By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
Running for elective public office in the Philippines is not a cake walk. For one, a bet needs a media platform to air the things he had done, his advocacy, and other things he deems that could boost his political stocks
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| Cadets at the Philippine Military Academy at Fort del Pilar, Baguio City |
Take for instance, a popular AM (Amplitude Modulation) radio station in my province. A source told me that a 30 minutes daily prime time program cost a wannabe P32,000!
So it means the aspirant pays P96,000 thrice a week program or P384,000 a month just to promote what is good about him and what is not good about his adversary - of course through his PR men in the booth.
The aspirant’s rival, I heard, used to pay half-a-million pesos in his three months 30 minutes a day except Saturday and Sunday program. It was cheaper since the program was broadcast at early dawn.
A staff of an FM (Frequency Modulation) Station masquerading as AM station told me that a candidate can get a non-prime time program of 30 minutes at his station at P40, 000 a month, the problem however there are only a dearth of political bugs who dare to listen there as FM is for music and not the political stuffs it announcers there dishes.
It only shows that AM station is serious business while FM stations with all its music and clowning of its D.J or disk jocks are, well, not so serious business in terms of earning revenues.
That’s why, I observed, that during media gatherings like the Christmas media's night those who swagger most (as they rubbed elbows with politicians) were those at the AM while those at the FM bands stayed at the sideline drinking silently their San Miguel Lights beer while they watch and wonder why congressmen, board members, and mayors joined media men Atong Remogat and Harold Barcelona in a guffaw while some of them even fished out from their pockets big bills for their friends at the AM bands and in the print.
“Vice President (Jejomar) Binay probably paid your station more than P100, 000 in his one hour afternoon interview at your station?” I posed to an announcer of Bombo Radyo when the controversial vice president dropped by lately at the office of Dagupan City’s Vice Mayor Brian Lim when he attended the birthday bash, of his Man Friday in the North, Binmaley, Pangasinan Mayor Sam Rosario.
The announcer just nodded his head to me in agreement.
Patrons gravitate to this radio station because of the survey that it crows that made her tops the Nielsen Media Research. The Research does not only declare it as No.1 but, son of a gun, even zealously compared how its rivals including DZRH-Manila eat the dust in the race of snaring listeners who I surmised came from the 35 years old and above age’s category.
How about the younger generation? Salamabit, these politically apathetic folks kill their time listening to music of FM stations or watch videos at YouTube or porn at some online sites or scour their FaceBook than getting relevant news from “talk radio” – Americans’ slang of AM band.
One of Bombo Radyo's comparative advantages in the dog-eat- dog’s world of broadcasting, I observe, is its almost non-partisanship on the squabbles and intramurals of local players while most of its rivals announcers, who are poorly paid, become apologists and mouthpiece of politicians who could whisk some “dough” to motivate them in advancing the endeavour of their patrons.
When Senatorial bet Joey de Venecia ran in the 2010 election, former Speaker Joe de Venecia told me that the former pays P200 to P300 thousand per 30 “seconder” advertisement at either TV giant ABS-CBN or GMA-7. If my memory serves me right, Joey for the few weeks dash, in his race to be included in the Top 12 of either Social Weather Station or Pulse Asia polls, had been airing three to four ads a day to get the attention of the voters around the country.
Hmmm? P250,000 multiplies by three times a day multiplies by 30 days equal a staggering of P22,5000, 000 a month!
Indeed running for public office is not a walk in the park. That’s why presidential wannabe Rod Duterte has been telling all and sundry in the country that he will run for the country’s top post, where he could reform this pathetic country through his Dirty Harry’s governance, if some folks cheap- in P10 to P15 billion as campaign chest in his 2016 election’s foray.
So my dear Procopio, my gofer, the name of the game in Philippines’ political hustling is “Wherewithal!”
So my dear Procopio, my gofer, the name of the game in Philippines’ political hustling is “Wherewithal!”
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Just woke up my father thru phone and told him the following: "You open HBO and watch war movie "Flags of our Fathers". Although I saw it for several times before, the Clint Eastwood (yes Virginia, the same guy who directs “American Sniper”) directed movie, the flick is about a story of the U.S Marines who fought to death the Japanese in Iwo Jima.
I added that the U.S commander told the young Marines there that they were fighting Japanese soldiers who dug- in to die at the island near Guam and the Marianas Islands. "It was a sacred ground for them, they are there to die and not to surrender”.
Thousands of Americans died on that skirmishes in caves that were effectively fought with flame throwers. That deadly war produced the iconic photo of war correspondent’s Joe Rosenthal of the Marines gallantly raising the Stars and Stripes at the highest peak there called Mt. Suribachi.
Six years after Iwo Jima, my father and former president Fidel V. Ramos fought the North Koreans and Communist Chinese in South Korea under the command of military genius 5- Star General Douglas MacArthur whose HQ was in Japan.
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In Iwo Jima, 25,665 U.S and Japanese soldiers died. War and death are sometimes necessary to preserve our way of life, ideal, and belief. To those Doves of War who want the Philippine government adopts lock, stock, and barrel the controversial seemingly onerous Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) despite the MILF coddling one of world’s most wanted criminals Malaysian bomb maker Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and the troops of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) so we can avoid war in Mindanao, the Wars in World War 1, World War 2, U.S Civil War, the dysfunctional Barrieto families, er, Falklands, others are the best arguments against them.
