Why I’m voting for Ruffy Biazon for the Senate

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Carlo Ople

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

Posted in My Ballot, Ruffy Biazon | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Should the Liberal Party screen their membership?

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Carlo Ople

The Liberal Party has been getting a lot of negative press from their mayoralty candidates in the past few months. First there was a candidate who was arrested for allegedly selling drugs. A few months after that, Quezon City Vice-Mayor Herbert Bautista was charged with plunder for supposedly using 30% of his budget for “food and drinks”. Another questionable bet is Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim whose son was caught in a buy-bust operation for drugs but was miraculously freed and the case was dismissed even if he was already caught buying drugs. Now the bet of the Liberal Party for the mayorship of Las Pinas was nabbed for Estafa. Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Liberal Party, Nacionalista Party | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Will you help me build a house?

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Carlo Ople

I’ve been toying around with the idea of using this blog as a platform to really encourage volunteerism and nationalism. If there’s one thing I learned it’s that we can’t just rely on our leaders to rebuild the country. If we want a better Philippines it has to start with each and every single one of us. I’m sick and kinda fed up already with the slanderous and negative campaigning which several parties are doing so I’d rather focus on the positive things in the country for now.

Juan Country draws in more than 10,000 unique visitors monthly and it even reached more than 50,000 at peak months. If only 1% of that were to do something once a month, that would be a great service to the Philippines. I’ll try to come up with ideas on what to do in the next few days. One of the things that came to mind was partnering with Habitat for Humanity or Gawad Kalinga.

Let’s live up to the statement “Where I’m from, everyone’s a hero.” :)

Details to come soon. Cheers!

Posted in everyone is a hero | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Brownouts, insane summer heat, and doubled electricity bills!

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Carlo Ople

My electricity bill came in a few days ago and I was really shocked to see it reach P4800. My usual bill is around P2800-P3000 and I was actually expecting my April bill to be slightly lower because I was out most of the time last month and I was even trying to cut down my air conditioning use. Apparently, I’m not the only one who experienced this. Right now this topic is one of the hottest issues being discussed online on Facebook as more Filipinos are starting to share with one another how bad they feel that the rates suddenly jacked up. Bloggers such as Noemi Dado and Chuvaness have also written about this issue.

This increase is just INSANE. We’re already having rotating brownouts, summer heat, and now double bills? That’s a triple disaster right there. If you’re one of the people who feel outraged by this, then please do join the online protest on Facebook. Here’s the link:

ONLINE PROTEST AGAINST MERALCO ELECTRICITY PRICE HIKE

Spread the link on your blogs, Twitter, and social networks.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Villar and Gibo Flash Mobs meet in Greenbelt

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Carlo Ople

I was on my way to a Tweet Up event in Greenbelt when I saw hundreds of people wearing orange shirts in the Cafe Havana area. I saw a couple of friends from Havoc Digital and some bloggers so I dropped by and said hello. Apparently this was a Manny Villar flash mob! However, that’s not the big news that I want to share. A few minutes later, a sea of people wearing green also came by. I was expecting a clash between the Gibo and Villar supporters but what I saw almost brought me to tears.

I believe I should say this in Tagalog because it has more meaning if I do so.

Walang gulo nangyari. Yung iba nagakapan, nag-bigayan ng mga campaign materials, at nag-kamayan. Sa panahon na ito na puro siraan na lang at batuhan ng dumi, nakakatuwa na makakita ng mga tao na gusto lang talaga gumanda ang bansa natin.

Sa mga sumali dun, kahit supporter ka ni Villar o Gibo, isang malaking saludo para sa inyo.

:)

Posted in Current Events, Gibo Teodoro, Manny Villar | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Make Money Online Event this Saturday, April 10, 2010

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Carlo Ople

makemoneyposterv2

I’ll be giving two 45-minute talks this coming Saturday, April 10, at the Make Money 2.0 event which will be held at Victory Center, Promenade, Greenhills. The first talk will be about how to build your personal brand through social media. I’ll be discussing how the rules have totally changed and that you need to adapt if you want to boost your career or business. Social Media can play a crucial role in changing your life, you just need to know how to do it.

The second talk will be how to make money through blogging. This will actually take off from the initial Personal Branding talk because there are so many ways to make money through blogging other than the usual advertising networks like Google Adsense.

My good friend and mentor, Janette Toral, will be handling the talks on E-commerce and Online Freelancing in the first part of the session.

janette toral

Janette giving a talk during the first Make Money 2.0 event

The seminar will basically give you guys an overview on how to use to web not just for farmville, but as a tool that will change your life for the better. The event will start on 2:00PM and will end at 6:00PM. The fee is only P650. CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SLOTS. :)

Hope to see you guys there!

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Questions for COMELEC Spokesperson James Jimenez

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Carlo Ople

MVP’s speech debacle is turning out to be a blessing for the COMELEC since the public isn’t talking too much about the overpriced folder procurement issue which was raised by Senator Pimentel. To those who don’t know about this let me explain briefly what happened. The COMELEC was set to purchase 1.8M folders at 380 pesos each. This is the official response of COMELEC based on the article posted on Inquirer.Net:

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) decided to recall its decision to award the contract for the procurement of 1.8 million ballot secrecy folders to OTC paper supply after finding out that each would cost P380, spokesperson James Jimenez said on Monday.

Jimenez said the Comelec made the discovery two weeks ago and was investigating how the amount got approved.

He also said the actual contract was not yet drawn up when the poll body found out how much each folder would cost.

“The direction [of the en banc] is toward the cancellation of the award,” he told reporters.

Here are my questions for Mr. Jimenez:

1. You said that the amount was approved but the actual contract was not yet drawn up? That’s a bit inconsistent?

2. Who is responsible for approving the amounts for projects like this?

3. You said that the COMELEC found out about this two weeks ago. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that 380 pesos per folder is insanely overpriced. Why didn’t COMELEC shoot this down at the get-go?

I can’t fathom how this deal got through unless there’s a long line of corruption which extends all the way to the top. Hopefully that’s not the case.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Power of Mass Media in the Philippines

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Carlo Ople

A few days ago the Inquirer broke a story about why Gilbert Teodoro resigned as party chairman from LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD. The story said that first gentleman Mike Arroyo reportedly called up Gwen Garcia in Cebu so that her family and group would support Nacionalista standard bearer Senator Manny Villar. This news story can drastically affect the outcome of the upcoming 2010 elections. We all know that the Arroyo’s endorsement is a “Kiss of Death”. What bothers me though is that the politicians and the voting populace is at the mercy of media. There is no way for LAKAS, Nacionalista, or even the people can verify the veracity of this story. We just have to believe that there were sources from inside LAKAS itself. The published article said that the writer had undisclosed sources from LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD.

If I wanted to destroy Villar’s ratings, all I have to do is to keep on bombarding him with the Villarroyo allegations. What’s stopping someone from posing as a LAKAS member or paying someone within LAKAS to say the lines above to create this story? Note that I am not defending Villar in this article. I’m just alarmed at how we can be held hostage and beholden by “undisclosed sources”. Isn’t that the practice of show biz columns? Blind items?

Some Traditional Media pundits score bloggers for not being professional and ethical in their work. However this recent article is a prime example of how irresponsible journalism can adversely shape the future of the country.

I am all for press freedom but I am totally against irresponsible reportage.

Posted in Current Events, Gibo Teodoro, Manny Villar | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

[PODCAST] 10 Minutes with TG Guingona

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Carlo Ople

I’ve decided to take Juan Country to the next level by coming out with Podcast interviews with the candidates in the May 2010 elections. I’m still learning so please don’t expect anything professional, hahaha! In fact, I’m just using a P100 microphone which I was able to buy from CDR King. For the first episode, I’m featuring Liberal Party senatorial candidate TG Guingona. We had a 10-minute chat about various topics which included a “Boy-Abunda” like lightning round wherein he gave 2-3 adjectives to react to words that I gave him. Before proceeding, please note that I am a staunch supporter of TG and I hope that you guys vote for him as well. My bias will obviously show in the Podcast below, hahaha! :P

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(Click to Play)

Thank you to TG Guingona and his friend, PV Beley, for agreeing to be in this debut Juan Country podcast. I’ll be uploading other podcasts of candidates next week.

I hope all of you are having a blessed Holy Week. Cheers!

Posted in Podcast, TG Guingona | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

New Villar TVC very similar to Argentinian campaign TVC

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Carlo Ople

The new Manny Villar TVC came out and I couldn’t help but think that it was very similar to a video which circulated on Facebook a few months ago. It wasn’t until Gangbadoy tweeted it that I realized that my initial hunch was correct. The new TVC’s idea is completely based on a campaign that was run in Argentina by Lopez Murphy. I’ve embedded both TVC’s here so you can all see how exactly the same both ads are.

NEW MANNY VILLAR TVC

LOPEZ MURPHY TVC

I’m not really a fan of doing things like this. If the Villar camp didn’t know that this was completely based on the Argentina TVC, then they should consider letting go of that agency. However if they were informed of the basis then I guess it’s all good.

Nice effort and I liked MV appearing at the end but I would have preferred something more original, hehe. ^^;

Posted in Manny Villar | Tagged , | 9 Comments