Let’s file this under “cool finds”. Two classic articles from the publication Philippines Free Press:

“Ferdinand E. Marcos, Man of the Year, 1965″ by Napoleon Rama

TO BE on top and to stay at the top has been Ferdinand Edralin Marcos’ lifetime dream. In school, he was always at the head of his class; in the bar examinations, he was top-notcher; during the war years, he was, according to army records, the bravest among the brave, the most be-medaled soldier; in the House of Representatives, he was minority floor leader; in the Senate, he was the Senate President; in the Liberal Party, he was party president; in the Nacionalista Party, he was standard-bearer; in Ilocandia, of course, he is the supreme political leader. Today he occupies the highest post in the nation. He is President of the Republic of the Philippines.

“Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Man of the Year, 1971″ by Teodoro Locsin, Jr

There was rice shortage again. Prices were never higher. Unemployment was appalling, lawlessness reigned. Justice was compartmentalized, with one law for the rich and powerful, another law, a sterner one, for the poor and weak. Graft and corruption in the government was more rampant than ever. Demonstrators against the administration were shot at by government troops as if they were game and the President shed crocodile tears. Lip service was paid to reform while chaos if not revolution threatened. Who could challenge the regime? It seemed irresistible, controlling as it did not only Congress but the local governments. How could the Opposition hope to win against the Marcos candidates in the senatorial election? Their victory would be taken as a national endorsement of the Marcos idea of government—and his perpetuation in power. Who would lead the resistance? The privileges of the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended and martial law continually mentioned if not actually threatened. Democracy was going down, down, down. Who would stop the fall? He would be the Man of the Year.

(Following is the transcript of the segment “Analysis by Winnie Monsod” which aired on News on Q on Feb. 22, 2010. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.)

Let’s take a closer look at two of the cases, involving the provinces of Isabela and Pampanga.Who were in effect found to have cheated? Grace Padaca in Isabela, and Ed Panlilio in Pampanga.

One was a radio commentator, the other a priest.

Neither of them have money, neither of them had political machinery — both of them were novatos — new to the political world.

And to cheat successfully in the Philippines, as we saw in a recent analysis, you need guns and goons, or gold. You need private armies, or you need the money to bribe either voters or counters.

Neither of which neither Padaca nor Panlilio had. They had volunteers who gave of their time and effort to help.

And yet, what did the Comelec’s second division find?

In the case of Padaca, the Comelec managed to find enough evidence of cheating to overcome the 17,000 vote lead of Padaca, and make her opponent win 1,051 votes. That takes some doing, and it took Comelec 12,000 pages to do it, including, in some parts of the decision, referring to Padaca as Sarmiento, and to her opponent Dy as Tuazon.

In the case of Panlilio, not only did the Comelec’s second division turn down his request for more time to raise funds for paying the costs of the case, but they seemed to have a strong desire to speed up the counting by allowing twenty teams of revisors at the same time instead of only the usual nine — and of course, that required even more funding than the usual.

Thus, Panlilio was left with only one revisor for every three that his opponent had — with the blessings of the Comelec’s Second Division, who scoffed at Panlilio’s plea, and asked him to use the “volunteers” he claimed to have had.

But there also seems to be more overt bias on the part of the Comelec Second Division.

Such as in the Isabela case, the name Faustino Dy was credited to Benjamin Dy for governor, while the names Gris Padaca or Grace Padacca, with a double c, was not credited to Padaca.

In the Pampanga case, the name Nanay Baby was credited to Panlilio’s rival, but the names Ed and Among were not allowed to be credited to Panlilio.

And that’s how Panlilio’s slim lead of over a thousand votes vanished, and his rival won instead by over 2,000 votes.

With that kind of decision-making process going on in Comelec, is it any wonder that it is fast losing whatever credibility it had?

For shame.

Read full article

By Maria Althea Teves, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 02/13/2010 4:19 PM

Excerpt:

Aside from introducing [Aetas and peasants] to poll automation, IPER project coordinator Francis Isaac gave a presentation about the history of Philippine elections for the participants to be able to understand the current political situation.

IP representatives watched a video about the history of Philippine elections. The video is hosted by comedian and television and radio host Arvin “Tado” Jimenez.

When the video showed that in the 1907 elections, only 25-year-old males (and above) who have a property worth P500 or above were allowed to vote, the participants gasped.
Isaac said only 1.4% of the population were able to vote.

The participants quickly noted down on their small pieces of paper the details Isaac were telling them.
They wrote down who were not allowed to vote during that time: 1) women; 2) the illiterate; and, 3) those who did not own property.

“Majority of the members of the first Philippine Assembly were lawyers and landowners,” Isaac said. He added that political families who were in power then, are still in power now.

Isaac said that although now, the poor, women and illiterate are able to vote, it would be hard to remove from power those who no longer represent the interest of the people.

But he told the IPs not to lose hope, “We have to vote for those who are with us and would forward our interests.”

Read the full article.

My favorite Twitter person mlq3 wrote an article on his blog that recalls the timeline of events leading to the People Power Revolution. Yup, it’s that time of the year again, only now, we’ll be celebrating it with one less woman in yellow. He compares 1986 with the May 2010 elections, citing the similarities of the two situations a generation apart. Check it out here.

Also, here’s Manolo explaining Cory Aquino’s legacies as president, because most Filipinos tend to have a very short memory and lump everything together as pare-pahero lang yan, but doing so would be a disservice to great leaders like her.

I’m putting this here so that googlers searching for the group will find a way to join the cause. I noticed it’s not easy to find it, even when searching inside Facebook itself, so, there you go.

As of this time, 10:50PM June 12, the members total 42,392. Cool! Let’s bump it up some more! The second EB in Metro Manila will be announced soon as per creator Noli Benavent. I hope provincial chapters can be set up as well.

Click on the image below to join the fight!