Like most Filipinos who got to watch the correspondent episode "Kung Di Ukol, Bubukol" (1, 2, 3, 4), there's a great sense of pity and hopelessness on the situation of our country today.
The said episode showed how the relationship between China and the Philippines had improve in this present administration. This reminds me of the controversy that emerged on the acquisition of National Transmission Corporation by an RP-Chinese group where the closeness and bidding process was questioned.
The controversy sparked two issues that a presidential candidate must have a clear stand:
- Does he or she perceived the partnership agreement to explore the Spratly Islands legitimate or constitutional? Will it be continued?
- Will the current administration be investigated for corruption and if proven, make them liable for their acts?
Share your thoughts on important issues on the Philippines 2010 Elections today.
2 comments:
The main problem is that we have a very illegitimate democratic system. Our voters elect only those people who are popular and not if they are capable. The big dilemma if GMA is ousted, the VP will take over who was elected PURELY because he’s popular with the masses, and not because he’s capable to lead the nation. Our economy has never grown this much, I don’t want to take the chance by entrusting it to someone solely popular with the masses.
To prevent this transfer, no matter how believable Lozada initially is, his credibility is now being questioned. He admitted that a certain level of corruption is acceptable to him. Questions have arisen whether he was kidnapped, because his celphone was not confiscated, he dined in Outback restaurant, and he was able to go to the place he wanted to go all along, that is, La Salle Greenhills. I even read he committed a sin of omission regarding his consultation with the wife of Sen. Joker Arroyo. He didn’t correct the impression in which it appeared the wife invited him to her house to urge him not to testify, when the fact of the matter is (based on what I read) Lozada was the one who contacted the wife around September before Joey de Venecia testified, and he was crying and that he doesn’t want to testify. So the wife invited him to her house, and told him she couldn’t lawyer for him due to conflict of interest since her husband is a Senator, while he was then president of Philforest. She advised him then, since he was so distressed, that he doesn’t have to testify if he didn’t want to. Since this was one of those ordinary free consultations, she didn’t bother to tell Joker about it. So Joker was surprised when his wife was mentioned.
I agrued to Dr. Deborah Johnson of the University of Virginia, author of Computer Ethics, in a seminar here that automating the elections is important for the Philippines to ensure honest and clean results. Alas, her reply was that it does not always follow. Machines, she said, are programmed by humans. And it is always possible that one dirty hand can manipulate the results altogether. I stopped to think. I have been thinking all along that it would be better to automate than to have all the results go through different hands and get falsified. But with that comment from her, I have come to the conclusion that in our country, automating the elections is no guarantee. Fact is, we don't have enough time to educate the majority of the voters (they will sell their votes in 2010). Our institutions (i.e., the Comelec) lack credibility. The people knows that some politicians are corrupt, but they'll vote for them all the same. The youth can be a voice, just like in America, but how many are we? For now, nobody knows the answer to our problems.
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