Surveys show what kind of voters we have!

The last time Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) was in Cebu was last Jan.24th when she came to bury her late Press Secretary Cerge M. Remonde and she was in tears following his bier to their family plot in Argao. Well, the President came back to Cebu last Wednesday during her tour of the Cyber Corridor and at the AsiaTown I.T. Park for the blessing of Qualfon, a leading contact center provider. What I found especially meaningful with this company is that, they have a beautiful chapel inside that facility, which is a huge factor in helping call center employees.

Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDFIT) chairman Boni Belen gave a PowerPoint presentation that literally had the President shouting wow! So world class! That from 850 software developers in 2001, Cebu’s IT Industry now has 7,000 software developers and is now directly competing with India!

During the presscon, I was lucky enough to be seated next to the President. I showed her a black and white photo in my iTouch of the old Lahug Airport and told her exactly where the building we were in was located. If at all, the country’s achievements on the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) are something that came from the Arroyo Administration. No one else can make this claim. I recall that her daughter, Lulli even held office in our building during the early years of the IT industry and now the fruit of her work is starting to bloom.

Without the success of the I.T. Industry throughout the country, the Philippines would certainly be in dire trouble finding out ways where to look for jobs for the hundreds of thousands of graduates every year. We should give credit where credit is due. Pres. Arroyo made the I.T. Industry a priority program in her administration and its success can only be attributed to her vision of finding ways to secure jobs for Filipinos who need not travel to foreign countries to find work!

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What a sick country! The Senate cannot even censure one of its own member for his alleged ethical or illegal maneuverings and worse, Sen. Manny Villar goes out to say... “I didn’t steal” as if he was being charged of stealing! That his C-5 roadway project passes through six - count ‘em, six - of his property development isn’t stealing, but plain and simple act of graft!

Because there was no quorum in the Senate, they could not censure Sen. Manny Villar. As collateral damage, the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill, the early voting bill, the Freedom of Information Act and many more couldn’t be discussed and therefore shelved! So my friend against the RH Bill may be elated by this news, but this bill will resurface once more like the proverbial phoenix.

Far worse than the debacle in the Senate is the reality that the Filipino electorate only show themselves as totally ignorant of the issues playing right before their eyes. Because of the headline grabbing controversy on the C-5 fiasco, the latest polls show that Sen. Manny Villar is now on a statistical tie with front runner Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III which reveals a lot about the kind of voters we have in this very sick country of ours!

It is incomprehensible that the campaign strategy of Noynoy Aquino who is supposedly campaigning for a clean and honest governance has not created the bandwagon effect that they wanted to get and worse, while Sen. Villar’s rating is rising, Noynoy’s rating has dipped to the point that the Liberal Party (LP) has finally acknowledged that their strategy of selling the image of Ninoy and Cory hasn’t worked in Noynoy’s favor as once more, the Cory Magic has started to wane.

Because the LP’s strategy was to use the Cory Magic, we’ve already began featuring stories from the book entitled “Greed & Betrayal: The sequel to the 1986 EDSA Revolution” by Cecilio T. Arillo which reveals the inside story about how the Hacienda Luisita escaped from being CARPED, while all landowners were CARPED! The story behind what happened to the Bataan Nuclear Powered Plant (BNPP) and why it wasn’t used, but still paid is all there; plus the reasons why Tita Cory experience so many coup attempts during her Presidency and her falling apart with her vice-president Salvador “Doy” Laurel and House Speaker Ramon “Monching” Mitra.

If anyone who was old enough to be in EDSA in 1986 gets hold of that book , they will understand why Tita Cory lost a lot of her popularity towards the end of her Presidency... because of missed opportunities, greed from within her “kamaganaks” and political opportunism. This is why if the Noynoy campaign insists on using “Si Tatay at si Nanay” his ratings would dip further down and by the May elections, we might just hear the sighs of “Sayang”; after all, there are no second placers in Presidential elections!

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