PH Elective Officials For Sale

BY MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

 Some candidates for the mayoralty spent hundreds of millions of pesos to buy votes in the May 13 election. Some councilors spent up to P5 million each just to be on the top 10 in the city poll or top 8 in the municipal contest. A mayor and councilor receive a monthly pay of more or less P100 thousand and P80 thousand, respectively, during their three years of service. The compensation and perks they legally received from the government are not enough to recoup the millions of pesos they spent months or years of ingratiation with the masses before the May 13 derby. Those monies the mayor earned in his earlier stint as hizzoner he got through illegal means like cut or S.O.P from government projects under his watch and illegal number games like jueteng and drop balls have been reverted back to the hoi polloi through vote buying and dole outs.
 The millions of pesos an elected councilor spent during the campaign period could no longer be recovered in his three years stint since he got no power as big as the mayor who can dip his finger on illegal funds. Both the mayor and councilor spent these gargantuan amounts just to buy a position that give them prestige whenever they go to social functions.
***

 I’ve been telling some friends that politics in the Philippines is a game for the moneyed and not for the intelligent. You may have a master or doctoral degree or you passed the BAR examination but you would still lose the election to a deep pocketed high school graduate – businessman who generously give monies to the poor in their time of need years before the election. Filipinos voters treat one’s generosity with debt of gratitude. They will reciprocate that gesture in the ballot boxes  

***
 The other day I was with a political operator where we dropped by at the session hall of a first class town in Central Pangasinan. We found the vice mayor there exchanging pleasantries with reelected councilors who are scions of multi-millionaire families in the town. Some of them spent millions of pesos through vote buying and dole outs just to win their reelection bid in an office that gives them roughly P80,000 a month salary. “Please tell your father that you run for the PCL (Philippine Councilors League-Pangasinan Chapter) so that you can be a member of the provincial board,” the operator told a young councilor whose father is a big time government contractor.

 “Magkano ang bilihan ng boto para manalo manong (how much we are going to spend to buy votes to win the PCL, big brother)”?

My operator friend told him and his curious colleague in the August chamber that the province has 44 towns. He explained that the trade dictates that he has to dine and wine the mayor, vice mayor, and eight dads of the town in a plush restaurant or hotel to ingratiate with them before he shells out the following amount:

Mayor, P20,000; Vice Mayor, P15, 000, each of the eight councilors, P10,000 or a total of P5,720,000. “Lalaki pa iyan pag iyong rival mo offers the same amount (Your P6 million spikes if your rival for the PCL offers the same amount),” the operator explained.

Now dear readers you wonder probably what the heck happens to a solon spending millions of pesos for a position that gives only a P100,000 monthly salary in his three years stint at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (provincial board)?

 My answer: Prestige man, that stupid prestige!
 ***

 Was this a tall tale?
 A close associate of outgoing Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin S. Lim told me recently that if Lim was not struck by a stroke on the eve of the May 13 polls, he would have dispensed the content of ten suit cases (maleta) full of P1 thousand bills to voters around the 31 villages strong city.

 “Bawat maleta naglalaman ng P20 million (or P200 million in all ten suit cases),” he said.

He cited that the day before the poll, Lim was seen carrying a calculator on which he computed and recomputed how much sum would be given to each of the voters.

“He told me that this election (May 13) would be the most expensive for him,” the source said. Around 10 pm of May 12, Lim leaders have been distributing monies all over the villages in the city.

“Pag pointer (who help identified voters) P1000.00, pag may I.D P500.00, iyong walang I.D tawag namin doon “special” tag P300.00,” a voter in Barangay Tapuac said.
A voter and a media man in Barangay Bonuan Gueset told me that around 10 pm of May 12, Lim supporters have been given each of the voters in his compound P1,000 bill. The associate said those bundles of monies in the case would be part of the second wave that should commence at 4 am of May 13.

 “Tag dalawang libo ang planong bigayan. Pang-kontra ni mayor sa pagbili ng mga tao ng kalaban (mayoral bet Belen Fernandez)”.
He said he could not forget how financially challenging was the May 13 election. He said the leaders of Fernandez have been buying votes all over the city unabated by the police the whole day before the poll.

 “Ako pinupuntahan ako ng mga SWAT (Special Weapon Action Team) at tinatanong ako kung meron akong pakurong (vote buying) sa bahay ko kasi maraming tao,” he said.
He said had Lim not suffered a stroke the day before the election, Fernandez could not win the poll as Lim was only the one in the family who could decide how to dump the ten big suit cases full of monies.

READ MY OTHER BLOG:

How Mayor, Guv, Solon Steal to Fund Their Election

(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)

My Tour: PH Biggest and Fastest Warship

Lo and Behold: The massive starboard of the BRP Gregorio de Pilar (Photo: Mortz C. Ortigoza)

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The last time I boarded a water vessel was in Burnham Park in Baguio City when I was a tot. Thanks to the intercession of Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) Julius E. Valdez my fancy about water craft was rekindled again in May 2 (Pangasinan’s Pistay Dayat) when he allowed me as member of the Fourth Estate and my son Nico as my photographer to document my presence in the “big boys’ toy” Barko ng Republika ng Pilipinas  (PF 15) Gregorio del Pilar- the largest and fastest frigate the Philippine Navy  presently possesses.

“You should be here at 6 o’ clock in the morning for the rubber boat ride to the ship,” Valdez (PMA Class 1994) , the operation officer of the ship who sat on a portable chair under a huge canvas with his staff, told me around 4 P.M when I signified to him my intention to board the ship.

“Oh, this is the very ground where General Douglas “Dug-out Doug” MacArthur and entourage passed by when he led the liberation of Luzon from the Japanese,” I told Lieutenant Senior Grade (Captain in the Army) Robert Baylon as I gazed curiously at the black figure of the former USS Cutter Hamilton moored roughly six kilometers away from where I stood.

Fellow sightseers and Niko (Extreme Right)

 25 minutes rubber boat bumpy ride to BRP del Pilar

When we returned the following morning the enlisted personnel there, who was holding the manifest list of passengers, finally called me and Nico to join the queue of 23 men, women and children to board one of the three huge orange rubber boats lent by the provincial government’s Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Alert navy guys helped us strap to ourselves the orange life jacket.

As I jumped at the rubber boat the lower parts of my jeans was slapped and soiled by the big waves.

“Geez,I could not attend the presidential visit of President Aquino at 10 A.M because of this. I should have worn a short pant as advised by my wife,” I told some of the excited passengers at the boat.

The rubber boat ride was rough and tumble as the morning waves were high. But I was still amazed at the sites of the majestic coastlines of Lingayen, Labrador and Sual towns as we cruised the 25 minutes bumpy ride to reach the foremost Philippine Navy’s juggernaut.

After 5 minutes, the looming beauty of the 378 feet wide gargantuan now gray BRP del Pilar has imposed itself to us. Its starboard were long and massive with the 76mm Oto Melara gun and Mk92 FCS menacingly crowned on its deck.

If it took us some jumpy foot works and pirouetting in the water to spare our pants to get wet before we embarked to the rubber boat 25 minutes ago, clambering the gangway or sea ladder located at the port of the ship was  next to suicidal what with the 36 feet deep water below us. We have to muster trapeze artist liked talent for us to jump from the rocking boat to the stair by holding the extended hand of Navy personnel who was standing on a platform at the side of the ship.

Q & A: Asking  Commander Daza  (R) some nitty gritty of the ship

Meeting Colonel Daza

Before the tour guide led my fellow rubber boat passengers to the different compartments of the ship, LTJG Jojit Ofiaza told me that Commander Valdez radioed him to accompany me and Nico to the commanding officer’s reception room for my interview with Commander Socrates M. Daza, who is the “mistah” or classmate of Valdez at the Philippine Military Academy.

Inside the hall was another LTJG, clad in a khaki uniform that I asked to get the name of my blog site mortzortigozablogspot.com at the bottom part of my column so they can read online my article on the BRP del Pilar.
I gave him too a dozen of the hard copies of Northern Watch Newspapers for the 150 officer and enlisted men of the ship to browse as they sail to different parts of the archipelago.

As I sat at the seemingly expensive huge black leather couch as I waited for Daza, I was impressed about the walls and the floor made of woods and the portraits of Philippine Revolution youngest General del Pilar, President Aquino, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, and the Navy Flag Officer in Command Vice Admiral Jose Luis Montano Alaño that embellished one of the walls.

I shook hand with the khaki clad Cmdr Daza, as we exchanged some pleasantries particularly when he was still a cadet at PMA and where I was also personnel of the Academy’s public information office.

“To avoid “surprises” colonel the following would be my queries before you answer my questions,” I told him.

Hangar: Daza toured me at the retractable helicopter hangar

The following were the excerpts of my Q & A with Daza, the ship executive officer:

Mortz  C. Ortigoza (MCO): Can Sokol or Augusta Westland AW109 be accommodated by the helicopter stern  of the 3,340 tons BRP del Pilar?

Daza: I am not familiar with the characteristic of the Sokol but I think it can be accommodated if we can accommodate the UH1H Huey, it can accommodate that too (Sokol).

MCO: You always bring BO 105 helicopter when you travel? I did not see one on the helicopter deck.

Daza:  We only put a BO 105 during a mission.

MCO: In Scarborough and Spratly Islands?

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: According to my research, fast helicopters are deterrent to attack nuclear and non nuclear submarines which may be faster than surface warships. For this task the helicopter is equipped with sensors such as sonobuoy, wire-mounted dipping sonar and magnetic anomaly detectors to identify possible threats, and torpedoes or depth-charges to attack them).

Daza: Yah.

MCO: Can this ship accommodate four BO 105s?

Daza: We accommodate I think two where one is in the retractable hangar. But they could not stay here long because they are vulnerable to the elements.

MCO: Is this ship susceptible against Chinese jets or ships that carry Exocet - type Chinese made YJ-8 anti ship missile?

Daza: I think lahat naman hindi lang ito kundi all ships kahit sa ibang bansa vulnerable. What matter is the training of my crew.

MCO: Is this ship has a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) just like what China and Taiwan possessed?

Daza: Ah, sa ngayon wala ako sa liberty na sabihin iyan. I’m not on that level (to answer).

MCO:  Is this ship possesses a Harpoon and the weaponries that are attached to the BRP Ramon Alcaraz that would be coming this August?

Daza: So far wala pa.

MCO: Do you have here MK 38 close-in weapon system.

Daza: Wala pa, pero papunta tayo doon  as part ng transformation ng AFP modernization.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the  Philippine Navy’s 15-year Strategic Development Plan,  Lt. Commander Nerelito Martinez, Philippine Fleet acting chief of staff for plans and programs (F5) said last year that the country will be buying six frigates configured for anti-air warfare, 12 corvettes designed for anti-submarine warfare; 18 Offshore Patrol Vessels (OVs) that will compose the backbone for naval patrol.

To effectively address naval underwater and mine warfare, the Philippine Fleet planners came up with a proposal for the procurement of three submarines and three Mine Counter Measure Vessels (MCMVs).

For its amphibious, sealift and auxiliary services requirements the “Fleet Desired Force Mix” concept, Martinez said that the Navy fighting force should have four Strategic Sealift Vessels (SSVs) capable to move one brigade of Marines amphibious force or any ground force and its support system; 18 Landing Craft Utility (LCU), three Logistics Support/Replenishment Ship (LSS), three Ocean tugs, six Yard/Fire Tugs which would provide critical support warships in docking and undocking.

In Interdiction and Special Boat Operations (ISBO), the Fleet is also eyeing additional procurement of 12 Cyclone class Coast Patrol Interdiction Craft (CPIC), 30 Patrol gunboats, 42 Multi-Purpose Assault Craft (MPACs) and 24 Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs).

For its Naval Air Operations, the Fleet is also looking forward to the acquisition of eight Amphibious Maritime Patrol Aircraft (AMPA) needed for maritime air surveillance, 18 Naval Helicopters embarked aboard frigates and corvettes and eight Multi-Purpose Helicopters (MPH) embarked aboard the SSVs.)

MCO: May mga escort din ito (BRP del Pilar) whenever it goes for a mission?

Daza: Depende sa mission. Escort destroyer, meron tayong mine sweepers.

MCO: Does it carry Anti Submarine weaponry?

Daza: Ah, wala ako sa liberty to answer.  I’m sorry.

INTERCEDED: Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) Julius E. Valdez
and Lieutenant Senior Grade Robert Baylon (2nd and 4th from Left 
respectively) initiated that I could board the warship for
an interview with top honchos there

My tour at the BRP del Pilar

“Amoy C-130  ang aircon ng barkong ito,” I told him as the ship’s walls and ceilings, abound with bundles of wires and tubes, have been similar in sight and smell with that of the C-130 cargo plane I rode for the umpteenth times when I was a boy because of my air force father. 

Daza told me that the cool ventilation in every compartment was powered by 2000 liters a-day diesel fuel. He told me that the cutter carry two truck loads of fuel tankers on its belly.

After the interview he toured me and Nico to the nook and cranny of the 54 years old warship. He showed me the air conditioned non-officer's quarter that accommodates four personnel in their double –deck beds that were covered by canvas for each one’s privacy.

“Geez, just like the VIP “kubol” (cubicle) of prisoners in Muntinlupa,” I quipped.

The officer’s quarter was a luxury as each of them has their air-conditioned room.

He showed us too the laundry room where huge industrial washing machines and dryers wait for the dirty clothes of the personnel there.
It has a desalination machine that converts sea water for the personal use of the folks there.

He said PF 15 can travel back and forth economically at 17 knots from up to 9,600 miles without refueling with its diesel fuel at its home port in Subic Bay in Zambales to the disputed Spratly Islets.

The ship can travel faster by 28 knots (Note: One knot is 1.852 kilometers) per hour as it is powered by its two 18 thousand horse-power aircraft gas turbine jet engines.

He brought me to the mini-theater with books in the bookshelves.

“We got here four mini libraries and a gym,” as he opened the steel liked manhole cover for us to peek on the gym in the lower deck.

Lt. Colonel Daza said the books (mostly fiction) were donated by the American government.

 Daza brought us to the bridge (cockpit for an airplane) for us  to see the gadget that determines the fathom of water where the ship berths.

“How many feet is one fathom?, I posed.

“6 feet,” he said

Outside the front wind shield of the bridge, he pointed to me the 76mm Oto Melara gun with Mk92 FCS.

“See how big its bullet?” he posed to me.

“They are much bigger than the night stick of a policeman,” I reacted.

He said the gun shoots in automatic motion.

Aye Aye Captain: The ship commanding officer Commander Joe
 Anthony C. Orbe (Extreme Left).

Meeting the ship’s Commanding Officer

As we went back at the reception hall, the ship commanding officer CMDR Joe Anthony C. Orbe, PN (GSC),clad in khaki too, was partaking his morning breakfast  composed of boneless bangus probably bought by his crew in Lingayen.

“Sir, this is Mortz of the media. He used to live near the batsoyan of Zan-Su (Susan the one who ran the Batchoy restaurant at PMA franchised by retired Colonel Orlindo Caiingoy- my province mate in Iloilo)”.

“You got good woods here at your reception hall, colonel. The black leather sofas were huge and classy.  Were they bankrolled by our navy?” I posed to Obre whom I was told is waiting this year for his promotion to Navy Captain (full Colonel) according to my brother, a member of the Corp of Professors, who met him at PMA in the mid 1990s.

Obre told me those woods and couch were still part of the package when the former U.S Cutter was sold for US$13 million (Php450 million, a bargain) to the Philippine government in early 2011 under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS).

Son of a gun, even the post card like colored pictures being given to the sight seers by navy men were still from the Americans as the paint of the ship there was still white with a “U.S Coast Guard” boldly painted in black on its bulk head and the ship’s feature that says Hamilton interdicted weapons smugglers off of South Vietnam and fired more than 4,600 rounds of naval gunfire in support of U.S and Vietnamese troops ashore, Hamilton directed the interdiction of over 21,000 Haitian migrants throughout the Caribberan , to name a few at its back page.

Free Coffee Treat  exclusively for me and Nico from the house
while dizzy tourists nursed their vertigo.

Bidding Goodbye to the Crew

After exchanging some pleasantries with Lt. Colonel Obre, PMA class 1992, I told them that I should be back at the mess hall pronto lest my group would leave me with their rubber boat.

“I dread swimming six kilometers from the ship to the shore”

As we waited for our rubber boat while the Navy guys showed us their humorous rituals’ video on their 2O inches Sony flat screen TV I heard donated too by the Yanks, somebody swiped a finger on my back shoulder.

 “Sir, ito na po iyong coffee niyo as you requested from Commander Daza”.

“Oh thanks, the sergeant at the shore was correct when he told me that my presence here would be business class,” I quipped.

Yes Virginia, it was VIP since I got a coffee in a mug painted with the coat of arms of the Philippine Navy while the rest of the passengers stared blankly through the window outside as they nursed their sea sickness without a benefit of a coffee to mitigate their pain.

(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com) 

Off from the Ship's Clinic: Some of the lady tourists who were struck by nausea

Scathing Political TV Ads

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

There are two kinds of an electoral candidate in the Philippines: The one who bragged he wins the poll and the one who cried because he was cheated. Election fever has not yet subsided as you browse this piece after losing bets - with hammer and tongs - protest at the media outlets and the Commission on Election (Comelec).
 What I could not forget about the 2013 poll was how the camps of Pangasinan Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr. - an alumnus of the Philippine Military Academy - and his gubernatorial challenger then Alaminos City Hernani Braganza - a former member of the Red tagged groups -  ran their adversarial television ads in the last stretch of the campaign . Braganza accused Espino of bringing to the dogs Pangasinan by backing it with statistical figures about the increasing numbers of poor people, numbers of out of school youth, and those who were murdered in the forty four towns and three cities' province.

 A week before May 11 of that year, the day that banned electioneering, Espino rebutted all of these accusations as sheer lies by showing opposite figures he sourced from the National Statistics Office and the Philippine National Police. His data were provided by his Public Information Office’s Chief Butch Velasco

  

As far as my counting was concerned, Espino and Braganza have been aggressive with their six 30 second ads slot at each of these regional TV stations of  GMA-7 and ABS-CBN.
If each of the warring candidates got twelve 30 seconds’ ad slots a day, that’s more than half a million pesos a day for each of them if each 30 seconder cost P50, 000. Each of them paid Php 52,000.00 a day in their one-hour block time program at Bombo Radyo.

In the May 9, 2022 election Bombo Radyo – Pangasinan bills a one-hour program on its prime time (5 A.m to 9 P.m programs) for P1.3 million a month, according to a big wig there.

  Oh by the way, a 30 second advertisement for national TV viewership for a senatorial candidate cost him/her in 2011 half a million pesos according to Attorney Felipe Gozon, Chief Executive of GMA Network, Inc. In a news report on that date senatorial bet Teddy Casino said that a 30 second slot ads in ABS-CBN for national viewership was worth Php 500,000.
 

Two weeks before the campaign ban, Braganza assailed Espino on the black sand mining, the murder of Infanta Mayor Ruperto Infanta, and the plunder case in the  Juetenggate where he was accused by then Bugallon Mayor Rick Orduna and another gambling lord named Boy Bata.

 Three days before May 11, 2013, Espino accused Braganza in a carefully crafted video visual on the alleged plunder case filed by his fifteen village chiefs in Alaminos City where he is the incumbent mayor. 

“Those TV stations should not allow those adversarial ads,” a political spectator told me.
 I cited to him that those American style advertisements were sanctioned by the Omnibus Election.
“COMELEC Resolution No. 9615, said that “election campaign” or “partisan political activity” refers to an act designed to promote the election or defeat of a particular candidate or candidates to a public office, and shall include any of the following: …Making speeches, announcements or commentaries, or holding interviews for or against the election of any candidate for public office; Publishing or distributing campaign literature or materials designed to support or oppose the election of any candidate; ..,”

In the 2012 presidential election in the United States, voters’ preference kept changing between Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney in the disputed States there because of the shrewd and subtle propaganda shown by the candidates on TV.

Republican strategist Dick Morris and Michael Reagan (adopted son of former U.S President Ronald Reagan) who heads the Grand Ole Party or GOP’s Super PAC (Political Action Committee) have been vigorously soliciting millions of dollars from would be voters particularly those who support GOP to boost the stocks of their presidential bet. 

Look how the adversarial TV campaign brought to the highest office Prime Minister Bibi (not Gandang Hari) Netanyahu (the younger brother of a hero Colonel Yoni Netanyahu who was killed at the Operation Entebe in Uganda) of Israel.
To quote what former U.S President Bill Clinton said on his 957 pages hard covered book’s “My Life” my brother from California gave to me years ago:
“On May 29 (1996), I stayed up until well past midnight watching the election returns in Israel. It was a real cliffhanger, as Bibi Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres by less than one percent of the vote. Peres won the Arab vote by a large majority, but Netanyahu beat him badly enough among Jewish voters, who made up more than 90 percent of the electorate, to win. He did it by promising to be tougher on terrorism and slower with the peace process, and by using American-style television ads, including some attacking Peres that were made with the help of a Republican media advisor from New York. Peres resisted the pleas of his supporters to answer the ads until the very end of the campaign, and by then it was too late. I thought Shimon had done a good job as prime minister, and he had given his entire life to the state of Israel, but in 1996, by a narrow margin, Netanyahu proved to be a better politician”.

With the scathing adversarial TV ads pioneered by Espino and Braganza in the 2013 poll, election campaign in Pangasinan and the country would never be the same again.

 (Send comments at totomortz@yahoo.com)

Mayors pocket loan from Land Bank, etc

By MARCELO C. ORTIGOZA, JR.

Restituto Kulafo , my former classmate at Saint Andrew Field Elementary School (Mababang Paaralan ng San Andres Bukid ) asked me to distinguish Land Bank of the Philippines from World Bank.
 With my significant experiences in breaking breads with countless of mayors, I told him Land Bank’s (LBP) officials pursue aggressively city and town‘s chief executives to borrow by paying it with their yearly Internal Revenue Allotment.

“Land Bank is a lending entity mayors have been shunning these days because its annual interest is higher than what Development Bank of the Philippines and Philippine National Bank offer to Local Government Units (LGU)”.
 LBP is where mayors and councilors enriched themselves after borrowing up to hundred of millions of pesos to build overpriced projects not only to feed their vanity to show how great they are among their confused emaciated constituents but also source of dirty monies up to 30 per cent of the loan the mayor pockets, and the councilors get between P100,000 to P500,000 bribe to vote for the approval of the loan in the council. Because of this vicious practice all over the country, these unwary constituents do not know that they have been already deprived of free social services like medicines, school rooms, and teachers (whose pay come from the coffer’s of the LGUs) in the next 10 years because the monies intended for them go to the yearly amortization of the principal and interest of the overpriced edifice to the bank.
 ***
 Oh by the way, don’t buy the crap that the loan from the government owned banks are insulated from corruption because of progressive building (where bank officials of either LB or DBP check the phase of an already done project before they release another tranche of the loan).
“That’s bull horn! Just like the auditors and engineers at the Commission of Audit and the Department of Public Works & Highway they are too in cahoots for a fee with the mayors in embezzling public funds,” a source told me.
***
What is World Bank?” Mr. Kulafo asked me with a child’s curiosity. I told him that World Bank is a global financial behemoth that has auspices to countless lending institutions around the world that advised recently the Philippine government to increase by five% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the country’s appropriation of 2.6% in agriculture and tourism infrastructure for three years to perk up job creation and mitigate the yawning poverty despite the 6.6% GDP growth last year.
 Motoo Konishi, World Bank’s country director for the Philippines, said recently the country needed to spend an amount equivalent to 5 percent of GDP (that runs to tens of billions of pesos) on road networks, irrigation, power and other infrastructure projects to generate the amount of investments needed to achieve the government’s job creation and poverty reduction goals. I told him that the 6.6 percent GDP last year only benefited the taipans like the Gokongweis, Sys, Lopezes, Tans, others who control 80 percent of the country’s economy.
 ***
In a huddle during the visit recently of senatorial bet Cynthia Villar in a village in Binmaley, this columnist, Rep. Pol Bataoil (2nd District Pangasinan) and Binmaley Mayor Enzo Cerezo discussed about the stocks of some senatorial candidates in the latest Social Weather Station poll.
“Kung ano ang lumabas diyan sa survey ganoon din ang lumabas sa botohan,” Bataoil, a retired two star police general, quipped. He stressed that he was once a non-believer of a scientific poll but when he first ran for the congressional seat in 2010 election he was prodded by Pangasinan Governor Amado T. Espino, another PMAyer like the solon, to commission one.
 “The good thing about survey is you know your strength and weakness in the towns you’re husting.” He was told by his Manila based pollster that based on their finding he will win handily against his rivals.
“The only factors that you will lose are assassination, natural death, and fatal accident,” he was told. Mayor Cerezo said he too availed of a pollster that was based in the province when I ribbed him if he availed one in his last electoral outing against incumbent Mayor Sam Rosario (his present rival in the mayoralty race)
 (Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)

Boxing Analysts Differ if Pacquiao Continues to Fight

Pacquiao vs Marquez pentalogy will happen late next year because Promoter Bob Arum,the oil snake merchant, believes that savagery in that fateful December 9, 2012 (Marquez got a broken nose that oozed with lots of blood and Pacquiao fell with his face flat to dreamland) will make hundred of thousands of people to shell out again their $50 or $60 (P2,400) for a Pay Per View connection on their cable TV. Jesus Christ, that's another billions of pesos or millions of dollars in the making. And it seems Manny relishes the glitters of the money at the same time he want to vindicate his devastating loss (Text by Mortz Ortigoza).

Boxing analysts nagdebate kung dapat ba ang Part 5 na Pacquiao-Marquez fight

 By Bombo Radyo -Philippines

 Hindi magkamayaw ang mga local boxing analysts sa pag-analisa sa laban ni Manny Pacquiao lalo na kung dapat bang mangyari ang ika-limang laban kay Juan Manual Marquez.

 Ayon sa kilalang boxing expert na si Atty. Ed Tolentino, para sa kanya ay dapat na mag-retire na si Manny. Pero kung hindi maiiwasan, ang ika-limang laban kay Marquez ayon kay Tolentino ay dapat na magsagawa muna ng tune-up fight si Pacman para bumalik ang kumpiyansa.
 Ang dapat harapin muna ni Pacman ay hindi kasinggaling ng Mexican warrior.
 Para naman kay Pacquiao handa siya sa ikalimang laban pero depende pa rin sa kanyang promoter. Inihayag naman ng sportswriter at analyst na si Ronnie Natanielsz, dapat bigyan ng daan si Manny na magdesisyon kung magreritiro ba. Kawawa rin umano siya Pacman kung hindi maibabangon ang kanyang sarili.
 Para naman sa sportswriter na si Edwin Espejo, sinabi nito na ilang beses na ring bumangon sa knockout noon si Pacman. Pero sa ngayon hindi na bata si Pacman.

 Sinabi ni Mortz Ortigosa kilalang boxing analyst sa Pangasinan, bagamat tumatanda na si Pacman mag-aakyat pa ito ng maraming pera sa boxing industry at kumikita pa ang mga laban nito.

 Tinawag naman ng dating gobernador at boxing manager na si Manny Piñol na isang "suicide" kung lalabanan pa uli ni Pacquiao si Marquez. Binatikos ni Piñol ang nagsasabing ang tumama kay Pacman ay isang lucky punch mula kay Marquez.
 Giit ni Piñol na isa ring boxing, sa boksing umano ay walang lucky punch dahil pinapakawalan ito na may target.
 Ito rin ang pananaw ni Natanielsz at Recah Trinidad. Ani Piñol, kung ang isa umano ay makaiwas sa suntok, matatawag na swerte ang boksingero.
 Ayon pa kay Piñol kung tamaan ang isang boksingero ng suntok, simple lamang ito, mabagal siyang umaksiyon sa atake ng kalaban. Labis namang ikinalulungkot ni dating Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella ang masaklap na pagkatalo ni Pacquiao. Ayon sa sportsman, nangyari na ang kinakatakutan ng Pilipinas na darating ang panahon na mananamlay ang boxing career ng Pinoy ring icon.
 Kaugnay nito, pinayuhan ni Puentevella ang malapit niyang kumapare na pag-isipan na ang pag-retire sa boxing at maawa ito sa kaniyang katawan.
 Aniya, kung gusto pa ni Manny ng rematch ay ito na lang ang pinakahuli na at huwag ng pag-isipan pa ang laban kay Floyd Mayweather Jr.
 Naniniwala naman ang ilang observers, na mismong si Marqez ay baka hindi rin na pumayag sa laban pa na Part 5 kay Pacquiao dahil nakuha na niya ang gusto niya sa isang paraan na hindi na maaaring makuwestyon pa.

Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4: Analysis

BANE FOR PACMAN: In the illustration above Marquez (black trunk) waits for the right jab of Manny before he (Marquez) lunches his counter left punch  (or a rattling combination of right and left punches) before he turned clockwise to frustrate Manny to hit him with his lethal left straight punch.

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA 

 I told Philippine GMA-7 TV before the quadrilogy of Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao that Marquez got the numbers of Pacquiao. Every time Manny lunches his right jabs, he unleashes his (Marquez) power right cross, left uppercut and right cross to the face of Manny while he runs clockwise. As a consequence, Manny could not hit him with his big left straight because the Mexican, like the Coyote in Lonney Tunes, has been running beyond his range. This phenomenon has been almost the same strategy Marquez has done from his three controversial outings with the Filipino congressman. Marquez has been waiting for Manny to unleash a punch where, just like a boomerang, he immediately counter it with a 1-2 combination or even a 1-2-3 flurry. In their trilogy however, Marquez innovated by hitting Manny first with his right or left. But it was his strategy to goad Manny to hit him where he could counter-punch Pacquaio with his trademarked combination. Manny in their rubber match shilly-shally every time he punches Marquez. He could afford only a right and left combination and withdraw to avoid the rattling counter punches of the Mexican. As a result that trilogy was a bore among ordinary fight fans that used to see the explosiveness of Manny when he fought Eric Morales, Oscar dela Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito who stood in front of him and did not abscond like Marquez every time he wants to exchange blows.
 *** 
The camp of Manny assured the fans that the fight on Sunday (Saturday in the U.S) would be exciting because Manny would summon his fearsome power punches by pressing the fight to Marquez. But how could Manny brings the fight with Marquez when he got tag by the counter punches of the Mexican every time he hit Marquez? They said he would slip by docking the counter punches of Juan while he delivers his bombs to the latter. Incase this would be their fight plan, they could borrow how Floyd Mayweather Jr. penetrated the ring of fire from Marquez. In that bout Floyd bobbled, weaved, covered his face with his gloves, or jumped in and out from the counter punches of the Mexican. Since I was writing this article a day before the fight, let's cross our finger if Manny could weather the counter punches of Marquez who would expectedly increase the volume of his power punches to grab the victory in this fourth fight. 
(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)

Lessons Filipinos could learn from the US election

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

 Even the U.S and the Philippines are representative democracy where the voters directly elect their president, the US differs from the Philippines in the mode of electing its highest leader. Filipinos elect directly their president and their vice president, the Americans only elect directly their president and whoever wins the presidency he gets his chosen vice president. If Democrats’ Barrack Obama wins in November 6,2012, he gets Vice President Joe Biden. If Republican or GOP’s Mitt Romney’s wins he gets Congressman Paul Ryan. If President Noynoy Aquino got 500 thousand votes in Pangasinan and 250 thousand votes in South Cotabato all of them including the votes he got in other local government units (towns, cities, provinces) in the country would be tallied and if he got the highest votes say 15,208,678 from the more than 50 million registered voters he wins the election.
 If Barrack Obama got 50.1% votes versus Romney’s 49.9 votes in the State of California and 55 % versus Romney’s 45% in the State of New York, the Office of the Federal Register at the National Archives and Records Administration, US version’s of our Commission on Election, do not add all the votes the way the Comelec has done to Presidential candidate Aquino.
 California is represented by 55 electors or Electoral College votes while New York is represented by 29 electors that would go all to Obama in a winner-takes-all rule (55 plus 29 equals 84). In the U.S ,a presidential candidate needs to win 270 electors in all 48 States and the District of Columbia to become a president.
 The States of Nebraska and Main however do not practice this winner-take-all as they have another formula in computing who wins in their States.
The distribution of electors, by the way, is based on the number of congressmen and senators in a state. Members of the Electoral College are chosen by the state.
There are five presidential candidates running for the highest office in the US now. Obama, Romney, and third parties candidates (although they are spent force), Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Birthday Party (Is he an independent?) Richard Duncan.
Moreover, Electoral College does not mean that the winner got most of the popular votes (A hypothetical 51 million votes versus 50 million voter for his rival). When George Bush, Jr. defeated Al Gore for the presidency in 2000, the latter got most of the popular votes but lost in the Electoral College against Bush, Jr.

 *** 

As of press time (Sunday, November 4 Philippine's timeline) and two days to go before the U.S presidential election Democrats presidential candidate Barrack Obama is tied by 49 percent each with Republican presidential bet Mitt Romney according to the Rasmussen Poll.
 Before Super Storm Sandy crashed on the East Coast, Romney has a two-point lead against the incumbent president.
How did the Democrats change the face of the race that once favored Romney to become the next elected president after the November 2012 election? According to Republican poll strategist (political operators in the Philippines listen!) Dick Morris who heads, together with Mike Reagan, the son of former president Ronald Reagan), the GOP’ soliciting body Super PAC, Obama Team outspent the Romney’s team in funding negative TV ads against the latter by millions of dollars on swing States like Ohio and Wisconsin. According to Morris: “Pennsylvania, Romney led on Wednesday night by two points but in Thursday night’s polling, he was tied.” We have also seen slippage for Romney in Michigan. More troubling, Rasmussen shows a two-point gain for Obama in job approval, rising from 48% to 50% in the current poll. All of these changes are, no doubt, related to Hurricane Sandy.

** *

The lessons we Filipinos could learn on this TV ad thing (either be it in the gubernatorial poll or senatorial poll in the May 2013 election) is it is a major factor in winning the election. TV (like ABS-CBN, GMA-7, and TV-5) penetrates all sectors of the society from the cross stitching grandma to the basketball buff grandson who is already eligible to vote.
The only problem in the Philippine is most of our politicians don’t exploit the defects of their opponents on their paid ads on TV (or count here too the AM and FM bands on radio, and the cheaper “White Paper” circulated by politicians in exposing the weaknesses of their opponent).
Despite being embodied in Section 79 of the Omnibus Election Code that says"election campaign" or "partisan political activity" refers to an act designed to promote the election or defeat of a particular candidate or candidates to a public office which shall include: 4) Publishing or distributing campaign literature or materials designed to support or oppose the election of any candidate. Filipino politicians satisfy themselves by paying the service of somebody to make a brownie points ads only for themselves like “Nasubukan mo na bang lumangoy sa basura?” or “Mr X the Action Man!”.

**** 

In case Obama makes it on Tuesday (Wednesday in the Philippines) on the present neck and neck derby, he should be thankful too to the timing of killer Hurricane Sandy where his mettle through his immediate and effective assistance to the states gnawed by Super Storm Sandy was tested (Republicans however dispute this because of the long queue and the gas and power shortages that infuriated people on those affected areas) . As a result nominal Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and dyed-in-the wool GOP Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey “kissed” him and paid him obeisance just like what Amerigo Bonasera to Don Vito Corleone in the God Father.

 *** 

Gezz, the stout Governor Christie, who spitted fire at Obama before, could be likened to Filipino politicians who piggy-back at a snap of a finger at the popularity of Obama’s feat in the Sandy’s debacle. Everybody knows he was doing this for his re-election bid? Morris, Romney, hard line GOPs just cry your heart’s out on this circus in New York and New Jersey! This Murphy’s Law on the part of Romney (imagine a storm crashed a week before the election that favors the enemy?) was no different to a toss-up contest in towns, cities, and provinces in the Philippines after the command votes of the Iglesia ni Cristo (a religious sect) entered the scene in favor of a certain candidate.
(You can read my columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).