Tag Archives: 2010 elections

komentaryo

SATUR IS THE ONE

Satur Ocampo is the one senatoriable who has gotten flack for being guest candidate of NP, which is surprising given how this refuses to believe the truth that he and Liza Maza are running with the party, and not within it. Why is it so hard to understand that?

The better question is would we give Satur and Liza the same problem had they run with LP? It’s obvious that people who use the NP reason against Satur and Liza are silently/unconsciously pushing for Noynoy. So between a rags-to-riches capitalist and a middle-class haciendero, we go with the unapologetic former?

And let’s not even begin with running independently. That would’ve meant votes, yes, but not a nationwide campaign. This is the reason why I miss Mar Roxas for president — at least he was open to real progressive senatoriables. The Aquino siblings have called the left “a noisy minority,” Ninoy must be turning in his grave.

The whole anti-NP, pro-LP, anti-Satur  rhetoric? Interesting. But wrong. And unfair to this nation that would gain so much with real progressives in the Senate.

Because Satur is the one senatoriable who has consistently fought for our human rights to our freedoms and has sacrificed life and limb for it. He was journalist and writer before becoming activist, a story that we should all be jealous of, a story that we should all want to have as writers/artists of whatever kind. Satur has lived a life for this nation literally. Can any other senatoriable say that?

And yet, Satur is the one senatoriable who has had to deal with not being forgiven. For a nation that can forgive plunderers and human rights violators, killers and thieves, and a president like GMA, it cannot for the life of it forgive this man. He who has paid for his sins with time in jail more than any other person in government has. He who has missed time with family in the name of nation. As congressman he lived in Congress with Liza and Teddy Casino because GMA was out to get them. All of them lost their pork barrel.

And no, Satur does not carry a gun. In fact Satur is the one who walks among us, and we fail to see him because he isn’t in a fancy car, doesn’t use police escorts, refuses the lifestyle changes public office requires. The same may be said of Liza, who I chanced upon in a karenderya, who talked to me like we were old friends, even when I was someone she didn’t know from eve.

Satur is the one senatoriable who, if you spend time looking at his Congress page has done good to nation, consistently and for the long term. Anyone who questions his stand on the extension of CARP is ill-informed about the state of agrarian reform in this country; anyone who thinks Hontiveros is the one woman to save farmers in this country, IS JUST WRONG. Please read up, please know how CARP has killed farmers and let hacienderos go free. Please read up on GARB and know enough to see that this is what real agrarian reform looks like, the Hacienda Luisitas of this country be damned.

Read up on Satur, on this, the last day before elections, and see yourselves. See how scared you are of real progressives, compared to your fear of men with guns goons gold, yes, there are many of them in government. See how scared you are of real fundamental change in nation, when your own candidate – whoever he is – uses the word change, too. See how real change looks, how a man can move from a life of privacy, to the underground to above ground, to doing more in Congress than many of our representatives combined. See this man for what he is.

He is an activist who has spoken to the masses in the countryside, has lived to walk the streets and in our consciousness, has consistently dealt with nation by listening to the people and understanding what it needs. He is a leftist, because he has always had the interests of the masses in his heart and soul and actions, has always wished for them a life that’s better than all this, has always worked towards making our oppressions pay for the unjust lives we live. The question is: Why do you fear this at all?

Realize that in the end, a vote against Satur is your own vote against nation, because here and now, his kind of progressive and nothing else is what we need. His kind of decency, his sense of justice, his kind of life. He is the kind of man this nation needs in the Senate.

Satur is the one and shading #37 is a vote for real concrete change. It is a vote for a nation that isn’t afraid to fight for its freedoms. It is a vote for a nation that deserves to have Satur as Senator now. Voting for Satur is voting for a future that will infinitely better, because we aren’t afraid anymore. It is one that we, the masses, the greater majority deserve.

komentaryo

20 days to go!

“Ninoy’s Testament From A Prison Cell and other writings might enlighten Noynoy a little about the Left. if there were no poverty and oppression, there would be no Left; snubbing and demonizing the Left (instead of finding a way for Left and Right to work together for the good of the whole) would not have been Ninoy’s way, is no way to honor Ninoy’s legacy, in fact it dishonors Ninoy’s legacy.”

And while Stuart Santiago seems to have decided, I have yet to decide on a president. in fact, i’m almost voting for that one who will categorically say yes to the Reproductive Health Bill in this final stretch, but in this godforsaken country,really, everyone’s more afraid of the Church than the wrath of all womanhood.

so heck, maybe Jamby. I would ratherthat Frenchman in Malacanang than Kris Aquino or Willie Revillame.

komentaryo

election primer of sorts

this is something that Female Network asked me to write, an election primer of sorts, for its Pinay market. www.femalenetwork.com is the umbrella website for Summit Media’s pinay-targetted magazines: Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Smart Parenting, Candy and Preview.

but of course this is for every voting Pinoy, in 2010 and beyond, regardless of gender and sexuality, and whatever other demographic or category or label we may imagine we fall under. my personal top 10 issues in relation to the 2010 elections, in no particular order, after negotiations and discussions with the nanay of course.

1. the environment
2. the VFA
3. foreign debt
4. human rights
5. charter change
6. education
7. migration
8. employment
9. SSS and GSIS
10.the Reproductive Health Bill

do click on that link!

komentaryo

stimulus via SSS? utang na loob!

i will not even get into the legality of Chairman Romula Neri’s decision to use Social Security System’s funds for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s stimulus package — Rep. Liza Masa is doing a good job of that already. nor will i get into the probability that this will expectedly be used by GMA to win the 2010 elections, because her government always seems to think that the downtrodden will be easily impressed by contractual jobs, with little pay and no benefits (oh such little faith in the intelligence of the oppressed masses!).

what i will insist on is this: the Social Security System is in no position to give out its money, because it has yet to even serve its members. and you know i’m not even one to complain about long lines (i come from the University of Pila after all) and rude employees (i’ve had my share of government offices after all).  all i ask is that the SSS be able to give its members what’s due them: our I.D.’s when we need them and access to our benefits with as little of those bureaucratic hassles as possible.

and yet what we are treated to is an unfair system that puts members through hell because it is disorganized, unjust, and downright unacceptable.

let me begin with this: those of us who live in the Mandaluyong and Pasig areas have to go all the way to Quezon City to get our Identification Cards processed because both the Mandaluyong and Pasig SSS branches have broken I.D. card machines. Mandaluyong has had a broken machine for oh, three years? and the Pasig branch for over a year. this is not just inconvenient, it is unforgivable given the fact that in order to get any — ANY! — of your benefits you must have at least your SS ID claim stub.

but of course when you are desperate, and in need, you will go that length of traveling from wherever you are in this country to that rare SSS branch that has an SS I.D. machine. so i get there at 7:30 AM, thinking that i was to early only to find that i was too late. i was number 442 — four hundred f*** forty two! — and my I.D. application was only going be entertained four hours later.  i had to wait outside the building, in the heat, with no food and no clean comfort room.

when you finally face the scowling SSS employee, she processes your papers with nary a smile, and you are told to return at 7AM the following day for the I.D. picture. and i do, at a little over 7AM, only to find that they started giving out cards at 5:30, when the first member arrived. and i was now number 96 — an improvement nonetheless, i think.

but now the issue is this: you are told to wait inside the building and not outside, and you are told to sit in proper order on the row upon row of seats. you are also told by the Security Guard that if you step out for any reason, you might lose your place and there will be no getting it back, sorry na lang kayo. and as the airconditioning is on high (it’s a huge space after all), and i’m stuck in my assigned seat (the guard is a scary scary man), i am forced to keep my pee in, kidney stones and UTI be damned!

i listen to those around me, and i realize that i am better off.  two men who met while waiting, started talking about having to leave — one for Dubai, the other for “Saudi” — both as construction workers. they expect to get their I.D.s today because they need it to travel.  meanwhile, a pregnant lady two seats to my left who, by the looks of it was well into her third trimester, was talking about how much money she needed for giving birth, and how difficult it has been being pregnant and trying to get her SSS maternity benefit. the old man beside me was holding his forms for dear life, newly-employed as he was, and needing an SSS I.D. to get his employment papers properly processed. he should’ve been there to collect retirement benefits.

we were all finally being told to enter these cubicles with the oh so rare computers for I.D. processing, one-by-one. and when we are done with the process of putting in a Personal Identification Number (P.I.N. — which not everyone had a sense of), and giving our electronic thumbprint and signature, we are told this: your I.D.s will be delivered via snail mail in seven months. SEVEN F*@%^ MONTHS!

and i couldn’t help but wonder about those who needed it already, because they are due to fly out and work elsewhere for home and family. i wonder about the old man whose papers might only be processed when he has his I.D. in hand. i do think about how unfair the whole process has been, because the difficulty is uncalled for.  had there been a machine in Mandaluyong, i can’t imagine that i would be number 442 OR 96. had there been more machines, and more people manning them, as well as more people printing out those I.D.s, i can’t imagine that it should take seven months to get these via mail.

and ultimately, i can’t imagine that any of this can’t be fixed with the P12.5 billion pesos of SSS money that Romulo Neri has so generously decided to dole out for the stimulus package. it is unbelievable that given the horrible third world system of the SSS, which puts its members through hell in its incapacity to serve properly and punctually, it is so willing to spend on “saving the world” even when it is not clear about where the money’s going. that the SSS will be “spending” its members’ money — that which they work hard for, that which they fall in line for, that which they expect must be easy to claim — makes this all the more despicable.

SSS Chairman Romula Neri wants to save the world. and as a member who has been oppressed by the SSS’ (lack of a) system, my response is simple: utang na loob!