9 presidential aspirants join texting-based primaries

By Frankie Llaguno, Newsbreak | 07/31/2009 3:29 AM

Nine aspirants—including the Chief Justice, prominent local officials, and civic leaders—have been enlisted in a selection process that’s adapting liberally from the American concept of primaries in choosing a candidate for president in next year’s polls.

The process, to be administered by a multi-sectoral alliance called People’s Primaries Group (PPG), puts a very Filipino twist to it. Community members will make their choices known through short messaging service (SMS) or “texting.”

The nominees in the primaries so far are:

Olongapo City Councilor John Carlos de los Angeles.

Rebel general Danilo Lim.

Gawad Kalinga head Tony Meloto.

Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca.

Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio.

Environmentalist Nicky Perlas.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

Naga City Mayor Jessie Robredo

Jesus is Lord Movement leader Eddie Villanueva.

PPG will accept nominations until August 6.

In a conference at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati recently, PPG spokesperson Ricky Javier said they have been going around the country in the last 7 months to organize their chapters in the 219 congressional districts.

The organizers hope that the primaries can mobilize enough votes per congressional district to reach as much as 50 percent of the 48 million registered voters.

The district chapters will implement the District Electoral Voting (DEV) System, which involves a one-person-one-vote approach. Votes will be tallied through a computerized texting method under the supervision of a national facilitators’ group.

The People’s Primaries voting period will be from October 15 to 30, 2009. In the event no one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the district electoral votes, a run-off between the top two contenders will be conducted from November 7 to 15.

Present during the AIM conference were representatives of the Subsidiarity Movement, the Movement for Good Goverance, Green Convergence, Partidong Pandaigdigan Pilipino, Magnificat Movement, Global Filipino Network, Movement for Hope, and Jesus is Lord Movement.

Javier has also lately announced that a set of distinguished persons now form the committee that will screen nominees for the primaries, namely, Bro. Rolando Dizon ,who was former president of the De La Salle University System; Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez of Caloocan City; Sixto K. Roxas of the Maximo T. Kalaw Institute for Sustainable Development; Nene Guevara of the Movement for Good Goverance; and Antonio Roldan of Transparency International.

The PPG’s primaries approach seeks to avoid the traditional party formula for clinching a nomination, such as overspending, vote buying, media overkill, image-building, easy slogans, and fund rasing from vested interests.
The PPG believes that the primaries will be able to come up with a strong presidential aspirant before the November 31 deadline for filing of candidacies set by the Commission on Elections.

The aspirants who agree to go through this selection process will be required to sign a covenant that they will support whoever is chosen by the network members as their official candidate for president. (Newsbreak)

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