Unrealistic Expectations

The Philippine Star has a News Feature that discusses why the presence of Max Soliven's name in the voting list in San Juan belied the COMELEC's claim that it has cleansed the country's voting list. The Philippine Star may be correct in their allegation, but if their only proof is the presence of Mr. Soliven's name in the voting list, then they should have tried harder to come up with more and better examples.

How can you expect the COMELEC to be able to de-list Mr. Soliven's name from the voting list when he died just 6 months ago (November 24). Are death certificates forwarded to the COMELEC so they can de-list them from the voting list automatically? It is SOP for the COMELEC to remove the name of a person from the voter's list if they fail to vote for two straight elections. Mr. Soliven, has only failed to do so this year, if the SOP stands and Chairman Abalos does not order the delisting of Mr. Soliven's name, his name should still appear in the voter's list for the 2010 Presidential elections.

Of course, the ideal scenario would be the delisting of a person's name upon death, but failing that, the SOP being done is the best compromise between delisting people automatically after failing to vote for one election and necessitating a lot of re-registrations and the delisting of people who are not able to or are unwilling to vote again.

Yes, we should expect the COMELEC to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible, but let us not expect them to do things they are not equipped to do.

Cheating? 2

From Eleksyon 2007 - INQUIRER.net:

"And no one can claim, Maceda said, that Escudero has cheated to make his way to the top spot. Not even former senator Loren Legarda, who has said that the number one spot could only be taken away from her if she was cheated.

'I don't think so. The vote of Chiz is legitimate but coming in Number 2 is not bad. I think she (Legarda) should accept the judgment of the people,' the GO official said.

Maceda noted that Escudero, Cayetano and especially Trillanes had no access to funding to help improve their chances of winning."

I've heard this refrain before. Now that they are winning, cheating is not involved, when they are losing, cheating is rampant. Just like when they are trailing in surveys, the surveys are inaccurate and the survey firm is biased.

Cheating?

From Eleksyon 2007 - INQUIRER.net

Manila Mayoralty candidate Alfredo Lim barged inside an election headquarter of his opponent Ali Atienza because they received reports that Mr. Atienza's camp will use the 4th copy of the Election returns, given to them by the COMELEC as the Dominant Majority party, for Election fraud.

This is not General Lim's first attempt to run for office. He was elected as Manila Mayor and ran for President. Yet, he does not know that Official copies of Election Returns are given to the Dominant Majority party and the Dominant Minority party? This is just sad.

I wonder how many candidates we have who like running for office but apparently have no desire to learn even basic election procedures.

p.s.

To again scratch a pet peeve of mine. I would just like to point out once gain that if the opposition were serious in proving fraud in the last Presidential election, all they have to do is to physically tally the precinct level election returns they received and compare the results with the national tally. They have not done it. Either they are really lazy or they have pre-judged the case and have no intention of being proved wrong.

Barfly Music Video

Music Video of my classmate's band, their album is coming out soon.

Joker, Edong or Tito Sen?

From Manuel L. Quezon III: The Daily Dose - Final push:

"The polling firm has declared ten candidates in the “safe” zone: Legarda, Villar, Escudero, Pangilinan, Lacson, Aquino, Recto, Cayetano, Zubiri and Honasan. Which means much of the excitement in the canvassing will focus on the prospects of Edgardo Angara, Joker Arroyo, and Vicente Sotto III. Those who come after them in the rankings seem to face insurmountable odds: no candidate, SWS says, in the past three elections, has been able to overcome a “statistically significant” lead by their closest opponent. Which I suppose means that only candidates who have scores plus or minus three points compared to Joker Arroyo, in 12th place in the survey, are still in the fight."

"Even if we assume a command vote situation, the dilemma the administration provincial forces will be facing is: of the bottom three, Joker, Angara, and Sotto, all are administration candidates but one will end up losing. What makes it tougher is that as the campaign comes to an end, all three were proving droopy in the surveys, Joker particularly so (recall the scuttlebutt I heard during the taping of GMA7’s “Isang Tanong”? Joker had decided not to show up, because they sensed the coming survey results and decided to have an emergency meeting, instead, because of concerns he’d now be a ripe target for “junking,” precisely by the administration machinery). For example, it might be a better investment all around to junk Joker and attempt to pull off an electoral miracle by squeezing in Defensor (it could be passed off as divine providence, courtesy of El Shaddai and the Iglesia)."

I've already decided to vote for Joker Arroyo, the survey result, and the possibility of junking just strengthened my resolve. Come on, would you really rather have Tito Sotto, Ed Angara or Mike Defensor as Senator rather than Joker Arroyo?

10 signs that you are a pervert

Are you a pervert? You might be one and not even know it. This top 10 list clears it up for you.



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The Makati Tragedy

Atty. Teddy Te on Mayor Binay's Suspension

"The tragedy of this all is that Emperor Binay (and his successors in waiting: his wife, his son and his daughter; if Teddy Boy Locsin didn't still have one term left, Binay's other daughter might have run for the 2d congressional seat) now milks his 'underdog' status for all that it is worth and any real issue of corruption against Binay is now swept under the rug, so to speak--waiting to be resurrected during the next election."

A Black Mark on UP

I was reading the PCIJ story on Mayor Robredo and I came upon this

"Two of the commissioners who ruled against against him in the quo warranto case, he says, have close ties to Luis Villafuerte — Brawner, a law classmate at the University of the Philippines, and Ferrer, a former law office partner."

A COMELEC Commissioner and a graduate of the University of the Philippines ruled that a person who has lived all his life in the Philippines, whose parents lived all their lives in the Philippines, is not a Filipino. Wow!

Conspiracy Theories

from xkcd via denialism blog


The Moon Landing Conspiracy, in case you have not read it before. From Bad Astronomy

PZ Myers on morons

Pharyngula: There are no marching morons

I watched Idiocracy and enjoyed it. But I was uncomfortable with the premise though I didn't really know why. Now Dr. PZ Myers wrote a post that made me realize why I was so uncomfortable with the premise of the movie.

...the primary plot point of the movie Idiocracy. It's also the premise behind eugenics and behind a lot of right-wing phony elitism. It's wrong. It was a very popular story, but the reason isn't complimentary: it fed into a strain of self-serving smugness in science-fiction fandom, the idea that people who read SF are special and brilliant and superior, we are the technological geniuses and far-seeing futurists, while the mundanes leech off our vision. The eugenics movement built on the same us-vs.-them mentality, that there are superiors and inferiors, and the inferiors breed like cockroaches.

Of course in the Philippines, there's evidence that the morons have become a breeding population and running/ruining the country. :)