Today, I Support Alexander "Pinoy" Lacson for Senator

Better believe I will.

A paradox in Philippine politics is that the best people to put into government are few among those who are candidates; many of those who are campaigning today are no more than rabid dogs salivating for the power and the perks that come with the office.

It was a pleasure, therefore, to meet senatorial candidate Alex Lacson, an independent running as a guest candidate of the Liberal Party. After a couple of hours of taking the man's measure, I am convinced that Lacson is no politician -- and the type of person I would want to represent me in the legislature.

The jester-in-exile today declares his support for Alexander "Pinoy" Lacson... but we are getting ahead of the story.

***
Last January 25, I met up with Unca Juned to go to White Plains and meet up with Alex Lacson, whose media team set up a meet-and-greet at the candidate's home. I had some idea of the man -- I had read his book "12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country"; an engaging little piece, it is -- but the cynical voice in my head kept on planting the seeds of doubt. Why would a decent fellow run for a seat in the dirtiest game in town?

When Juned and I got there, we saw that the upper-middle-class residence had quite a lot of people; among the mainstream media denizens were bloggers Pat Mangubat and Ding. Soon afterwards, Jane arrived; a little later, having gotten a little bit lost on the way, Roch drove up (BlogWatch was amply represented, I think). To my surprise and pleasure, old blogging buddy from Filipino Voices and OFW balikbayan Lester showed up as well. Sharp wits Kaffee and Chingbee attended the small event too. Lacson's wife, the pretty smart Pia, and one of his friends and volunteers Maggie welcomed us to the place.

We chatted a bit, caught up with each other, then eventually made our way to the chairs we were to occupy for the event. Jane found wifi, I didn't (Vivi-Dee wasn't sensitive enough to detect the one-bar signal that Jane's Mac sniffed), so we were unable to set up a live stream of the event, and I'm not sure if Janey was able to tweet snippets of the event.

Alex "Pinoy" Lacson's new media man Friday Jay opened the event by talking about why he personally believes in his principal, sharing anecdotes about how Lacson walks his talk. After a few minutes of that, the candidate shared his personal story.

Without giving the story away -- I believe strongly that you good folks should hear Alex tell his story himself -- the man has pulled himself up by the bootstraps... but without any smear of impropriety tainting the candidate acerbic wordsmith Schumey's cast his critical eye on (yes, Mister Villar, the word is getting out on you). Alex Lacson worked his ass off to get where he is right now, and as Lester later pointed out, he's done so to be able to give back.

Alex put three commitments to us, should he be elected: honesty and transparency in the use of public funds, simplicity in lifestyle, and humility in service. These three commitments were, to me, when he said them, to be no more than lip service -- until he outlined the concrete methods by which he will keep these commitments to the public.

When he told us that he was willing to have himself audited, his office continually audited, should he be elected, then and there I was wowed.

The man has a serious case of ethical standards.

Among many other characteristics that will make him a valuable addition to the Senate, one thing that sets Alex Lacson apart from many candidates is that he has concrete plans and programs to go with his advocacies; the candidate has a legislative agenda for all of the things that he wants to spearhead.

Lacson was clear about his limitations (no politician, this man is), and said that he wasn't an expert with regard to the myriad issues that face the country today, but what is clear to me is that the man believes in education, in human rights, in fighting discrimination, in grassroots empowerment, and other advocacies that I agres with him are good for the public at large. The lawyer that he is, Lacson is a little bit soft on the issue of HB5043, but nonetheless seems to be supportive of reproductive health and population management.

All in all, the man has my solid vote. Unlike Toots Ople, whose defense of Villar on the C5 and Taga scandal has given me a little pause (any more such shenanigans and I might just write a retraction on my support for her), Alex Lacson has my vote, without doubt or hesitation.

Today, that is.

***
Alexander "Pinoy" Lacson has my vote; also, it is clear that many others at the event were swayed to support him, too. His is a candidacy I can get behind.

So then, the sample ballot.

President
[] (null)

Vice-President
[] (null)

Senators
[] Alexander Lacson
[] Susan Ople
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)

District Representative
[] (null)

Mayor
[] (null)

Vice-Mayor
[] (null)

Councilors
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)

Party-List Organization
[] (null)

Good luck, Alex. Win or lose, as your idol John F. Kennedy said, "The people always get the government they deserve."

We're going to try to make sure we deserve a government with such as you in it.

Note of caution, though: marunong akong maningil, Alex.

Ricky, Your Resignation is Not Official Until the Pope Receives It

From Ricky Carandang's blog post "Thou Shalt Not Vote For...", where he reacts on the ANC report that the Roman Catholic Church, through the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), has drafted guidelines for the faithful with regard to voting. According to Carandang, the CBCP is discouraging Catholics from voting for anyone supporting reproductive health.

The upshot is that Ricky has said publicly that he supposes that he is resigning from the Holy Mother Church.

Here's a snippet that I believe describes the conflict he found he cannot live with:

This afternoon I interiewed Fr. Melvin Castro, who heads the CBCP commission that drafted the guidelines and asked him why candidates who commit plunder and acts of corruption are not being condemned in the same way that reproductive health advocates are.

Castro said in effect that plunder and all of those corrupt acts are an offshoot of the lack of respect for the family and therefore not as bad in the heirarchy of catholic morality as family planning which is as he says, anti-family.

Flabbergasted, I asked if they were saying it was alright to vote for a crook as long as he doesn’t advocate modern family planning. His roundabout answer,—as I understand it is... in so many words –- yes.

Yup, he can't reconcile the Church's stand with his own belief that "thinking that stealing money from the poor (is) worse than wearing a condom."

Read more here.

Oh, and let's wait around and see what happens to Ricky. Will cowled men knock down his door and take him to the rack? Heh heh.

Today, I Support Susan "Toots" Ople for Senator

Today at my tambayan I found myself in conversation with Eddie, one of the waiters there (it was a slow day for the shop). As is not unusual among people who work in the service industry, the fellow wanted a better job, preferably abroad.

Wanting to be an OFW isn't unusual for a lot of Filipinos; not until our own economy reaches the point where there is certain job security and salary scales that match the local cost of living will our people start to consider staying and using their skills locally.

The OFW life isn't easy, as any of our migrant workers will tell you; I myself had been an OFW twice in my life (and personally I'm glad they weren't long stints). Long before they get on the plane to their jobs, there are a lot of potential pitfalls; there are illegal recruiters, leeches in the POEA and the OWWA, shills in the DFA -- there is much yet to clean up here. Upon flying out to their jobs, OFWs are faced with the difficulties of a life abroad, and many still are the complaints about the lack of support by our own government with regarding to protecting our expatriate countrymen.

This is why we need someone like Toots Ople in the Senate. We need someone who has been working with OFWs, understands their needs, and has been consistent in championing their causes. We need someone like Toots in the legislature, one who will help hammer out legislation towards the upliftment of our OFWs' plight; likewise, we need someone like Toots who will help in working for the long-term goal of encouraging our people to stay and use their talents to help in our own progress. We can't export human capital forever and expect our country to grow technologically, economically, even politically.

Today, I support Susan "Toots" Ople's senatorial bid. I encourage you to do the same.

***
I've only encountered Toots in person twice (I think it was just twice, I'm not that sure) and only in passing, but I have seen her work in the papers, and thus far I must say that her efforts will make her a valuable member of the Senate. I have only had short but very insightful conversations with her, and what I have learned has convinced me that we need her in the Upper House. Her work has demonstrated her competence and dedication; I have little doubt that she will do a great job in the Senate.

Her campaign website is www.ople2010.com, but of greater interest to me as someone who believes in uplifting the OFW and the Filipino is the website of the organization she has been working for, the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute. In my effort to get to know her personal beliefs better, I have been visiting her blog susanople.com, and there is very little that one will find unimpressive.

Friends, her work speaks for itself. Each of us has at least one OFW in the family; each of us has at least one friend working abroad. With Toots in the Senate, I am convinced we can have a strong chance of helping our families and friends gain a better life -- and one day bring them home to a better Philippines.

***
This is my first post to answer my little attempt to call for blogswarms, and it will not be the last. I will continue to write posts such as this one, and thus update my sample ballot for the 2010 automated elections below:

President
[] (null)

Vice-President
[] (null)

Senators
[] Susan Ople
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)

District Representative
[] (null)

Mayor
[] (null)

Vice-Mayor
[] (null)

Councilors
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)
[] (null)

Party-List Organization
[] (null)

I hope you start your own lists, folks. We have enough data to start making intelligent choices, and we have enough time to convince others to do the same.

Why We Should Draft Our Ballot Choices Now (or why we must debate and discuss until May 10, 2010)

(Personal disclaimer: any support or opposition to any candidate/ political party or movement during this campaign period will be written in this blog. I will not write any such matters on other advocacy blogs I guest on, such as Filipino Voices and BlogWatch. I will not disrespect these sites' organizers and my colleagues in them by tainting advocacy with obvious partisanship.)

This morning, friends, I was able to catch most of the "Kilalanin" forum of DZBB, via GMANews.tv"'s livestream of DZBB.

(Aside: may Rhea Santos na nga sila, may livestreaming pa. Kung may recording ng forum, ayna! Kalimutan na for life ang ibang network at maging kapusong totoo... basta di na rin natin maririnig ang boses ni Marian Rivera sa news.)

(Aside number two: if the network provides a recording of "Kilalanin" for public consumption and download, I will nominate GMA as the most public awareness-oriented network, in whatever forum that will give such an award. They are to my way of thinking already one up on ABS-CBNNews.com, with their "Leksyon sa Eleksyon" advocacy ads on primetime.)

Anyway, while listening to the radio broadcast online, I figured that through the efforts of both mainstream media and new media, the public is beginning to get enough data to be able to choose which candidates will have their little circles shaded on the ballots. As such, I am fairly convinced that now is now the time for all of us to get off the sidelines and start proclaiming our allegiances -- tentative if need be.

It's going to take balls to do this; see, anyone who says that he is supporting Candidate X or Politician Y is going to be a lightning rod for other people supporting other candidates. I know of quite a number of people who do not have any qualms about declaring their support for specific candidates, but I must say that most other people don't have the cojones to do so.

Let me try to persuade you good folks to do so, however. So, why should we declare who are those we are for?

1. Full disclosure promotes discussion, debate, and dissent; through such fire, choices are refined, even modified to the correct choice. I'm not saying that the candidate you're going to declare support for today should be the candidate you are going to vote for come May 10; everyone is free to change their mind, especially if we find out stuff about our candidates that will take away our approval of them.

Declaring who we are going to support is going to encourage our opposition to come by and tell us why we shouldn't support our candidates; no doubt there is going to be a lot of mudslinging, but sifting the grain from the chaff among the attacks against our candidates we just might glean new insights that could very well change our minds. Furthermore, declaring who we are for will promote our candidates' campaigns against those of the candidates we do not want elected; any mudslinging that happens will detract from the candidates doing the mudslinging. Finally, good and logical arguments that make us think twice about voting about our candidates or those of others will give us more data to make the right and informed choice come the second Monday of May this year.

Here's a concrete f'rinstance: if Kevin Ray Chua (whom I greatly admire for his involvement in national issues out of his own free will, even before reaching voting age), who supports Mar Roxas' vice-presidential bid and has been consistent in his declarations of support for the politician, turns around and declares on his blog that he has learned of matters that led him to change his mind, and shares with the rest of us these same matters, we can then weigh his reasons and weigh Roxas's candidacy even better than on our own. On the other hand, if his support for Roxas remains unwavering despite the mudslinging against his candidate -- and for that matter, against the young man -- then we can have a better sense that Roxas is a candidate we should consider seriously, and have good reasons to reject those throwing all the mud.


2. Openly declared choices now promotes transparency during the campaign period, during the elections, and after. While it is likely that the online buzz is only a small indicator of actual popular sentiment, consistency in online buzz will help defeat any machinations designed to manufacture a victory for candidates who will not truly be the choice of the people. Visibility is key.

I believe that this will hold true between now and long afterwards; if a blogger declares that today he is supporting Candidate X, then after due reflection supports Politician Y because of new information that has helped change his mind, such declarations of affiliation and changes in affiliations will aid in our personal measures of how successful we have been in protecting our votes.

Not that there is much statistical value, but online measures will be useful in helping all of us gain a sense of whether or not our votes have been Garci'd to someone else. Think about this: a post saying "Today, I support [insert name here]" can be counted among others saying the same thing; we can measure these via online tools, similar to the means illustrated by blogger Jorge Cosgayon on his post Using Google’s tools to track the 2010 Elections. Following the trends from today up until E-Day will help fight spinmeisters who want to make us believe that their principals did no hanky-panky.


3. Corollary to #2, we will have more sources of data to validate survey results, whether commissioned by candidates themselves or by independent polling firms. If there's a principle that engineers and law enforcers both agree with, separate data sets pointing to the same results (or in legal parlance, circumstantial evidence pointing to the same outcome) leads to more solid conclusions. With such disparate data sources indicating similar results will give us radar to penetrate through the fog of war (if you'll pardon the reference to Command and Conquer), and will aid us in our efforts towards clean elections and promoting our candidates.

Let's put it this way: if we can correlate all survey results from reputable firms (my former staff would say, "banggain natin ang data ng Pulse Asia saka SWS"), and measure them against informal sources (i.e., commissioned by politicians or made by them themselves) and against online buzz (taking due care to filter out obviously spurious data), it is unlikely that a candidate can catch up from too far behind without arousing valid suspicion.

Are these good enough reasons for us to begin to have the guts to start open declarations of support? I hope so. Elections are not carnivals we hold every three years or so; elections are important reaffirmations of the existence of our democracy, and thus deserve our utmost attention and care.

Therefore, folks, I urge you to write posts that begin with the title "Today, I Support [insert name here]", or posts that begin with "Today, I Do NOT Support [insert name here]". We can help our colleagues in the professional media along, and in the end help ourselves, by providing this sort of information to our readers. Let's call these little blogswarms as the cloud computing efforts in support of Filipino democracy. Let's write these posts for all the candidates we must have an interest in: national, local, party-list.

Today, friends, I commit to you that I will do exactly as I say. My next post will begin with such a title.

I hope -- that is, I pray -- that you guys consider doing the same.

Leave the Gun, Take the Affertitti: The Jester-in-Exile Samples Gusto Italiano

The other night, I went to Santa Rosa, Laguna, to visit old friends Jojo and Tess, friends from Voice of the South. When I got there, I found myself being dragged to a party -- not unwillingly, of course -- and there met Tess' cousin Vlady and their nieces Bono and Madon (pretty smart young women, they are), Jojo's Turkish friend Sam (a fellow enthusiast of history and knows far more about local history than many Filipinos), and their Italian friend Franco, an affable man from Firenze. I found myself at an al fresco table outside an Italian restaurant: Gusto Italiano.

Franco, dressed as the chef he is, is Gusto Italiano's proprietor and pizza maker, and it was a fine night to enjoy his sinfully delicious creations with a bottle of red wine from his excellent cellar. I do not doubt that Franco's countryman, the master engineer Leonardo da Vinci, would have found the food to his liking; heck, the food of Gusto Italiano would be the perfect complement to Don Vito Corleone's glass of vino.

Let's take a little stroll through Gusto Italiano, courtesy of the trusty cellphone camera, shall we?

***

Gusto Italiano!

Tess taking us in.

Outside looking in

The buffet table and salad bar.

The salad bar: all you can eat for PhP 199.

The buffet: all you can eat for PhP 299.

Dessert: if you still have room after getting stuffed.

The pizza oven.

Where pizza for the gods is made in Gusto Italiano!

Old school rules.

Madon's buffet sampler -- and with this little taster she was full. No kidding.

Affertitti -- great with vino.

A Bruschetta plate. If Apollonia knew how to make this as good as Franco does, I'd have to shoot Don Michael for her. Heh heh.

The Napoletana. So damn good, I might help someone sleep with the fishes for it.

The Marguerite. Luca Brasi might have had some of this before rolling out his mattress.

Pepperoni. Lord have mercy.

Olive oil with spices -- this hot virgin makes this slice of pizza heaven really sinful.

Entering the consiglieri's upstairs room

Whatta wine rack!

From the corner, watching the bar.

From the bar, watching the corner.

A bottle of Merlot from Franco's wine rack -- he has even better than this good stuff.

Franco Martelloti, the don of Gusto Italiano. Heh heh.

***
Gusto Italiano's running a pasta promo right now, with servings good for two (imagine that, servings made for two, and large to boot), coming with bread and potato croquette. Look at how reasonable the prices are:

Spaghetti Aglio Olio (oil and garlic) PhP 130
Linguine Aglio Olio Vongole (oil, garlic, and clams) PhP 155
Fettucine Pomodoro (tomato) PhP 165
Spaghetti Carbonara PhP 215
Penne Arrabiata (spicy tomato) PhP 165
Penne Puttanesca PhP 185
Italian Lasagna PhP 265
Four-Cheese Gnocchi (potato-based) PhP 245
Ravioli Pomodoro PhP 195
Spaghetti Scoglio (seafood) PhP 185
Fettucine Funghi Porcini (italian mushroom) PhP 215
Lingune Pesto PhP 185

No kidding, folks. They're making an us an offer we can't refuse.

***
Franco's place Gusto Italiano is located at Stall #5, Paseo de Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa, Laguna -- it's the Italian place between Yellow Cab and Cabalen. The restaurant can be called at phone numbers (+6349) 837-2700, (+6349) 502-7571, (+63921) 712-8091. I'm probably going to send them an email (their email address is fastaurant@yahoo.com to tell them how pleased I was with the evening -- this post is a little tribute to start with.

Let's have pizza and pasta there, shall we? And some of the buffet.

And the vino, let's not forget the vino.

For Plurklakbayan folks who want good food out of the metro, Franco's got this little treat for us online folk:

Penne gorgonzola. It's not on the menu, and you need to be in on our little secret.

For PhP 300, we get a plate of penne gorgozola AND a glass of delicious red wine of Franco's own selection... IF you know the password. Here's a little hint: jester, to Franco. Yes, folks, you're getting something special for one helluva good deal... but you gotta be in the know.

We can have our food and wine in the consiglieri's upstairs room. Now, if you good folks wil excuse me, Tom Hagen and I need to have a little chat about business. Heh heh.