Nacionalista Party’s standard bearer Sen. Manny Villar has conceded to Liberal Party’s Noynoy Aquino in a press con he has called this 11AM at his family-owned StarMall mall in Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

Latest official partial COMELEC count puts Aquino at 12,233,002 votes vs. Villar’s 4,329,215.

Villar, whose vow to eradicate poverty owing to his claim to being poor as a boy has been consistently vilified by non-believers, said that he has done his best to offer himself up and his plans to alleviate the condition of the poor but accepts that the people has decided and thus respects its decision. He added that he didn’t take his family with him to the press conference because they have been subjected to enough stress already.

He further reiterated his intention and vow to help the poor in ‘other’ ways and has assured party-mates that he and the Nacionalista Party will be behind them all the way until their last votes are counted. He also congratulated Noynoy Aquino.

Senator Villar, people can say whatever they want — they have called you many things and your detractors seem to have spared no word to demonize you as a corrupt real estate billionaire. So be it shrewdness or an attempt to clean your public image, I commend you for this.

It takes a lot of courage to gather the media and read your statement for all the world to see and hear without your wife and children by your side. This is a valiant move characteristic of a good and strong leader.

In the end, it would be saddening if we realize that none of those issues thrown at you were ever true. I have a strange feeling that all this noise will magically vanish after the winner is proclaimed because it has already served its purpose.

It would have been an entirely different ball game if the late president Cory Aquino didn’t die and if former president Erap Estrada was not allowed to run again for president. But then again, destiny stubbornly takes its course all the time. And doomed is the man who audaciously try to get in its way.

I can only pray that the hopes of 12 million people (and counting) will not be crushed in the coming days and months.

God bless you, Senator Villar. God bless the Philippines.

Like most people in the blogosphere, particularly the political blogging community, I got this now extensively-blogged black propaganda against survey-leading presidentible Sen. Noynoy Aquino most probably about the same time as everyone else got theirs.

And it didn’t even take beyond the first few sentences to see through another pathetic email campaign trying so hard to be branded as ‘viral’.

I am no ‘psychologist’ but then again, that sort of ‘assessment’ trying to pass off as a ‘clinical report’ was so poorly written that a Hollywood script would do better by any means of comparison.

I did not even bother to ‘download’ or view the so-called ‘document scans’ attached to the email.

I was having a simple birthday dinner with my son at a faraway mall and I didn’t want to spoil that solemn moment by blogging away to discredit such email.

To my mind, the lie was unmistakable at first glance and unlike the ‘Monsod’s Musings’ email hoax, posting the supposed ‘clinical report’ didn’t even enter my mind. The ‘Monsod’s Musings’ email hoax and this recent ‘Noynoy Psychological Report’ are incomparable. The former prompted clarification, the latter required discernment.

Actually, to say that it even required discernment is to give the poster or shall I say ‘poser’ the benefit of the doubt that such email blasting was done in good faith — or that he/she was an unwitting accessory to the crime.

And even if — and that’s a big “IF” there was a slightest hint of truth to this document — which, by the way has been proven false — no surprise there, it’s still inaproppriate to publish such information in an email, much more in a blog.

In the US, there is such a thing as ‘personally identifiable health information’ which is protected by their constitution. I don’t know if there is such a thing here or anything similar. This law prohibits anyone and considers it a crime to ‘leak’ medical records that are easily identifiable to a person, say, Juan Dela Cruz’s HIV test results.

The reason behind is obvious — because such ‘publishing’ or even ‘transmission’ of info by any means (even casual ‘whisperings’ within the medical community over lunch or coffee) would violate one’s privacy — and of course, it doesn’t end there. There’s tainting of reputation, loss of job, compromised professional and personal relationships, etc. — the list goes on. And we can’t even demand such public disclosure of health records because he’s not even president yet.

Why am I saying this? Because I’d like to stress the point that whichever way you look at it, even considering ‘good intentions’ — if there were any to begin with, this constitutes a clear violation of a person’s right to privacy at the very least. To add the fact that this was all poorly-fabricated lie of a ‘clinical report’ with the most unlikely of ‘psychologist’ — a spiritual man — aggravates the offense and shouldn’t be taken lightly by the aggrieved party.

These guys are not contented with name-calling and had to fabricate a false document just to add a dash of credibility to their accusations. And fortunately for us, we can just chalk it up as another failed attempt at spreading exceedingly foul ‘information’.

It was only this morning that I found out that the same lie was also published in a blog named ‘a political amateur’. As if the plogging (political blogging) community isn’t divided and embattled enough, this poser had to stir the murky water yet again.

I know much has been said about this, within so short a time but what choice do I have when there are now speculations that the originator of this email/blog is within the political blogging community — thanks to the brilliant use of the term “political amateur” (blogger).

Dude, whoever you are, you give plog a bad name!

Political bloggers don’t blog just for kicks. We write to inform and to encourage discussion and participation — not peddle lies in exchange for infamy or a certain ‘high’.

There are some of us, myself included who have no claim to a political reputation or journalistic experience whatsoever, but I suppose it doesn’t take such to realize whether an article is written to form an opinion or generate misconceptions and pure lies.

We don’t blog just because we can or just because we want to.

Also, we don’t spread filthy ‘information’ just because we can. That is irreponsible. And besides, there are plenty of things to write about.

So to everyone, just so you know: We don’t criticize ‘just because’. There is a higher purpose in political blogging. We may not always reach it or live up to it 100 percent of the time, but it’s something we all earnestly aspire to.

Request: To all who received that email from that certain ‘Ricardo Junsay’, please refrain from forwarding it. Also, if you can help it, and I strongly urge you to — do not dignify the accusation by posting the scanned fabricated document online. There’s enough garbage going around the web already — let’s not add to it anymore.

If you’ve been reading the news, I think you already know the answer. Or at least, you know that Manny Villar’s camp is taking the blame — owning up to their inability to aggressively protect their image by issuing strong counter statements to disprove the many allegations thrown at them.

Villar himself said in a report that they’ve known of the latest Pulse Asia survey results weeks before it came out in the news and have since reassessed their strategy and made adjustments accordingly — results of which will come out soon.

Apparently, the ‘VillArroyo’ tagging has hurt him more than they expected. Unlike the C5 ‘double insertion’ issue that didn’t make much of a dent to his campaign, this ‘VillArroyo’ issue has successfully pulled his stats in such disappointing figures. What was once a ‘statistical tie’ between him and leading candidate Noynoy Aquino was quickly widened to a 12 point difference.

This wouldn’t generate much panic in Villar’s camp if this was last year’s survey. But we are only a month away from May elections and if I were Villar, I’d surely be pounding on the panic button like crazy.

Villar’s drop in survey ratings is actually an accumulated result of their usual indifference and light treatment of issues thrown at them. As it turns out, their “less talk, less mistake / no talk, no mistake” strategy which seemed the safest route to take a few months ago, can only be stretched for so long. It seems to me that they have pushed their luck too much.

The situation is out of control now. They can flood the airwaves with clever ads, and issue statements here and there but it would be very difficult now to put out this fire.

What would have been easily treated with a fire extinguisher now requires a troop of firetrucks. And if they ever put out the fire, what are they to make of ‘ashes’ and debris?

Many of those I know believe he has profited in that C5 mess. Not everyone believe he is Arroyo’s secret candidate. And people are divided on whether he’s been ‘truly poor’ or not.

But that was weeks before. How swiftly people change their minds! Considering the short attention span and short-sightedness of the electorate, we must concede that it takes too little to make them flip-flop.

Now, they all seemed to have crossed-out Villar from their shortlist. All because the Villar camp chose to take their case to the media — in the easiest of ways — via ads. Wrong move. Too costly — monetarily, politically and morally.

So yes, truth be told, the Nacionalista Party has written its own history of doom. For always, there’d be mudslinging and haughty accusations from your opponents — that is a given. How you deal with these waves of accusations to keep your ship afloat is what will ultimately determine whether you’d safely reach the shore or sink to the bottom of the sea.

Is this the end of Villar’s journey to the presidency? Or will future events leading to the elections be the defining moment of his presidential dream?

We are yet to find out. But one thing is for sure, dead-end or not, Villar has undoubtedly reached ‘the point of no return’. It’s do or die. Sink or swim (in a sea of trashy issues). Let’s see if his overly-promoted ‘sipag at tiyaga’ and “Hindi bawal mangarap ang mahirap.” campaign slogan will buoy him straight to that palace beside the river.