when the religious are just as happy to lend an invisible cloak to tyranny just so they can vindicate their petty grievances. 

charity. indeed. viva la revolucion! and off with their heads! 

 dear great leader

source : http://deargreatleader.blogspot.com/2013/01/comrades-i-believe-you-are-still-quite_1704.html?m=1

senatoriable nancy binay’s TV ad – empty promises glorified

nancy binay, daughter of vice president jejomar binay will run for senator.  she released a tv ad, legally epal, with the tagline “Kay Nancy Binay – mga bata gaganda ang buhay” (With Nancy Binay – children will have a more beautiful life).

the ad positions the senatoriable as pro children with the  specific promises of improving education (“gaganda ang edukasyon”) and improving health (gaganda ang kalusugan”) leading to a more beautiful life (“gaganda ang buhay”) for the children.

it is an interesting positioning as it specifically places nancy on a pro-children promise. we do not remember political candidates having taken this positioning in the past. question is, is this enough to get her elected? is children’s good life a compelling proposition to voters? we assume some research has been done on this one.

while nancy’s advertising positioning and promise  is specific to pro-children, it is not specific on exactly what she plans to do in promoting the “good life” of children through “good education” and “good health”. it does not specifically answer the question – how will she do it?

in advertising, what is missing is called the “reason why” or the support. it tells the audience how will the candidate deliver the promise, what will she do to make it happen.

from an advertising technical standpoint it does have a “reason why” – it uses her dad, vice president binay with copy that says “mana sa kanyang ama” (“takes up [inherit] from her father”)  but does not say any specific action that nancy will take to improve education and health for children. all it does is to ride on the general popularity of her dad. after all, he did get elected vice president in the last presidential elections.

but jejomar is a weak reason why for the promise of children’s welfare – he is not known to be a children’s welfare advocate. in fact his ads during the vice presidential campaign were more on the general progress in the city of makati and the specific benefits residents of makati have gained while he was mayor there, children’s welfare was hardly mentioned.

the reason why, specially in political ads is very important. it gives specific promises as to what plan of action the candidate will do when elected into office. using a reason why that does not connect to the promise is of no help and of no consequence, it is like having none at all.

in this ad, nancy binay gave empty promises that we doubt will get her elected. it’s a WAWAM – what a waste of advertising money.

maria ressa of rappler.com interview with atty. imbong, lawyer for petitioners against the RH Law at the SC

a few things:

• atty. imbong keeps referring to the interviewer as “ressa” or in many parts as “riza”. the interviewer’s name is maria ressa.
• the interview questions and answers are actually a rehash of the debates done in twitter on the rh bill specially those raised by the anti rh bill groups who claim to be devout catholics and to a large part those raised in the debates in the senate and congress also raised by the anti rh bill senators and congressmen.
• the interview hardly touched on the points of law, arguments or merits raised by the petitioners against the RH Law at the SC.

• in today’s interview maria ressa of rappler.com had asked the following questions from the #gangsters
• from popi sunga at around 2:50

• ressa extends the invitation from #gangsters for a tweetup with atty imbong at around 5:25 of the 3rd video. ressa also says “guys, gotta get a name that is ano…”