Entries Tagged 'Quickbytes' ↓

Videos and photos of Nacionalista Party and Manny Villar's campaign kickoff in Calamba, Laguna.

Today is day one of the official campaign period for national elections in May 2010. All roads leading to the main venue of Banga Plaza were decked with orange ribbons, flags and campaign posters. The venue itself which is the common poster area in Calamba was decorated with posters of the Nacionalista Party's senatorial slate. Wowowee TV show host Willie Revillame is expected to arrive around 5pm and some unannounced celebrity endorsers of Manny Villar. Villar's viral campaign jingle "Naging Mahirap" plays in the background alternatively with another jingle "Akala Mo".

More photos and videos here

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Well, former president and 2010 elections presidentiable Joseph "Erap" Estrada thinks your vote costs anywhere between 20 or 50 pesos. Not.

Photo by שאול חנוכה Shaul Hanuka

That supposed "vote-buying" photo published on the frontpage of the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday is funny at best and cheap at worst. I will have to agree with Erap's spokesperson, Margaux Salcedo's comment -- "Get real."

If the cost of a vote can go as high as P500 on election day, then why would anyone think that Erap is "vote-buying" in that recent campaign sortie in Tondo, Manila. It could well be considered alms if you ask me. That's what politicians think we poor dumb voters need anyway -- alms . It's demeaning because we never needed alms. All we need are competent leaders. But I guess that's too much to ask for. Or maybe we haven't been working hard enough.

So if you want to charge him with something, maybe you can invoke the "Anti-Mendicancy" law. Lame.

I could not even say for sure if if that "tightly-rolled paper" is money. But if it is, who cares?

COMELEC? Jimenez himself said that "it's nothing" and yes it is! It's nothing because when the SC ruled that there is no such thing as electioneering prior to the official national campaign period which starts next month, we relinquished our right to complain about "catchy" informercials, building-sized tarpaulins and whatever else that this multi-billion peso campaign fiesta is generating and will generate further as we near the 2010 elections.

You, the voter? After the same also ruled that there is NO NEED for a current government official (who is a candidate for the upcoming elections) to vacate his/her post prior to elections we abandoned our claim to being "swindled" by smooth-talking trapos who may well be "cooking us in our own lard".

We want to complain but can we?

We want to claim our right to clean, transparent and honest elections but do we, after all this non-vigilance and complacency deserve it?

How much is your vote? Or better still, how much does that one vote mean to you? You don't have to tell me. Tell that to your kids.

When they go asking you for food you cannot provide. When they go asking you why they're not in school. When they, as adults end up slaving-off in some hostile country so far way from home in exchange for meager salary, if you can even call it salary -- tell it to them.

Tell them how much your vote costs and you'll never have to answer a tougher question from them for the rest of their vote-bought lives.

Our present -- this life we now live and everything that's in it is not ours. It is a borrowed life -- from our children, from our grandchildren. Don't think that we can just squander it as we please. We will have to return it someday. I know we can't return it now in its pristine state, specially because we've been careless and irresponsible with it most times. But please, let's pledge to return it "mended" if not whole.

You wouldn't sell your kids or their future. I bet you wouldn't even want to sell yours. Don't sell your votes. Vote-buying is illegal and immoral but more importantly, it's stupid. Period.

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Photo by BrittneyBush

No Escape

by: RJ

There are thoughts that keep me awake at night

And keep me absent-minded in the day --

Gliding on a golden field, endless heaps of hay

Thoughts about what is and what was,

But never of what could be.

They haunt me of a past long gone and never will be,

They nag me of a present so persistent, a routine that I always see.

They remind me of a palpable sign,

Of shackles that bind me here,

In a place where wishes are bane and hopes are nil.

I climb so high, I fly, I sigh

I stumble yet again in this effervescent sky

I lift my arms and reach as high as I can

But I hear weeping and wailing from where I began

This dream I write, forget this I might

These thoughts I hold, it numbs my soul,

It's so cold, I feel old

In May whisperings, "strengthen thy heart", I was told

So I flutter, I mutter..

But when I utter, I stutter

Hard as I grasp every word, every syllable and letter

I am left without tomorrow, the future no brighter

Be banished you drifter! Rot away you squanderer!

Know that time is no kinder to neither miser nor spender

So I slouch, pretend to nap

Barely a moment's passed

I snicker, I snap!

Not a pen was moved, not a firefly in sight

As I hold on tearfully and oh so fearfully tight

To these thoughts that keep me awake...

And kept me awake tonight.

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"Like a comet blazing 'cross the evening sky gone too soon...
shiny and sparkly and splendidly bright... here one day gone one night..." -- Gone Too Soon, Michael Jackson

I want to slap my face for every star that fell last night and the other night that I missed -- the Leonid, and now, the Geminid -- all gone in a day or two. My fault entirely. I knew exactly when they'll show up, I knew exactly what to do to see them but I missed the fireworks for sleep and other matters in a span of hours I couldn't even account for. Continue reading →

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What's love got to do with it? Everything. What's culture got to do with it? Everything. Love is love. We may express it in myriad ways, but we all feel the same high and the same low it brings. Photo credits: @virb

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