In Makati, Mayor Jejomar Binay led the countdown to usher in 2009 and bid goodbye to the troubled year that was 2008.
“If New York (the United States), Sydney (Australia) and Moscow (Russia) have their own grand celebration, this is our version,” Binay said.
“This is also our way to share love and to lead Filipinos in welcoming 2009 with hope and optimism.”
In neighboring Bonifacio Global City, streaks of red, yellow and green lit up the sky above The Fort where the Taguig city government threw a New Year countdown and street party for around 5,000 people, highlighted by a spectacular 15-minute fireworks presentation by the award-winning La Mancha pyrotechnics group.
ALTHOUGH he considers himself of presidential timber, Sen. Richard Gordon said he is not sure whether he will seek re-election for the Senate or will run for president in 2010.
Gordon, who was ranked fifth in the 2004 senatorial elections, can seek re-election in 2010. But he has been aspiring to become president since 1992 yet.
“I think among those who have declared (to run for president), I can see that I am the most ready (to manage the country) but I am not a candidate yet,” Gordon said in a press conference.
Former President Joseph Estrada continues to hope for opposition unity to bring about a single standard bearer who would be a sure winner in 2010, and said he will continue with his efforts to unite the opposition and wait till the last quarter of 2009 to achieve this.
Short of this, however, Estrada may be forced to seek the presidency for himself in 2010, but said he will wait until the last quarter of the year to make that decision to run.
Speaker Prospero Nograles, president of Lakas, is no longer as optimistic as before on the planned merger of Lakas and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), saying party leaders seem fated to disagree on many issues.
In a television interview two nights ago, Nograles said he was no longer focused on pursuing the merger of the two pro-administration parties.
Nograles said his current concern is to persuade Lakas and Kampi to support common national and local candidates in the general elections in May 2010.
MANILA, Philippines – Elections in 2010 and the environment will likely top the agenda of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) when it holds its plenary session later this month.
Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso said the scheduled plenary session will give bishops a chance to come with a consensus on crucial issues, including next year’s elections.
“There’s a strong possibility we will talk about the coming 2010 elections and the country’s environment,” Medroso said in an interview on Church-run Radio Veritas, excerpts of which were posted on the CBCP website.
President Arroyo on Wednesday refused to talk about her plans once her term expires in 2010 amid moves to amend the charter supposedly meant to extend her stay in power.
President was asked what she intended to do once her term legally expires in an interview by members of local media in Baguio City, to which the President emphatically replied: “I don’t want to talk about 2010. Politics is not in the foremost of my mind. Lets talk economics and not politics.”
MANILA, Philippines – Ousted president Joseph Estrada on Friday said he would decide whether to run in the 2010 presidential elections by the last quarter of 2009.
Estrada said he could tell whether he can still unite the opposition by that time. If his efforts fail, he said would run for president.
“I’m still uniting the opposition… Part of my New Year’s resolution is to double my time to unite the opposition into supporting only one candidate in 2010,” Estrada said.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. on Friday urged the Commission on Elections to diligently pursue the cleanup of the list of voters this year by completing the biometric registration and identification of voters.
Pimentel said the purge of flying or bogus voters is as important as the automation of the voting and counting of votes to ensure honest, orderly and credible elections in 2010.
Noting a Comelec report that 24 million or half of the 48 million Filipino voters are already covered by the biometric listing, he said the poll body should persuade the rest of the voting population to register under the new system through intensified information and education campaign.
“The biometric process would eliminate the possibility of one and the same person being registered in many precincts and, therefore, allowed to votes so many times,” the senator from Mindanao said.
Pimentel decried that the biometric registration of voters remains an unfinished task considering that it was started in 2004 at a cost of P1 billion.
The opposition lawmaker said that the use of flying voters remains a serious problem in the country’s electoral system, which should not be underestimated or ignored by poll authorities. He said it is through this foul tactic that many an unscrupulous and corrupt politician has cheated his way to victory and kept himself in power through the connivance of dishonest election officials.
“It is very important that we get the cleansing process of the voters going and finished. The Comelec has started to do that sometime in the past and I really hope that they will be able to accomplish the objective of providing every precinct with a clean list of voters so that we can start correctly on the right foot from the very process of getting to the polls and casting their votes,” Pimentel said.
He also lauded the Comelec for its plan to require its field officials all over the country to conduct house-to-house counter-checking of voters.
Theoretically, he said the house-to-house verification appears to be a sound approach to ferret out flying voters. But he said he is not too sure whether the Comelec has enough personnel to do that.
Pimentel said it may be more practical for election authorities to undertake random counter-checking of households, starting with those where there is an unusually huge number of registered voters.
He said the Comelec should act fast on complaints or reports of the existence if flying voters in certain areas.
MANILA, Philippines—New year, old foes.
Critics of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday vowed no respite for her in the new year and in the homestretch of her nine-year term. She has been in Malacañang since 2001.
“There is nothing Ms Arroyo will be able to do in the last few months of her reign of terror that will improve what people think of her,” said Leah Navarro, co-convener of the civil society group Black and White Movement.
Despite four failed attempts to impeach Ms Arroyo, Navarro said her group would continue to “seek redress in that direction” if only to make her accountable for unresolved allegations such as the “Hello Garci” controversy.
Navarro said her group would also continue to block administration efforts to keep Ms Arroyo in office beyond 2009, a lingering suspicion considering moves in the House of Representatives to amend the Constitution.
The move of Malacañang allies to spearhead Charter change can force the fragmented political opposition to forge a unified front against constitutional amendments to ensure that the presidential election in 2010 will take place.
The elusive unity within the opposition was pointed out by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. in separate interviews before the country ushered in New Year’s Day.
Cayetano said that Charter change remained the biggest issue confronting critics of Ms Arroyo in 2009.
Common platform
This will provide a common platform for the warring members of the Senate to unite against a “common enemy,” he said.
The opposition has several presidential aspirants but Cayetano said “the big hindrance—what is stopping these major realignments from becoming manifest—is the possibility of Cha-cha, and the possibility of the President staying on in whatever capacity after 2010.”
He said those in the administration had already made “commitments” to their presidential candidates, mostly in the opposition, “subject to the fact that it won’t be a question of choosing between President Arroyo and the next candidate.”
“In short, any political commitment hinges on there being elections in 2010,” he said.
So far, only Sen. Manuel Villar has declared that he would run for president, while Senators Loren Legarda, Mar Roxas, Francis Escudero, Panfilo Lacson and Richard Gordon are keeping coy about their presidential ambitions.
While there will be individual announcements and party recruitment, there is no realignment taking place “until the certainty of the 2010 elections.”
The prospect of no elections is scary for both the opposition and the citizenry, he said, adding that the first quarter of the year would be “crucial” because of Charter change.
The House initially decided to go it alone—proceed with Charter amendments without the Senate—but later declared a ceasefire during the holidays following a large rally spearheaded by the Catholic Church and the opposition in Makati City.
Joint voting
The Senate has been adamant that any Charter change resolution should be decided by both chambers, voting separately, while the much larger House wants a joint voting. The House will start floor debates on Charter change resolution when Congress resumes session on Jan. 19.
Quoting the “Art of War,” Pimentel said: “Under the Sun Tzu principle of the enemy of your enemy is your friend, they might engage in a unified effort to stave off a brazenly unconstitutional act.”
By “they,” he was alluding to presidential aspirants in the Senate.
INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
IF CONVICTED plunderer Joseph “Erap” Estrada succeeds in winning re-election to the presidency in the May 2010 elections, the Filipino people can blame President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former president Cory Aquino for this woeful occurrence, Arroyo for granting him an executive clemency on October 24, 2007 and Aquino for her public apology to him on December 22, 2008.
Estrada was convicted in September of 2007 for plunder after a six year trial which pitted career government prosecutors against a “Dream Team” of the best lawyers Estrada could hire. After extracting an oral promise from Estrada that he would never run for public office again, President Arroyo naively pardoned him one month before he was to begin serving a life sentence in Bilibid prison.
