To break my long-standing silence on this year’s colorful elections, a post on my deserted politics blog:

I’ve heard Noynoy’s supporters say that he cannot do anything about his identity being attached to his parents’, that Cory and Ninoy’s shadow is just too big for Noynoy to step out of. I say that while that may be true, it is also true that Noynoy can and should make the case that he is a competent leader on his own, that he can make his own decisions and his own name, that he has the capacity to effect such massive change that his children will one day find his name worthy enough to use in their campaigns, too. Noy has to say, “I am Noynoy Aquino. My dad, Ninoy Aquino, died for this country. f it wasn’t for my mom, Cory, we wouldn’t have democracy. But that should not matter in your decision to vote for me. I am Noynoy Aquino. As a senator, I’ve done this and that, and as president I believe we will be able to do this and that, through these and those means. That is why you should vote for me.”

Read the whole thing here; my apologies in advance.

On today’s Inquirer: “Lakas belittles pundits’ view Teodoro out of race“:

MANILA, Philippines—The ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD laughed off the observation of political analysts Ramon Casiple and Bobby Tuazon that its standard-bearer Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro was virtually out of the presidential race.

“Did [Casiple] run for mayor? [He is] just a desk officer. He doesn’t know the situation on the ground,” Raymundo Roquero, the party’s new secretary general, said on the phone. “Gibo Teodoro is very much in the running.”

In Pulse Asia’s March 21-28 survey, Teodoro trailed Sen. Benigno Aquino III, Sen. Manuel Villar and Joseph Estrada with 7 percent.

But Teodoro scoffed at the results, and vowed to win the presidency by traditional campaigning.

“I don’t believe in surveys anymore,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I’ll not comment on surveys. We’re going down to the barangay level, and we’re going to win this election.”

Let’s see: the campaign is in its final weeks, Gibo has stepped down as chairman of the party of which he is the standard bearer, his (now former) partymate Chavit is backing Villar (and taking the north with him), and he’s behind Erap—yes, Erap, as in the actor-turned-politico we forced from Malacañang nine years ago—in the polls.

Yep, the future looks bright.

Of course you’ve stopped believing in the surveys. Who would have thought that with the money and machinery of the freak Philippine politics lovechild PaLaKa behind you, you still can’t so much as make top three. That just makes all this even funnier—so funny, in fact, that it almost becomes just sad.

Better luck in 2016. Heck, if I were you, I wouldn’t try again until 2022. If we haven’t already turned into a monarchy by then.

Also, I have lengthy piece on the presidential race I’m trying to finish. Once it’s complete I’ll post it on my forlorn politics blog.

I was seated in the front seat of a jeepney today on my regular noontime commute. We were in the rightmost lane, waiting for the green light at an intersection. Suddenly a foreigner pulled up beside us and asked, “Hey, can you read?” He pointed at and read aloud a sign that said “Right lane must turn right”. “Next time, OK?” he warned before speeding off.

The foreigner was right, to be sure. We were in a must-turn-right-lane when we shouldn’t have been. This wasn’t the first time I rode in a jeepney that did the same thing; it was, however, the first time a fellow motorist reprimanded the driver. All the driver did was scoff at the rebuke. “He’s not from here and he goes around and does that,” the driver remarked (translated and paraphrased). “He better watch himself.”

I got around to thinking, perhaps this is part of the reason why the Philippines is in the mess we’re in.  We are quick to chastise immorality, lack of propriety, and selfishness in government, but we ourselves cannot be bothered to obey a simple traffic rule. We say we want an honest and trustworthy leader, while we ourselves remain selfish and indifferent. We swoon over the idea of positive change but meet even an inkling of actual reform with ridicule and defiance.

The way things are going, it would do us no good to have all the saints run our government. The common person needs to change just as much as our leaders do. To use a metaphor, replacing an engine, while necessary, is not enough to fix a ramshackle car. We want progress for our country and think honest officials are the be-all and end-all solution when in fact, the real change needs to be in ourselves.

When I first learned that Tagum City in Davao del Norte had won the rights to host this year’s National Schools Press Conference—the last one I would be eligible to take part in—I wasn’t sure what to feel. To be frank, I wasn’t so sure an NSPC in Mindanao was worth looking forward to. Even though I call the island home, I’m no stranger to its history of violence and unrest, and with the contest being held against the backdrop of a tumultuous political season and the Ampatuan Massacre still fresh in the nation’s mind, not only were I and my fellow participants faced with the prospect of boredom in a city relatively alien to us, we were also followed by the unwelcome fear of violence and danger.

By the time we settled ourselves in our billeting quarters in Tagum, however, the worst of my apprehensions were gone. The Tagum City government, headed by Mayor Rey Uy, took every measure to ensure our security and comfort as we participated in the five-day event, which centers on a timely and relevant theme: the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the need to achieve them by 2015. The result was a smoothly conducted, well-organized competition that brought out the best in all those who participated, and one that is definitely one for the history books.

Over the next few posts on this blog I will recount my NSPC 2010 experience day by day, from the unusually long opening parade to the kickass sendoff the genial people of Tagum prepared for us. Stay tuned for my account of the National Schools Press Conference 2010 in Tagum City.

Hours-long power outages have plagued Visayas and Mindanao for a few weeks now. Locally, the situation has worsened to the point where brownouts happen daily in at least one part of the city. I’ve observed that the city is divided into two general areas. If at 600pm there is no power outage in Area A, then Area B is definitely without power (and vice versa). The brownouts occur alternately, too; on Monday, Area A gets no power, Tuesday, Area B, Wednesday, Area A again, and so on. It’s almost like the interruptions are scheduled. Many have suggested that they are, and that these outages are part of some administration ploy to somehow influence the outcome of the May polls.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines says the outages are caused by low water levels in hydroelectric power plants and not a disgusting and insatiable hunger for power of the political kind. Apparently the country is suffering a dry spell of some sort (it rained as hard as dog dung this afternoon and yesterday, so I wonder how they can say that), and as a result the power plants are producing much less electricity than we need.

I find it hard to buy this explanation. It doesn’t help that the rotating brownouts began right around the time when the presidential race was beginning to really heat up. In other countries, it might seem implausible to think that power interruptions would be deliberate and that they would have something to do with elections, but this is the Philippines, a nation that has, for nearly a decade now, been under an unbelievably, pitifully self-serving administration. This is the Philippines. Our ancestors fought to free us from abuse by foreigners, only for our own countrymen to abuse us generations later. This is the Philippines, where politicians have one hand gripped tightly on a rostrum in the Senate as they passionately condemn dishonesty and corruption, while the other hand helps itself to the nation’s coffers. This is the Philippines, where a promise made to the people on national TV means absolutely nothing. This is the Philippines, a country that boasts that it is well on its way to becoming a first world nation by 2020 while one of its highly urbanized cities suffers daily power interruptions. In the Philippines, everything has become possible, from votes magically multiplying to public funds quickly and inexplicably disappearing.

Sometimes, I go through the newspaper and have to wonder if we’re absolutely sure we’re not living in a psychedelic Alice-in-Wonderland universe. In the darkness of my bedroom, during the frequent nights when there is no power and nothing to do, I’ve begun to wonder more and more.

When I started my first blog in late 2005, I was a loner in the blogosphere. Back then, I was in the sixth grade, had a lowly dial-up connection (“screech screech neenok-neenok, blippity bloppity — you are now connected to the Internet”, in case you’ve already forgotten), and didn’t know much about blog promotion. All I did was pour my thoughts into my little corner of the Interwebs and hope people would take notice (which they didn’t, LOL).

After creating countless blogs in WordPress.com, Blogger, i.ph, and a bunch of other blog hosts, I eventually stopped writing online when my parents decided to cut off our telephone subscription (along with our Internet connection). However, when in the summer of 2008 we finally got an Internet connection again, I decided to restart my blogging life. This time, with the explosion of such tools as Twitter, Facebook, Plurk and other social networking sites, it didn’t take me very long to connect with other bloggers from across the country and across the world.

I stumbled across an online community of Filipino bloggers—aptly called the Pinoy Blogosphere—and quickly subscribed to its mailing list. I found it an easy way to seek advise and help from other Pinoys who were much more experienced in blogging than me. Much more than that, many members of PBS became my online friends. We networked and socialized online (if spending hours on end in front of a computer screen can be called socialization).

This kind of camaraderie is also being shared among members of other blogging networks. Take, for example, the Mindanao Bloggers, who I would argue are the most voracious bloggers in the country. They organized WordCamp Philippines 2008, the first ever WordCamp in Southeast Asia, and they’re getting ready to organize WordCamp Pinas 2009. Mindanao Bloggers also has several “satellite communities”—groups of bloggers in different cities who are active in the blogosphere and enjoy one another’s company IRL too. Off the top of my head, I can name a few satellite communities of MB: General Santos (the General of the generals is Avel Manansala of Bariles Republic), Davao (with Blogie Robillo leading the pack) and Cagayan de Oro (led by Chiq Montes, WordPress theme designer).

Which brings me to the main point of this blog post: it would be great if my fellow Butuanons got together and created an online community of sorts of our own. It would be, as Kuya Blogie put it, an additional satellite community of Mindanao Bloggers. We could offer help, advise and support to one another, both on- and offline. We could organize meetups (Margie’s Kitchen! Pan de Pugon! True Brew!) so we can get together IRL. And who knows, the Mindanao Blogging Summit, iBlog, or even WordCamp, might one day grace the Timber City of the South.

So, here’s the deal: if you are or know a Butuanon blogger, please get in touch with me through my contact page. Include your blog’s URL and links to your accounts on social media sites. For easy sorting, please make the first line of your message “BUTUANON BLOGGER”. Let’s begin networking online—add me up on Twitter, Plurk, Multiply, LinkedIn and FriendFeed. I’m also on Facebook—just search for Dean Lozarie, and should you decide to add me up, please include a personal message indicating that you are a Butuanon blogger and would like to friend up.

Meanwhile, I will be spending much of my Internet time looking up and hunting down my fellow Butuanon bloggers. Wish me luck!

[Photo credits: Anne Jimenez on Flickr]

Meet Manuel. He’s six years of age, although if you look at his tiny, lanky frame, you’d swear he was four. He, his four siblings, and his mother live in a cardboard house on a sidewalk in Metro Manila. None of his siblings (who are eight, nine, and twelve years old) go to school; instead, everyday they ply the streets, barefoot and with grimy faces, looking for plastic to sell to Manong Pete’s junk shop, asking for alms from passersby as they search.

Manuel is not a real person. He is the embodiment of countless of homeless children stuck in the same predicament, scattered all over Manila, all over the country, and all over the world. He is the embodiment of the poverty which, for so many people around the world, has become the norm for daily life.

Manuel lives in the children you see on your daily commute—the children who, with somber faces, stick their palms out in the hopes of your one peso making their day. He lives in the children who would swim the Pacific Ocean or walk slowly across a bed of coal for food. He lives in the men and women who, long after everyone has gone to sleep, ply the streets, collecting the garbage people consider unimportant and useless. He lives in the homeless, the broken, and the uncared for, who would, with genuine gladness, eat the food you tossed in the trash because you thought it “tasted bad”.

Manuel is that part of society which we have come to neglect and not care for. He is the demographic whose plight has been eclipsed by our statesmen’s endless, nonsensical politicking, our own personal greed, and the entire laundry list of superficial problems we bother ourselves with everyday. Manuel is the people whose cry for help we’ve so easily turned a deaf ear to.

The simple fact that Manuel has to live his life in such a sad way—without schooling, without steady income, without proper clothing, with hardly a proper home—should be enough to alert us to the urgency of poverty. It should be enough for us to turn our attention away from ourselves, if only for one day, and ponder the predicament. It should be enough for us to, even in our own little way, take action. It should be enough for us to come together to help alleviate his situation. It should be enough for us to unite not as one community, region, religion or country, but as one human race concerned with one universal cause—a cause so fulfilling, something greater than ourselves, something worth spending time on.

Manuel is the future of the world. He will one day become a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer. He could become your jeepney driver, your gardener, the security guard at your office. In him lies the future of the world. In him rests the fate of society. In us lies his fate.

Manuel needs you. He needs you now. Take action, for his future, and for the world’s.

This is my contribution to Blog Action Day 2008. The focus this year is poverty. If you have a blog, it’s not too late to take part. If you don’t have a blog, simply commenting on this blog post with your thoughts is participation enough.[Header image source]