Campaign Day 33: A hard look at turncoats

Some somersaulting politicians, whose motives are nothing but political survival, got the limelight on Saturday, Campaign Day 33. Team Unity (TU) senatorial candidates renewed their warning that their opposition rivals have no solid government platform except to bring down the Arroyo administration. The charge, however, has long been disputed by the Genuine Opposition (GO), which bared its 10-point economic plan to the public, salient of which is rejecting new taxes. GO also promised to generate more jobs through labor-intensive infrastructure projects in the rural areas. Former senator Teresa Aquino Oreta told reporters during her sortie in the Visayas that even before the next Congress could start on June 30, the 12 senatorial candidates of GO have already expressed full support for the possible third impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The TU senatorial candidate, who once belonged to the United Opposition that named detained former President Joseph Estrada as its titular head, disclosed that the impeachment agenda was one of the reasons she and former senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto got the boot from GO. “I refused to sign the manifesto that to be part of the opposition, candidates must support the impeachment case. I don’t want to be forced against my will," Oreta said in Filipino. Oreta said the impeachment manifesto ranked first in the opposition agenda and that its text was long and extensive. The reelectionist senator also revealed that initially she and Sotto had no problems with UNO because they thought the deposed leader was still running the show. But they bolted the party when the impeachment manifesto was dangled in their faces. Reelectionists Joker Arroyo and Ralph Recto earlier justified the inclusion of Oreta and Sotto in the Team Unity, saying the opposition had nothing in mind except to destabilize the government and oust Mrs Arroyo. Their stand was backed by reelectionist Sen. Edgardo Angara. “As I see it, the only agenda of the opposition is to simply overthrow the incumbent administration. There is no other alternative that they could offer. As if the role of the opposition is simply to impeach and overthrow," Angara, who is also with Team Unity, said. Oreta earlier revealed her decision to leave the opposition was also prompted by Estrada’s refusal to back her candidacy. She also disclosed that as early as July 2006, she started hosting a series of meetings at her residence to tackle who will make up the 12-man slate of the United Opposition, now renamed the Genuine Opposition. Oreta said the meeting explored the possibility of including the names of the so-called Wednesday Club members, namely senators Manny Villar, Francis Pangilinan and Joker Arroyo and Recto. But to her surprise, she said forces emerged in UNO who expedited her and Sotto’s ouster from the list. She declined to name names. TU gets media mileage The administration's Team Unity candidates have been getting more media exposure during the first three weeks of the campaign period compared to Genuine Opposition bets. A study done by the media advocacy group Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) found that six leading television news programs and Manila’s three largest broadsheets covered Team Unity candidates most in the first three weeks of the campaign. CMFR is monitoring the 2007 elections coverage of selected media organizations. “The TU’s getting more coverage was driven by the conventions of newsworthiness," said CMFR deputy director and University of the Philippines journalism professor Luis V. Teodoro. He said no bias was evident in the media coverage. The Genuine Opposition was a close second to the administration’s TU in the coverage by both television and the broadsheets from February 13 to March 2, the CMFR March 12 report revealed. The six monitored television news programs’ coverage of the senatorial and party-list elections ranged from 8.74 percent to 41.90 percent of total airtime during the first three weeks of the senatorial campaign, according to the CMFR. There were 158 newspaper reports about TU candidates, while GO candidates were the subjects of 128 reports. The CMFR study revealed that the reports were mostly about the controversies involving candidates in both parties. The decision by former opposition personalities Edgardo Angara, Vicente “Tito" Sotto III and Teresa “Tessie" Aquino-Oreta to join TU made big news. CMFR said that while coverage of the Senate elections “seemed ample," the party-list elections seemed to be getting little attention. The gay-lesbian group Ang Ladlad was the party-list group most covered by all six TV news programs, with a total airtime of only 4.28 minutes. It was followed by Bayan Muna, Gabriela Women’s Party, AnakPawis and Kabataan Party. Of the twenty senatorial candidates most covered by the TV news programs during the period, 11 were from TU, eight from GO, and one independent. TU’s Cesar Montano – who replaced Leyte Gov. Jericho Petilla in the administration’s senatorial line-up last February 16 – had the most combined airtime coverage by the six television news programs at 79.32 minutes. Ralph Recto (also of TU) was a far second with 58.57 minutes, followed by Alan Peter Cayetano (GO), Francis Pangilinan (Independent) and Prospero Pichay (TU). The most reported senatorial candidates in the three leading Manila broadsheets were almost exclusively from either the administration or opposition parties. There were only 26 reports on independent candidates. Most of the stories focused on the decision by Pangilinan to run as an independent bet despite a previous GO announcement that it was adopting him as guest candidate. Much lesser coverage was given candidates of the Marcos-era party Kilusang Bagong Lipunan – with practically all the reports focusing on the party’s controversial candidate, Joselito Pepito Cayetano and his adopting the nickname “Peter". Ads, campaign jingles The campaign jingles of candidates and their advertising spending were also noted in the reports, particularly in the Inquirer. The Inquirer covered extensively the marital spat between celebrity couple Kris Aquino and James Yap, and its effect on the senatorial campaign of Ms. Aquino’s brother, Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III. The feud between couple Vilma Santos and Sen. Ralph Recto with the latter’s brother, Batangas Vice Governor Ricky Recto, over the gubernatorial contest in Batangas was also consistently covered by the paper. The Inquirer was the only paper that reported on Ang Kapatiran Party and its candidates, focusing on its advocacy of non-traditional politics. Although the Inquirer gave the party and its candidates much-needed public exposure, the reports did not include the party’s program of action. Among the senatorial candidates of the administration, the most covered by the broadsheets were Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay (20 reports out of 101), Recto (18), and Cesar Montano (13). The most covered GO candidates were current Senate President Manuel Villar (20), Sorsogon Rep. Francis Escudero III (12), and Taguig’s Alan Peter Cayetano (12). Pichay, Recto, and Villar were cited in a recent study by Nielsen Media Research Philippines (NMRP) as the biggest television advertisement spenders in the first two weeks of the campaign. Of all senatorial candidates, Pichay spent the most at about P33 million, for TV ad spots in the first two weeks of the campaign, while re-electionist senators Villar and Recto spent P30.29 million and P22.79 million, respectively. The CMFR said it will continue to monitor media coverage of the elections until the end of the campaign period in May. The group will issue reports on its findings every two weeks, to culminate in a final report by June. CMFR has been doing elections coverage monitors since its founding in 1989. It did a first ever citizens’ monitor of the national elections in 2004, the findings of which it published that year (Citizens’ Media Monitor: A Report on the Campaign and Elections Coverage in the Philippines, 2004). CMFR is monitoring the elections coverage of the Manila Bulletin, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star. The TV news programs CMFR monitors are 24 Oras (GMA-7), Saksi (GMA-7), TV Patrol World (ABS-CBN 2), Bandila (ABS-CBN 2), Sentro (ABC-5), and Primetime Teledyaryo (NBN-4). It has trained 30 journalism student-volunteers from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UPCMC) to generate the data. -GMANews.TV