I have always had a greater interest in following the politics of the Philippines than the politics of the United States. Actually, the gap between the two was pretty big for me until the 2008 US presidential elections. Notwithstanding my past family involvement there, I’ve always thought that the drama, corruption, and unpredictability of Philippine politics was downright fascinating and depressing at the same time.
So if you aren’t in to it yet, I’ll be posting here throughout the year to make you aware of it (if it’s OK with TPTB, of course). Why, you ask?
Well, today, 5/11/09, we are exactly one year away from the 2010 Philippine presidential elections. And personally, I think you should always know at least a little bit of what’s currently going on in your motherland.
A brief two-sentence background: The 1987 Philippine Constitution limits the president to a single term of 6 years. Therefore, the current president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, cannot run in 2010 (unless they do something crazy like change up the constitution through Charter Change or something like that).
To mark the occasion of being one year away from God knows what, ANC (a cable news network operated by ABS-CBN) held a televised Leadership Forum at Ateneo de Manila University. They gathered a group of Philippine leaders for this panel discussion/one-on-one interviews (largely attended by Ateneo college students). These men pretty much all have presidential aspirations (though they don’t really have to make it official until later on in the process).
These people included:
Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero
Senator Richard “Dick” Gordon
Pampanga Governor Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio
Senator Manuel “Mar” Araneta Roxas III
Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Jr.
The following were invited but were unable to attend:
Vice President Noli de Castro
Senator Loren Legarda
Senator Manuel Villar
Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando
A full recap on what happened in this forum can be found here. I’ll probably be doing profiles on some of these guys soon, but for the meantime, here are some clips on the forum itself (in Tagalog):
