NEWS: Olano throws support to AGR, laughs off report he bought Yayong

Emily Alvarez, “mortal political enemy”

By Cha Monforte, Rural Urban News

Davao del Norte District 1 Congressman Arrel Olano (independent Lakas) is throwing his support to congressional candidate Anthony Rafael del Rosario (Liberal Party) and not to former boardmember Emily Alvarez (Nacionalista Party).

He said that he has been considering Anthony’s father Governor Rodolfo del Rosario as his “inspiration who developed me” starting when he became a boardmember in 1998.

“He (RDR) is a total politician, I could not forget that. If he has only a rival now I would have supported him all-out,” he added.

He told reporters in a press conference Saturday that Anthony’s rival Alvarez has since then considered him as a “mortal political enemy” as they fought in 2004 and 2007 elections.

Olano, who is graduating already from his third term, is running now for mayoralty against reelectionist City Mayor Rey Chiong Uy, former Governor Gelacio “Yayong” Gementiza and ex-police investigator and businessman Cesar Cuntapay.

Olano also laughed off report that he already “bought” Gementiza so the latter would withdraw from the race and support him.

“Wa koy ikabayad ana. Kung naa lang unta koy kwarta, seguro nakumpleto ang akong mga councilor (I have no money for that. If I have, I could have completed my lineup of councilors),” he said.

Running with Olano for the ten-man city councilorship are last-termer boardmember Macario Bermudez, former councilor Tristan Aala, Dexter Welborn and Erwin Ang.

As of now, he said he picked only six senatorial candidates to support who are Bong Revilla, Lito Lapid, Silvestre Bello, Raul Lambino, Rey Langit and Ramon Guico.

He said he has already “talking points” with vice gubernatorial candidate Boardmember Roger “Dangpanan” Israel but as of press time they have not yet firmed up an agreement. Israel is battling with reelectionist Vice Governor Victorio “Baby” Suaybaguio Jr, running mate of unopposed Governor Del Rosario.

Israel is running without a gubernatorial candidate after ex-Miss Universe Margie Moran, wife of former Antonio “Tonyboy” Floirendo Jr.,  backed out close before the deadline of the filing of certificate of candidacy.

District 2 political kingmaker Tonyboy was said to have announced to mayors in District 2 mayors last week to support Israel . (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: emily alvarez, emily alvarez

OPINION: The automation

BLOGISTA

By Cha Monforte

jan 22

By now each town, city and province has already few clustered precincts to serve high number of voters in view of the automation (computerization) of the coming May elections. There’s unprecedented drop really in the number of precincts with the use of computer technology. For one, Davao del Norte has the lowest drop of 433 percent when the 3,304 total established precincts in the province shrunk to become 620 clustered precincts.

The huge drop of the precincts would only mean that through the use of computers voting would be fast serving greater number of voters. Like when one bet the lotto where boxes corresponding to the numbers are just shaded by pen or pencil, under the automated elections from a Comelec’s initial demonstration over NBN, voters would have to pencil shade boxes provided for corresponding to the name of the candidates. With the elimination of the manual writing, and with the mere pencil-shading, voting of each voter can be really fast.

If Davao del Norte’s drop of precincts can be a far gauge, that 433-percent decrease, an implication can be made that about three-fourth of time has been eliminated by the automation from what was used to be in the previous manual polls. The question that arises now is whether really the automation can effect a smooth and fast voting. For one, there’s this complete newness on the scheme and voters would have still to acquaint themselves to it. What if the new system instead generates noise and confusion?

This calls to mind the demand of some sectors for voters’ education and even their hands-on appreciation to the new automation system. I’m venturing a scenario that since this would be the first time that we would have to deal with an automated system, lag time would occur at the level of individual voter in adjusting with a new system, with each contributing a minuter or more of delay, and thus resulting to emergence of bottlenecks and snags in the new system. This can be seen in the first voting hours when possible queues of voters appear and spoil the system and threaten the objective of coming a fast, smooth, orderly and peaceful elections.

Given this scenario, there’s really this need for the voters to be educated and be acquainted on the new automation system of electing our leaders and representatives. As we’re closing in to the Comelec-scheduled campaign period, there’s still time for the Comelec to launch massive information dissemination campaigns to educate the people on the new system. At least, campaigns can be launched in the media, while political parties, civil society, cause-oriented groups and even the Church with its pastoral outreach programs can give their respective share in educating the people on automated elections.

BLOGS AND BITS: Ex-Compostela Valley Governor Joecab Caballero is reportedly tapping all his ex-CAOs (Community Affairs Officers) when he was still the governor to campaign for his congressional candidacy versus District 2 Cong. Rommel Amatong. A source said that Joecab has 80 ex-CAOs, of whom 58 CAOs were from District 2 and 22 CAOs were from District 1…. CAOs or whatever their designation in provincial governments are job order (JO) workers tapped for political purpose. Now even when Joecab’s CAOs are already out of the provincial government, they’re still tapped for political purpose….. Buzzwords said that Comval Gov. Chiongkee Uy would still support Lakas-Kampi-CMD municipal candidates despite that he’s unopposed. “It’s test of leadership,” he was quoted as saying. But his “financial support” this time is no longer 100-percent. For sure it’s just a percentage…. Ex-Davao del Norte Vice Gov. Anthony Rafael del Rosario chose to play coy when he was asked to apprise his long-absentee congressional opponent Emily Alvarez. He chose not to comment. Watta a civil act (e-mail: chamonforte@yahoo.com)

Filed under: emily alvarez, governor joecab, emily alvarez, governor joecab

OPINION: Hacked conspiracy theory on automated elections

BLOGISTA

By Cha Monforte

jan 13

Still, until this writing Emily Alvarez, better half of former DOTC Secretary and former Congressman Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez, is largely absent in the district where she is running for congresswoman- District 1 of Davao del Norte. We’ve not even seen her own Christmas greetings in tarpaulins hanged along streets. We’ve heard that the ex-Secretary, partially known of the Piatco scandal, met with political leaders in Davao City over the weekend purposely to map out plans for Manny Villar’s candidacy as Alvarez is reportedly one of Villar’s Mindanao coordinators. Maybe Emily’s running is yet to take off soonest as my source said “sa half of February na” that we’ll expect visibility of Emily who is running against the governor’s son Anthony Rafael del Rosario (AGR).  This stance is asking for the moon. We know that AGR has long been promoting himself in provincial mass gatherings and over the media including running an infomecial over the most influential TV station in the region, the ABS-CBN Davao. Winning in the polls requires long exposure in public, and the Alvarezes should not expect miracle to happen within the limited 50 or so days before the election day.

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There’s this little secret talk from a friend working in one of the Malacanang offices and now there’s this conspiracy theory on the computerization of the coming May elections. The theory, I guess, is that software program for the automated election has already been programmed by Malacanang computer hacks. The imbedded program, running through the computer hardware and CPUs, would do tallies of results with number of votes intended to win favored candidates automatically mixing and canceling out votes in dagdag-bawas manner with the true votes before results are relayed to the central hub for the municipal, provincial or national level of counts, or dagdag-bawas occurs right at the tallying central hubs. Now shaded votes can no longer be watched, counted and monitored at the voter’s level as there’s no more manual tallying. Shaded votes for varying candidates are automatically read and distributed to separate tallies, while there’s no more human counting and watchers are eliminated in the automated polls. The results would be tilted to the favored candidate with veneer of credibility as dagdag-bawas are programmed not to give suspicious margins or overpadded votes. I hope that Macalanang computer nerd was just joking. Time now for the civil society and progressive-minded IT savvies to move on the make sleuthing about this. We hope this is false, given that most of the electorate are computer-illiterate and most of the youth especially those in the provinces where they abound are IT newbies. If such hacked program is true and uncovered before the polls or at a time when votes are still being counted and tallied in matter of days, another election scandal will blow over us and that’s a recipe of national chaos and the scenario of failure of election. Surely, PGMA will smile if that happens.

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There’s no truth to the nasty rumor that the current BIR re-shuffling of revenue district officers (RDOs) nationwide was inspired by Malacanang for fund-raising purpose in view of the coming May elections. “Some RDOs are promoted, some maybe have not performed in relation to their revenue collection targets,” that resulted to the domino-like reshuffling of RDOs, said Manuel Trias Jr, the new RDO of BIR 112 serving Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley provinces. He replaced RDO Ester Palala who was re-assigned to RDO 98 in Cagayan de Oro City. Trias came from RDO 114 in Mati, Davao Oriental, which he said was his first assignment as an RDO after his stint at RDO in  Makati City . He said that his Mati assignment was a promotion but a “demotion in place of assignment”. He served Mati for nine months until the recent re-shuffling. Trias, in mid 40s, said that always there’s a challenge in each new assignment. We knew though that a previous RDO (not Palala) once left BIR Tagum with a heavy heart, with parting words: “wa man gud koy lakas sa mga politiko”. Until now we are still guessing who were those politikos? The national or local ones?

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BLOGS AND BITS: A Compostela Valley mayor earlier declared he would be making a “vote for one” for his brother running for a boardmember’s post. But recent survey results bared that his brother was not within the Top 5 choices for boardmembers. Just a logical move…. Davao del Norte ex-boardmember Shirley Aala, while a candidate for boardmember now, will actively campaign for her son Bong Aala who is running for councilor in Tagum City . Maybe she knows too well of the councilor’s mandate deserted by her son when he went to Japan and forgot to return until last year. The Tagum people know of the son’s mandate desertion too well (e-mail: chamonforte@yahoo.com)

Filed under: emily alvarez, RDO Manuel Trias Jr, emily alvarez, RDO Manuel Trias Jr