Juan Country » Ruffy Biazon

Why I’m voting for Ruffy Biazon for the Senate

Carlo Ople — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:55:40 +0000

I’ll try to pick up the slack with my political blogging especially now that the elections is just a few weeks away. I’ll try to complete my list in the next few days. Anyway, this post is to publicly declare my support and my vote for Liberal Party senatorial bet Ruffy Biazon. Ruffy was one of the first senatorial candidates that we had a blogger event with and his effect on the bloggers was really memorable. We had lifestyle and mostly apathetic people who don’t get involved with politics but after the blogger event they were all transformed into Biazon supporters.

More than his professional background, I think Ruffy’s appeal is his inherent, sincere, and genuine heart for service. This guy is the REAL deal. He’s not hiding any skeletons in his closet. All he wants to do is to serve the Filipino people. In that same blogger session, I remember Ruffy told us that he had an accountability mechanism set-up. Ruffy attends Victory church and he will be having his elders and peers make sure that he won’t stray from a righteous path.

As a congressman, Ruffy has authored and filed numerous bills, all of which make good sense. Here’s a more detailed professional background which I got from his official website:

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

In 1992, when his father ran for a seat in the Senate, he handled the retired general’s campaign. Eventually, Senator Biazon won and Ruffy was taken in by his father as his Chief of Staff, the youngest in the Senate at that time. He acted as the Senator’s alter ego for three years until 1995, when Senator Biazon was victimized by Dagdag-Bawas operations in the elections.

He has principally authored a total of 78 bills and resolutions in the present Congress. Now in his third term of office, 23 of his authored and co-authored measures were enacted into law. Among these are: RA 9211 (Tobacco Regulation Act), RA 9262 (The Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act), RA 9208 (The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act), RA 9502 (The Cheaper Medicines Act), RA 9504 (Tax Relief for Minimum Wage Earners Act) and RA 9507 (Socialized & Low-Cost Housing Loan Restructuring and Condonation Program) and RA 9520, also known as the new Cooperative Code of the Philippines.

I strongly urge all of you to include Ruffy Biazon in your list when you vote on May. He will be a blessing for the country and we need more people like him in government!

JUAN COUNTRY BALLOT (As of March 19, 2010)
Senatorial:
1. Susan Toots Ople
2. TG Guingona
3. Ruffy Biazon

[PODCAST] Acosta, Guingona, Bautista, and Biazon talk about Air Force 1

Carlo Ople — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:07:57 +0000

I was able to meet four senatorial candidates of the Liberal Party during a recent Blog Watch dinner at Sentro in Serendra, Fort. This was the second (or third) time that I’ve talked with Congressmen Biazon and Guingona. It was my first time to grill Dr. Martin Bautista and Teacher Neric Acosta. Since most of the policy and serious questions were already being asked by my fellow bloggers I decided to take a different route. The question?

Other than Obama’s plane, have you ever heard of a place in the Philippines called Air Force 1?

Listen to the lively and informative discussion here:

I’ll be writing more articles about this interview in Blog Watch in the next few days. Cheers!

Coffee Session with Rep. Ruffy Biazon

Carlo Ople — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:55:27 +0000

Last night I helped organize a blogger coffee session event with Congressman Ruffy Biazon at Bo’s Coffee in Bonifacio High Street, Taguig. He’s already announced his intention to seek higher office and his name was even mentioned by several Liberal Party leaders already in their official senate slate. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity of arranging a blogger session with him so I immediately sent him a message on Facebook asking if he was open to the idea and he agreed.

Late Night Talk
The event was actually scheduled to start 7:00PM. However based from experience a lot of bloggers are actually late so I pushed back the schedule to 7:30PM. Unfortunately the rain made it worse and the traffic jam was insane all over the Metro. We started the event roughly around 8:20PM. At least Cong. Ruffy was a sport and didn’t complain that everyone was late, including me! Hahaha!

Just like all political blogger events, the discussion stretched for hours and we discussed a wide variety of topics. For the most part we were very political but we also touched on youth issues, reform, family, and spirituality.

My first impression
Despite the Biazon blood running in his veins, Cong. Ruffy was actually mild-mannered and soft spoken. He wore the typical politician t-shirt. You know… the plain collared shirt with the Philippine map embroidered in the front? We actually asked him about that and he said that a lot of politicians just found the design nice and that it wasn’t a Liberal Party uniform. If you think about it, I’ve seen Senator Escudero and even several administration figures wear the shirt with the same design.

Anyway, what struck me the most about him was his honesty, deep relationship with God, and his priorities. There was an instance in the discussion that personal finance coach blogger Randell Tiongson fired a salvo of economic policy questions. I was expecting the traditional boring economic political answers but Ruffy honestly replied that he’ll have to get back to us. He goes on to explain that he’s been having briefing meetings with various finance and economic groups

The most striking thing about him though was his faith in God. I’m not talking about how Governor Panlilio or JIL leader Brother Eddie uses God in their campaign. Ruffy explains that what makes him keep his focus, integrity, and passion for service were his values that he learned from church. He relates that they have an accountability system in place wherein his peers and pastors constantly keep him in check.

“You can be accountable to your people but you can still lie to them. However you are accountable to God but you can never really lie to Him.” – Cong. Ruffy Biazon

Another fascinating quality that I liked was his love for his family. Ruffy shares that during the campaign his handlers would push that he go out and campaign during Sundays because people would be at home and that’s the best time to do house-to-house. However Ruffy never agreed to do it because he reserves his Sunday for his family and for his church.

Which brings me to something that I learned from personal experience since I come from a political family:

You cannot be an effective leader of a country if you cannot lead your family.

How do you expect to manage a barangay, a city, a province, a district, or a country if you can’t even manage your household?

His Platform
We didn’t really get into deep discussions about his actual platform but we did discuss several things he’d want to do once he gets to the Senate. Basically we talked about how he’s anti-corruption, pro-AFP reform, and anti-drug trafficking. I’ll try to briefly talk about them in bullet points:

- AFP Reform: Not just modernization but reform from both sides. Come up with an oversight committee to make the AFP more accountable to the people and not just to a select group of people. Where does all that intelligence funds go into?

- Drug Trafficking: Stricter penalties for drug traffickers. In fact Ruffy shared that he’s for the Death Penalty when it comes to really severe cases. Couldn’t be more timely since drug traffickers are now using Filipino OFW’s to smuggle illegal drugs.

Ruffy definitely still has a lot to learn for national service. However I personally believe that he has a heart for service and that he really means well for the country. That’s the main reason why I am definitely for Ruffy Biazon for Senator in 2010. This guy deserves a seat in the Senate, and we deserve public servants like him.

Here’s what some of the bloggers had to say so far about the “Ruffy” experience. I’ll update this later on when more of them start writing.

Ruffy, by the way, is running as a senator this coming elections. He’ll be under the Liberal Party. Mark his name in your voting machine. That would probably be the one thing you can do for your country. -Ricky Rivera from Pinoy Observer

I’ve always had the notion that politicians are the type of people that if you typically don’t rub elbows with. But tonight I think I’ve seen what a public servant is really. No body guards. No entourage. Just his wife as well as his personal assistant to take pictures. No men in barongs outside Bo’s Coffee. It was just him. – Carlos Palma

‘Till the next blogger event. Thanks again to Congressman Biazon for doing the blogger coffee session. Cheers!

Upcoming Coffee Session with Cong. Ruffy Biazon

Carlo Ople — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:15:12 +0000

One of my goals in this blog is to regularly publish conversations with candidates for the upcoming 2010 elections. I sent a few e-mails to some of my connections so I could organize more blogger coffee sessions with Presidential and Senatorial aspirants. So far I’ve confirmed two events for the month of September. The first one is with Cong. Ruffy Biazon, who has publicly declared his intent to run for Senate. I’m also trying to close one more event with a Vice Presidential aspirant.

If by any chance you guys want to join the coffee sessions that I have lined up, please do send an e-mail to oplecarlo@gmail.com. I can’t guarantee you seats since we want the sessions to be intimate so that it doesn’t feel like a corporate event. If you want to join, just e-mail me the following information:

- Blog title and URL
- Real Name
- Mobile Number

If there are still open slots, I’ll send you a confirmation SMS or e-mail. The coffee session for Cong. Biazon is slated for September 11, 7PM. If you guys want to join the session with Cong. Biazon, please do send the information I asked for above.

To those who can’t make it to the sessions, I’m trying to make sure that I’ll be able to do live blogging so you can join in on the discussion. We’ll also try to get video clips so we can upload parts of the conversation on Youtube for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

If you have questions for Cong. Biazon that you want me to ask, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below and I’ll try to squeeze it in.

Rep. Ruffy Biazon and Frank Drilon to Run for Senate in 2010

Carlo Ople — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:56:37 +0000

It looks like political parties are finally showing their cards. The Liberal Party recently announced that they’re also fielding former Senate President Frank Drilon and Muntinlupa Representative Ruffy Biazon as candidates for the Senate in 2010. They both join AKBAYAN Representative Risa Hontiveros who’s also running for Senate under the Liberal Party ticket. Don’t be surprised if more people throw in their names to the Senatorial derby. There are around 3-4 political parties who have the ability to run with a full slate of 12. That’s roughly 36 – 48 candidates. Pretty long list.

Here’s a video that was released recently on GMA talking about how a lot of people are now declaring their intentions to run for Senate.

This page requires a higher version browser
For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

By the way, I haven’t endorsed a candidate yet so far but let me start today. I’m publicly declaring my support for Rep. Ruffy Biazon. You have my vote. If you want to read more about him, please do visit his website.