10 April 2010

At this mature stage of the campaign, Noynoy Aquino’s lead over Manny Villar by nine percentage points in the latest Social Weather Stations survey is hard to reverse. The survey came even before the explosive news that debunked Villar’s supposed poor origin and uncovered Malacañang’s secret support for him. Expect Villar’s score to decline further.

10 April 2010

HERE IS A CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR THE highest office in the land, whose entire campaign is based on two themes: the first is that he rose, literally from the gutter, to conquer poverty, and that having done so, he can do the same for his fellow Filipinos. Been there, done that. The second is that his motives for running for the presidency are of the purest—he wants to repay the country for the blessings he has received. In any case, it is definitely not a desire to enrich himself—because if he wanted to make more money, all he needed to do was to just go back to his business, where he has made oodles of it.

07 April 2010

Let us take time to say this prayer everyday till election time. And have the courage to live up to this prayer,

“Lord, make me an instrument of your presence in the polls.
Where there is coercion and violence, Let me sow the seed of love;
Where there is bribery and vote buying, Let me sow seeds of integrity;
Where there is discord, Let me sow seeds of unity;
Where there is electoral fraud; Let me sow seeds of honesty;
Where there is duplicity and propaganda, Let me sow seeds of truth;
Where there is indifference, Let me sow seeds of care and concern;
And, where there is despair in the Electoral Process, Let me sow seeds of Hope.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much think of my selfish motives when I vote.
Instill in me a deep sense of communal solidarity in my critical choice of candidates that would rise above the traditional politics of pay-off, personality and patronage.
Enlighten me to elect worthy men and women that embody the true spirit of public service in their moral consciousness.
For it is in voting responsibly that we receive the fruits of true democracy.
And it is in dying as a seed to our selfishness that we are born to eternal life.

AMEN.”

06 April 2010

By Greg B. Macabenta

There's an axiom in advertising that says, a great campaign can expose a bad product faster -- because it persuades people to try the product sooner and to find out how bad it is. It looks like this axiom is being proven true in the case of would-be-president-of-the-poor Manny Villar. One of my closest friends in advertising created Villar's OFW commercials when he was just beginning to water the seeds of his presidential campaign. Apparently, the creative strategy worked, because Villar began to close the gap with VP Noli de Castro who, at the time, appeared to be formidable as a "presidentiable" in all the public opinion surveys.

29 March 2010