13 Responses to “May 10, 2010”

1. Raipo on May 10th, 2010 5:28 pm

   yeah! I felt liked a survivor after going through a 3 hour ordeal known as the national elections!

2. John Beatty on May 10th, 2010 8:34 pm

   I’m trying to figure out the Philippine Government structure?

   I don’t know if you all have a “Left Wing” and “Right Wing” as we do here in the USA?

   “Right Wing” or, Republican, Conservative, etc, is the party I am in favor of. They stand for all I believe in and I back them.

   “Left Wing, or Democrat, Liberal/progressive, etc, is the party of Obama. To *me* the worst President I have seen in my lifetime, that I can remember…

   So do you all have this type of split parties to represent the people? If so…who do you think is the better party?

   My “freedoms” are being chipped away at by the Obama administration…it’s much to complicated, but to say Obama is FOR the people is not. He’s for BIG GOVERNMENT…and we all know what government, on both sides, can and will get you.

   Salamat!
   -John

3. Gerry Alanguilan on May 11th, 2010 1:08 am

   Hey John… I’ve been thinking about it, but I think all the major parties here are conservative. he.he. It’s inevitable, specially in a predominantly Catholic country. We do have left wing and right wing people, but they’re mostly in the fringes. We do have a former communist rebel leader and a convicted military coup plotter for Senators after all.

4. Jose Mari Lee on May 11th, 2010 4:28 am

   Actually, We used to have two major political parties in RP:

   The NACIONALISTA (Nationalist) = REPUBLICAN
   and the LIBERAL = DEMOCRAT

   MARCOS was NACIONALIST (Republican)
   and AQUINO was LIBERAL (Democrat)

   Basically, John, the Philippine form of government was patterned from our cousins, the Americans. As we all know, we used to be PART of the USA from 1898 to at least 1946. The Philippines’ map used to be included under the USA map.

   The only difference in the Philippines is, we have no electoral college. We vote DIRECTLY for the candidate. We may have a Nationalist president, yet we could also have a Liberal Vice President. Not too comfortable, isn’t it? Also, because of this set-up, progress is affected due to opposition to governmental plans or whatever. Unlike in a Parliamentarian form where the party is elected (not the person), and thus, the whole group runs the country and more things are done because the opposition by the other party is diminished. Ideally, a Parliamentarian form would be much efficient, but watch out for corrupt politicians. It would be hell for a parliamentarian country to be run by a bunch of corrupt politicians. Parliamentarian really works well in a country like Canada.

5. Gio Paredes on May 11th, 2010 6:07 pm

   Hello Mr. John Beatty,

   I also often wonder about that when I see an American movie where a character would say that he is a Republican or a Democrat.

   I guess, the closest thing that we have here in the Philippines is the ADMINISTRATION and OPPOSITION.(please do to correct me if I am wrong here guys.)

   A politician can be called a pro ADMINISTRATION if he/she always conform with the policies of the president and it’s allies. And the OPPOSITION are those that are against on most of the policies and decision of the President. One good example is the proposed CHA-CHA (CHARTER CHANGE) of Gloria Arroyo. Where the politicians are divided in to two. The Administration which is Pro-Charter Change and the Opposition which is against it.

   But then again, I could be wrong. Philippine politics is like a wild jungle. Alliances are formed where other are broken in a very small amount of time. There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.

6. Auggie on May 11th, 2010 9:49 pm

   Actually the parties concerned here are all the same. They all belong to the STATUS QUO, the preservation of the so called “LIBERAL-AMERICAN DEMOCRACY”. The true party for change actually is the COMMUNIST PARTY, with its many fronts. They are for Social Change. Unfortunately for them ,it will never happen. The odds are just too high. What the youth of the 60s were shouting:DOWN WITH FEUDALISM,BUREAUCRAT CAPITALISM and CLERICO-FASCISM, still resonates that’s why the Philippines remain poor while its Asian neighbors are now graduating to “NEWLY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES” such as Singapore,Malaysia, Thailand etc.Until these problems are licked, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.

7. Jose Mari Lee on May 12th, 2010 5:39 am

   Gio, mi amigo:

   Generally, in every country, there are two political parties (sometimes 3), but generaly two.
   • The CONSERVATIVE
   (word used in England and Canada)
   which simply means the right wing;
   traditionalist. In the USA, they are called the REPUBLICAN. It’s equivalent in the Philippines: NACIONALISTA

   • The LIBERALS
   (word used in England, Canada and RP)
   simply, they are the modern thinkers and their values are far from being traditional. In the USA they are called DEMOCRAT. Its equivalent in RP: LIBERAL. Same thing in UK and Canada.

   On the other hand, whoever has been elected will be called THE RULING PARTY (Administration).

   The ones who lost the election (like Estrada – but still does not want to concede at ano pa kaya ang hinahanap na boto), are called THE OPPOSITION.

   What we have in Canada as the third party is the COMMUNIST PARTY. They always try every election, but no one would vote for them. I’d say they’re now like dinosaurs and there is no more room for them in modern times.

8. Pinoy Comics USA on May 12th, 2010 5:56 am

   JM,
   If the Philippine election has to be patterned after the U.S. why not copy it completely. As you say there is no electoral college (in which both Presidential and Vice-presidential candidates from one party become elected, basically you vote for the party). Now in the current election, it seems Noynoy will be elected but his running mate Roxas will not. Another candidate from another party Binay will be elected. The bad thing about that is we’ve got the two top officials of the nation from opposing parties and at odds with each other, creating a slow-down in government.

9. Ferres on May 13th, 2010 8:55 am

   There is a major flaw in our system. The president and vice president are elected separately. They should be just one entity.

   You can wind up with your closest successor being your opponent. So it takes only one man’s removal to take power. That leaves a significant temptation for treachery.

10. Duy on May 14th, 2010 5:01 pm

    The big problem is that our politics, like a lot of third-world countries, is personality-based instead of platform-based. Although Gibo himself ran on a platform and the Liberal Party as a whole had a clear, solid platform (don’t get me started on the NP’s ultra-scattered platform), much of the campaigning was based on mudslinging.

    This can’t change so long as we can elect our president and vice president separately. As long as we can mix and match based on personality (a huge portion of people who didn’t vote for Mar did so because they didn’t like his wife), we’ll never prioritize platform.

    Another problem is that a huge portion of us don’t really know how the government works. We think that the president is the CEO and everyone under him is literally under him to boss around. If we really understood how the government worked, Noynoy supporters would have listened to their president when he said that he needs Mar and the following senators to govern effectively. Instead, we get the same old fossils based on name recall.

    I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there. :)

11. Leinil yu on May 15th, 2010 4:18 am

    @ Jomari, Do Communists also ask for “revolutionary tax” over there? hehe…. anyways, thanks for your informative posts.

    @ Ferres. ‘xactly. it doesn’t make much sense….. Although, if say, you wanted Gibo and yet abhor the thought of an actor being vice and potential president, this tingi-tingi policy would be advantageous.

12. Jose Mari Lee on May 15th, 2010 4:40 pm

    Hey Nil:

    “revolutionary tax”

    Ha-ha! Not really. They are living comfortably in their huge houses and driving luxurious cars in the cities and can afford to go on holidays to places most North Americans love to visit.

    But the ones from Bicol, you don’t mess up with them. I’ve seen their hooliganism when I was a kid. A lot of well-off landlords lost their heads (literally – as in – like the ones we see at: http://www.viraldeath.com) if you now what I mean.

    Hey, incidentally, when the ruling party here was the Liberal, they’ve proposed to legalize Marijuana in Canada. It began with a ruling that if you have 15 sticks in your possession, you’re not breaking the law. So in the 90′s we even had the so-called Marijuana Day where people would gather in a park in downtown Vancouver and smoke the weed. George Bush had a conniption. First, the Liberals rejected the Iraq war and refused to send Canadian troops. Then, the legalization of MaryJane. However, when the Conservatives won the election (as a minority government), they hold off on the weed’s status. Though the plant is legal for medicinal use, the casual use of healthy people is now under scrutiny. Then, there was a Canadian guy who was selling Marijuana seeds over the internet to Americans, and George Bush’s government pressed for the guy’s EXTRADITION! If the Liberals were running the country that time, it would have never happened. But because the conservatives are sitting in power right now, they actually signed the guy’s extradition to serve time in Jail in the US. They slapped him with 5 years in prison! In Canada, he would have gotten off Scot-free. This really irked a lot of Canadians and there were rallies against this matter. When an American is caught here with drugs, their prison term is a joke. It’s almost like these guys are passing through a revolving door. They’ll be arrested, thrown in jail for a couple of weeks, then, Sayonara and hasta la vista! See you next time! He-he. In the US, selling a mere seed would net you a 5-year jail term. Now how crazy is that!

13. Leinil yu on May 17th, 2010 10:43 pm

    @ JM,

    man, that is indeed annoying. anyways, I hope canadian involved survives this ordeal (relatively) unscathed. This arbitrary objection to weed is very… interesting.

    thanks man