February 2nd, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
According to the latest SWS survey, Noynoy Aquino is losing ground to Manny Villar. In the results of the SWS survey, Aquino slid down to 42% from 46%, Villar moved up to 35% from 27%, Estrada slid down to 13% from 16%, and Teodoro slid down to 4% down from 5%.
The survey was conducted in December, prior to the Senate hearing on the C-5 controversy where Villar’s colleagues were said to be set to censure him. One would expect that this heavily publicized political free for all at the senate — with several senators running for president — would cause Villar’s survey numbers to fall a couple of notches. At this point, the surfacing of the survey showing Villar gaining ground may actually be a ploy to project that Villar’s forward momentum was hardly affected by the negative publicity. It might be an attempt to project strength in the face of serious challenges.
Today, a news report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer has political analyst Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), attributing Villar’s “steady” rise in the surveys to the effective messaging of his political ads.
Certainly, the sheer Last Song Syndrome created by the bunch of kids singing Villar’s jingle may be enough to turn people into mindless voting drones. But Casiple proposes that Villar’s messaging may be helping him because of its emphasis and clarity on what he will do rather than what he will fight against.
Here’s what Casiple says:
Sen. Manuel Villar had been able to narrow the gap between him and Aquino not only because of his many ads but also because Aquino had not been able to get across his message of what he would do if he won the presidency.
Casiple acknowledged that Aquino “has come out strongly against corruption and against the sins of the Arroyo administration, but we are electing the nation’s leader here and people expect him to be able to do something about their myriad of problems.”
“The perception is Villar is saying ‘I will take you all out of poverty’ while for Noynoy, it’s like ‘I will think about it but I promise you I won’t steal,’” Casiple added.
Casiple certainly has his adherents and I don’t want to assail the integrity of his perceptual analysis, but it seems unlikely that mere messaging through political ads can trump actual issues. The article in the Inquirer seems, particularly this excerpt, seems to cast Casiple as endorsing Villar.
Reading the article further, Casiple’s analysis doesn’t come up all rosy for Villar as it indicates that although the candidate has made gains, these gains are coming at a slower rate.
While the SWS survey indicated that Aquino was vulnerable, the results showed that Villar’s surge had slowed down. “In the previous survey, his numbers jumped from 27 to 33 percent but now it only increased from 33 to 35 percent,” Casiple said.
He said this was because the number of undecided voters had gone down to just one percent and so for the candidates to move upward in the polls, they would have to raid voters from other camps. “This means the next stage of the campaign will really be a slugfest.”
Casiple further points out what Villar has to do in order to win over Aquino:
“If Senator Villar wants to go up, he will have to find a way to get Estrada’s support or cannibalize Erap. And since Noynoy is now vulnerable, I expect Senator Villar to continue going after him,” Casiple said.
He said Estrada was vulnerable because the public was already thinking that this was going to be a fight between Aquino and Villar.
Casiple said Villar still faced an uphill battle if he wanted to top Aquino because his surge had slowed down.
“The latest survey showed that he got one percentage point from Aquino over the last three weeks. At this rate, it means a deduction of 1 percentage point [from Aquino] every three weeks [but] we only have around 90 days left. So, it’s really going to be hard,” he said.
Only at the foot of the article do we see Casiple saying that the C-5 controversy may actually affect Villar’s numbers:
Casiple added that Villar’s numbers might also be affected in the next survey by the raging C-5 controversy in the Senate.
“It’s expected to be bad for him and I don’t think the Liberal Party will just take this (latest survey results) sitting down,” he said.
I think that the article as a whole might have been poorly constructed and in its construction lent the impression that Casiple was favoring Villar in his analysis.
top 4 in Latest SWS survey: Aquino 42% (down from 46%), Villar 35% (up from 27%), Estrada 13% (down from 16%), and Teodoro 4% (down from 5%)
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February 2nd, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
Who will succeed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?
A recent article from Reuters identified “Five political risks to watch in the Philippines” and these are:
1. The successor to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
2. Internal security
3. Corruption and the rule of law
4. Government effectiveness
5. Environment
Identified as a crucial element to watch out for under the heading of ” SUCCESSOR TO PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO” is if the country’s electoral system produces a clear and credible winner for the position of President in the May 2010 polls.
Here’s that excerpt:
The Philippines elects a new president on May 10, and many of the candidates are already making populist policy promises. The race remains wide open and there is no clear favourite at this stage despite the son of revered former President Cory Aquino taking a strong lead in opinion polls. Former President Joseph Estrada is also among the candidates, which is a worry for markets because of his lack of fiscal discipline and stories of policy being formulated during late-night drinking sessions with gambling buddies. Other frontrunners are billionaire property developer-turned-politician Manuel “Manny” Villar, and former defence chief Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro. [ID:nSP510426]
What to watch:
– The candidates and their platforms. As clear frontrunners emerge, their policy pledges and the implications for investment, governance and security will impact markets. [ID:nMAN118467]
– The stance of leading candidates on fiscal management will be a particular focus, given the necessity of boosting revenues and curbing spending to reduce the budget deficit.
– The worst-case scenario for markets would be a failed election that does not produce a clear and credible winner. This could be because of severe election violence and intimidation, or possible problems in a new automated voting system that is being tried for the first time. This outcome would weaken the peso <PHP=> and the stock market <.PSI>, with some analysts saying the main stock index could tumble below 2,600 points. [ID:nSGE60K025]
What strikes me is that despite the obvious importance of ensuring the success of the country’s first ever automated elections, more attention has been given to the possibility of its failure than the clear and definite strides made toward ensuring that poll automation runs without a hitch in May.
In November and December last year, whenever Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said that he was worried over what he virtually described as a “lack of progress” in the automation of the May polls, the statement hogged the frontpages of newspapers and first gaps of broadcast news programs. In a way, it seemed that the Comelec was saying that if automated election failed, it would not be the fault of the Comelec and all blame would fall on the supplier — Smartmatic-TIM.
All considered, poll automation doesn’t have many friends and a lot more people would benefit from its dismal failure rather than its success.
Politicians, despite all their chest thumping about their personal integrity and calls for clean elections, would rather have manual elections because this would enable them to resort to their huge store of tried and tested formulas for winning at all costs — or prices, if you want to be direct about it.
Certainly, the hoards of middlemen and brokers of industry of “winning at all costs” certainly don’t want automated elections to succeed because there is no way to manipulate the results. You can manipulate the voters, for sure, but that would be a costlier enterprise than just waiting for the ballots to arrive at the canvassing centers and doing their magic in the comfort of a hotel. Money won’t change hands for an assured win at the polls, or at least, not as much.
As the election draws near, we think that what is more crucial is not spotting the kinks in poll automation and wailing that the world is about to end. What we ought to be doing is to plan out steps and make ready to ensure that it does succeed.
Poll watchers, instead of devoting their time to watching the tally of ballots at precincts, should be mobilized to ensure that everyone who can vote, actually goes out and vote. They should also re-orient themselves to reporting any untoward incidents (ballots and PCOS machines not being delivered to the precinct, violence, and other activities that would disrupt the order on elections day.)
If poll automation succeeds, it will be unlike other elections were only candidates win. If poll automation succeeds, every Filipino would have won a crucial victory against the proven evils of manual elections and be on the road towards a real, monumental change in political culture.
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January 28th, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
How does Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar, Gibo Teodoro, and Dick Gordon intend to improve public education?
There is a wide gap between public and private education in the Philippines, something which the Philippine dept. of education of past administrations has tried to address for decades but failed miserably.
We should vote for a candidate because they’ve presented to us a clear and credible plan for how they will improve our country.
One of the biggest problems facing our country is poverty.
While most people think that poverty is simply a state of being without wealth, the better insight is that poverty is a lack of choice or options.
One thing that has proven to be an effective way to beat poverty by giving people better options is good education.
On reading the news today, Malayang Halalan found out that a group of captains of industries and concerned citizens has called for an Education President or a President that will prioritize rescuing the decrepit public education system. Calling themselves the Philippine Business for Education or PBEd, the group has called on Presidential candidates to consider adopting their 10 point Education Reform Agenda.
The PBEd, a major pillar of Education Nation, includes such business heavyweights as Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (Ayala Corp.), Oscar Lopez (First Philippine Holdings Corp.), Manuel V. Pangilinan (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.), Washington Sycip (The SGV Group), Lance Gokongwei (JG Summit Holdings), Tony Tan Caktiong (Jollibee Food Corp.) and Marixi R. Prieto (Philippine Daily Inquirer).
The “10 doable things” envisioned to reform Philippine education are:
• Increasing the education budget to 4 percent of the gross national product to make it at par with other countries.
• Enhancing basic education by adding two more years to it.
• Promoting academic excellence by developing globally benchmarked standards of excellence.
• Developing community ownership of schools.
• Ensuring universal access to education.
• Strengthening higher education.
• Empowering teachers.
• Building transparency and accountability.
• Supporting private education.
• Maximizing alternative learning.
– As printed in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s website
A number of candidates have already emphasized that improving the public education system is on top of their agenda and it will be a good exercise to scrutinize what these candidates have said about what they intend to do for public education thus far.
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