Senatoriables: What’s your stand on Sabah?

As I was writing this column, my entire family were glued on live TV watching the dramatic, albeit historic resignation and departure by helicopter of Pope Benedictus XVI from the Vatican grounds to Castel Gandolfo. From henceforth he will now be called “Pope Emeritus” though he can still be addressed as “His Holiness, Pope Benedictus XVI”.

Thus ended the eight-year reign of Pope Benedict XVI as his white helicopter flew literally into the sunset... passing over the Roman Colosseum where thousands of Christians died for the Christian faith. What a beautiful site taken by a TV news chopper high above the Pope’s helicopter. But the huge difference is, unlike all the previous Popes before him, Pope Benedict XVI is not dead; he lives. So as he leaves the public eye, we shift our focus on the coming conclave and pray that our Cardinals will elect another great Supreme Pontiff.

So back to the million-dollar question, will the next Pope be the last Pope? Let’s hope that when the conclave elects new Pope, he will not bear any name of Pietro or Peter or any semblance that he is from Rome because as the prophesy of St. Malachy said, the last Pope will be called Peter the Roman. This is why the conclave will be the most watched news on TV! Alas, no media is allowed inside the Sistine Chapel, so like everyone else in St. Peter’s Square, we will have to rely on the white smoke that would signify that we have a new Supreme Pontiff. Meanwhile we are Pope-less!

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There ought to be a law that prohibits pollsters like the Social Weather Station (SWS) or Pulse Asia from conducting surveys of leading candidates, then publishing them on national dailies because they can be accused of “trending” and even misleading the voters. These pollsters have a bad habit of not telling us where they conducted these surveys and who were the people they surveyed, and above all what questions were being asked because this is where things could be twisted to favor a candidate.

As the latest SWS or Pulse Asia surveys reveal, nine of Team PNoy’s Senatoriables are in the lead with only three coming from the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). The problem in the trending may not affect the first top 8 Senatoriables, however, it greatly affects the last four candidates. As the SWS shows, Grace Llamanzares and Sen. Antonio Trillanes were tied at the 10 and 11th slot, while Cynthia Villar bagged the 8th slot.

I didn’t even know that former Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon filed a case vs SWS on this issue. At this point, we don’t even know where the case is being handled and whether it would be resolved soon. But I fully agree with Dick Gordon, surveys have no place in Philippine elections because of corruption... these surveys could be bought! For the sake of fairness, pollsters should be prevented from doing their unacceptable trending. I just hope that some good Congressmen out there would enact a law on election trending.

Meanwhile, when Grace Llaman-zares accused Cebuanos of cheating in the 2004 elections the Cebu media fired broadsides against her. Even the barkers of the LP cannot go on the air to say that Cebuanos cheated in that election. In fact, Jerry Tundag, The Freeman editor wrote in his column “To the Quick” last Feb. 22 entitled “Cebuanos are not cheats, Grace Poe!” This article was put up in his Facebook and Jerry texted me that in just a few days, it has already logged 1,700 shares and 500 likes. That was a week ago... the figures by now must have been staggering! So one can say that Grace Poe and those who accuse Cebuanos of cheating won’t win in Cebu!

Supposedly, Sen. Loren Legarda too was one of those who accused Cebuanos of cheating, but she told me that she retracted that statement. But did she? Let’s see if she would tell Ms. Llamanzares right on her face that she was totally mistaken and apologize to Cebuanos, because if she doesn’t do that, then don’t expect Cebu to vote for the two. Finally, we would like to know what is the stand of these Senatoriables from either Team PNoy or UNA on Sabah issue? Senators are tasked to delineate our national boundaries. So let’s hear these Senatoriables speak on Sabah.

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Last Tuesday, a thousand members of the Barug Katawhan and the victims of Typhoon “Pablo” trooped to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) offices in Davao City and virtually ransacked this Region 11 field office, carting away sacks of rice and other relief goods that apparently have not yet been distributed due to some bureaucratic faux pas. Indeed, when you are hungry you risk the chance of having food riots, and that’s what happened in Davao City. But lo and behold! Instead of looking at the problems in Davao and showing pity on the hungry, DSWD Sec. Dinky Soliman has ordered the filing of charges against Barug Katawhan. Filing cases against poor and hungry people will only aggravate the situation.

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