Solomonic reinstatement, but the fudging is still moronic.

Expectedly, the government will reinstate the police chief who was relieved from his post for claiming that 10,000 died from Supertyphoon Yolanda. I hope he is being reinstated not just because of public opinion but because it is the right thing to do.

If all government functionaries have the sense to stop the wrongs they make, discard favoritism, overcome inertiative, stop being sanctimonious, then it would be perfect to work in this earthquake, flood, lahar country. But that's another story.

Back to Soria, I'm glad they announced it before the death toll approximates his initial estimate. With 5,560 dead and around 2,000 more unaccounted for, the deaths could reach 7,500, easily tripling the government guesstimate. Soria's count will be closer to the final count than the government's first estimate.

Remember that the police chief offered his estimate right after the typhoon. he was right there on the ground with the press egging him for estimates. No other government official can come up with numbers. True, there was emotional drama in the estimate. Why shouldn't there be? The typhoon was truly catastrophic. In the tragic bombing of the World Trade Center, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed. They did not fire Mayor Giuliani on the overestimate.

The 2,000 - 2,500 deaths reported by the president, gathered from the field 5 days after the typhoon was supposedly objective and devoid of drama. Many think that the government was fudging the count because it might appear that it did not do enough to warn the people. I think so too, until it can't fudge it no more. For one, the count stalled for a while because they checked and triple checked the data. They didn't count the dead until it has been identified. Wtf?!@#$%^. A death is a death, identified or not.

Then they quibbled on the cause of death. When they found 'new dead' under the rubble, Mar Roxas speculated that they “... had just died were from recent causes. Maybe they had a heart attack, pneumonia or something, but not because of Yolanda.” Wtf?!@#$%^. They had a heart attack or whatever and they chose to crawl under the rubble and die? Isn't it more logical to conclude that Yolanda buried them in the rubble but they did not die immediately? That they died before they could be rescued?

Does the government really think that Yolanda did not cause the rubble under which they died?


Mar-ronic!

Mar's 800k votes hump.

Just 5 hours after the polls closed last Monday, Comelec released figures that say 57% of votes has been counted. Noynoy led Erap by over 3 million votes. Binay led by close to 800k votes over Mar.

As more votes are counted and transmitted, one would expect the lead to widen. It happened in the case of Noynoy. With 90% of votes in, his lead is now over 5 million. But in Binay and Mar's case, the lead just hovered around that 800k hump. After 3million votes and an 800k lead, Binay just coasted along. All the way to the finish?

Hmmp.

Post election thoughts

It appears Binay will win the VP contest. With 4M+ votes to count, he leads by just under 800k votes over Mar Roxas. Ever since the start of the counting, Binay had that consistent 800k lead. As more votes get counted, that lead stays the same. Wonder where that 800k came from? Regions 4 is so close to home and yet he did not take care of it.
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The total votes for president was close to a million more than the total votes for vice president. It means there are many people who did not vote for a VP. Or many VP votes were invalidated. Erap was caught on cam to having not voted for a VP. Probably his experience with GMA made him do it.
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Did Mar get overconfident? Maybe. The surveys said his lead over Loren was comfortable. And she looked she had nowhere to go. With INC's endorsement locked up a long time ago, they did not see Binay. Now Chiz feels like a kingmaker. He can claim his endorsement clinched it for Binay.
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Villar: Ako ay may sipag at tiyaga.
Gibo: Ako ay may galing at talino.
Noynoy: Wala yan sa mommy at daddy ko.
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Pinoys don't mind performers-turned-politicians-who-don't-perform as long as they are not tainted with corruption. Joey Marquez lost. Lito Lapid and Bong Revilla won. It also helped that they stayed away from GMA in this campaign.
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This election's vote is a vote against GMA. Gibo despite all his galing at talino lost big. Villar despite his billions and sipag at tiyaga lost billions. All because of the GMA connection. Erap the ex-convict was ahead of the two. Binay postured himself as anti-GMA. He branded Mar as pro-GMA. He leads as of now.
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Chiz enjoys his kingmaker role. But he better make sure that his VP behaves, or else he will go down with him.

Noynoy na!

A new blog featuring an open letter to former president Fidel V. Ramos from his niece made a buzz at the political scene this week. In it, she asks FVR to endorse Noynoy. She sums up the argument for Noynoy/Mar - "...he (Noynoy) is now the one candidate with the potential to unite the opposition against the ruling party. For his part, Mar is no slouch, moreover, and the Liberal Party appears to have some progressive elements."

Philippine politics is characterized by a weak party system. Political butterflies abound. That is why many different configurations or tandems for president/vice president are floated around. The situation is very fluid. You can hear possibilities of a Villar/Loren, Villar/Chiz, Chiz/Loren, Chiz/Ping, Gibo/Loren, Chiz/Dick, etc. Any of which is a real possibility. Now that Chiz decided to bolt from the NPC, the possibility of a Gibo/Chiz may not be far-fetched despite the previous anti-GMA stand of Chiz. The administration says it is open to a Gibo/Chiz team.

Consider this: Chiz's tweet last night indicated that he might be supporting the gerrymandering bill that gives Dato Arroyo a congressional district. With that tweet, Chiz hints of an alliance with an Arroyo son and at the same time takes a potshot at Noynoy. Noynoy is opposing the bill.

Chiz portrays himself as a follower of the Quezonian "my loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins". It is not immediately clear what party stand he is against. Why Chiz would shun party politics this time after doing so in all his political life gives credence to rumors that the NPC boss, Danding Cojuangco, would finance only a fraction of his campaign.

By now, it is clear that only the Noynoy/Mar tandem stands squarely against the current administration. All the rest can be seen to offer to or gain some accommodation from the administration. All the others do not consider the interests of the country. They all belong to the parte-parte party. With them, patronage politics will still be in place.

Lies + verbal jabs + fashion statements + patutsadas = Twitter top trend

As expected, many find the SONA as a pack of lies. The Philippine twitter scene was abuzz. Jim Paredes was impressed but wondered what country GMA was describing. I pity her ghost writers now. She must miss the previous ones who managed to give her speeches some tone of credibility. Or it must be simply that her credibility has gone down south so much that anything she says sounds like lies.

I will let the experts dissect and analyze the details. I found the fashion statements and the patutsadas more interesting. The first photo (from the GMANews) shows Rep. Liza Maza in a white katsa (flour sack) gown. The gown is hand-painted with a golden image of GMA, who is shown weaving an embroidery of the constitution (Con-Ass), while the people below her are strangled by its thread.

The second photo (also from the GMANews) shows Rep. Riza Hontiveros celebrating GMA's last SONA in a white pearl-scale gown embellished it with a red floral accent and a yellow ribbon for Cory.

But the real eye catcher is Sen. Loren Legarda's gown. That ensemble made Sen. Miriam Santiago look like her alalay.

Based on what I heard at the SONA, I think Sen. Manny Villar may yet end up as the administration candidate. Understandably, GMA will not hit his partymates at the SONA. But she swung at her opponents. So in her potshot at Erap, who still dreams of returning to Malacanan, - "Those who live in glass houses should cast no stones. Those who should be in jail should not threaten it, especially if they have been there." - touche. She was just being her taray self.

Even her party mate, former president Fidel Ramos, received a joust. She said "the noisiest critics of constitutional reform tirelessly and shamelessly attempted Cha-cha when they thought they could take advantage of a shift in the form of government. Now that they feel they cannot benefit from it, they oppose it." It can be remembered that Ramos attempted charter change during his term.

She had some advice to presidentiables - "To those who want to be President, this advice: If you want something done, do it hard, do it well. Don’t pussyfoot. Just do it. Don't say bad words in public." It is an obvious dig at Sen. Mar Roxas who once cursed publicly in disgust. And where does Mar Roxas post his reply? In Twitter, where else - "Gloria, I have to say bad words in public because of bad deeds done in secret."

So why do I think Villar may yet be GMA's candidate? Despite his lead in the surveys (he was ahead of Erap and Mar), he was spared from the patutsadas as if he were a partymate.