Voting for overseas Filipinos starts tomorrow

Apologies to you, gentle reader, as the comment thingamajig went kaputt again.

After a period of initial optimism, the recovery of the President’s husband seems to have “slowed down,” leading to renewed speculation as to what his prospects are. However, the President will still make a (truncated) visit to China. The blogosphere has responded to the situation: My Cuddly Face of Blogging calls it hype; littleprincessdiaries is frankly hostile; Far From Neutral Notions is indifferent;  The Bunker Chronicles points to what some might consider a jinx at work; Daily Musings points to negative bias in (some of the) media; but to me, the most interesting response comes from a Filipino doctor,  Bubbleman.

Ricky Carandang in an exclusive for ABS-CBNNews.com reports the GSIS sold its stake in San Miguel Corporation. This at the heels of a reported inflow of hot money into the stock market, which at first left but is returning, according to the Central Bank. This, as concerns over a Fed rate increase led to a dip in the market.

In campaign news, some administration candidates are irked over the “town hall” meeting strategy and some are refusing to follow it.

Tomorrow, voting for Overseas Filipino Workers begins. Filipinos overseas can vote for 12 senators and 1 party list. If you’re a Filipino overseas and intend to vote, see the Committee on Overseas Absentee Volting website to see polling places, or conduct a search to check if you’re entitled to vote. Her’es more information from an email I just received:

PERSONAL VOTING

Those registered under the jurisdiction of the following Posts may go to the Philippine Embassy/Consulate or Labor Office to cast their votes:

Riyadh PE (Saudi Arabia)
Jeddah PCG (Saudi Arabia)
POLO Al-khobar (Saudi Arabia)
Dubai PCG (United Arab Emirates)
Hongkong PCG (Hongkong)
POLO Macau (Macau)
Athens PE (Greece)
Saipan PCG (Northern Marianas Islands)
Kuwait PE (Kuwait)
Beijing PE (PROC)
Guangzhou PCG (PROC)
Shanghai PCG (PROC)
Xiamen PCG (PROC)
Hanoi PE (Vietnam)
Tripoli PE (Libya)
Beirut PE (Lebanon)
Vientianne PE (Laos)
Yangon PE (Myanmar)
New Delhi PE (India)
Port Moresby PE (Papua New Guinea)
Amman PE (Jordan)
Manama PE (Bahrain)
Muscat PE (Oman)
Doha PE (Qatar)
Koror PCG (Palau)

Verify the schedule of voting at your respective Posts. If your name is in the CLOAV, bring any identification card bearing your signature and photograph. A voter’s ID may be presented for purposes of identification but it is not a requirement for you to be able to vote.

VOTING BY MAIL
Voters who are not residing in the above-mentioned countries and not under the jurisdiction of the cited Posts will vote by mail.

You will receive a mailing/packet envelope that contains the ballot and the envelopes to seal and send/deliver the ballot. It also contains the Certified List of Candidates and Instructions which provides the step-by-step procedures on how you will be able to cast  your vote.

Please note that the Outer Envelope should bear your printed name and  the signature that you used when you registered as an overseas  absentee voter. As well, use only the envelopes provided by the Commission.

Finally, make sure that the accomplished ballot reaches the Post on  or before 3:00pm (Philippine Time) on May 14, 2007 to ensure that  your votes will be counted.

MODIFIED VOTING BY MAIL
For overseas absentee voters underline jurisdiction of the following  Posts, namely:

Rome PE (Italy)
Holy See PE (Italy)
Milan PCG (Italy)

Your mailing/packet envelopes will be sent to these Posts. You may  pick them up personally and cast your votes at the Embassy or the  Consulate, as the case may be. Check also if the Posts will establish  pick-up points where the Post personnel will bring the mailing  envelopes to an identified place near the place where you reside.

VOTING BY SEAFARERS
Seafarers may vote at any Post adopting personal voting (see above). Additionally, you can also vote at the following Posts adopting voting by mail.

Caracas PE (Venezuela)
Brussels PE (Belgium)
Ottawa PE (Canada)
Vancouver PCG (Canada)
Hamburg PCG (Germany)
The Hague PE (Netherlands)
Wellington PE (New Zealand)
Stockholm Pe (Sweden)
MECO Kaohsiung (Taiwan)
London PE (United Kingdom)
Los Angeles PCG (USA)
Washington PE (USA)
San Francisco PCG (USA)
Brunei PE (Brunei)
Seoul PE (South Korea)
Singapore PE (Singapore)
Tokyo PE (Japan)
Osaka PCG (Japan)
Canberra PE (Australia)
Sydney PCG (Australia)

From time to time, do check our website for field voting schedules  that will be conducted by the Posts concerned. Under this scheme, the Post personnel will be bringing the mailing envelopes to the port or  the vessel so that you will be able to vote.

The Singapore PM is apparently facing the unthinkable: pressure from public opinion on official salary increases.

In the punditocracy and the blogosphere: John Nery in Inquirer Current says columnist Tony Lopez is dead wrong when it comes to surveys (to be precise, he’s mentally dishonest). See what Rasheed Abou-Alsamh has to say on the surveys, too.

See The Head Heeb on the Nigerian elections and In Asia on the East Timor elections. The Korea Herald editorializes on why the President of South Korea should drop proposals to amend the constitution.  James Wolcott on how Rush Limbaugh has “blinded millions of Americans to the climate crisis.”

As you know, I’m a great fan of Adam Curtis and his latest documentary, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a must-see. Watching it, and the thoughts of some bloggers, led me to writing an entry titled “Cult of the Market” in Inquirer Current on the documentary, and the question of why it is, that our focus on politics has shifted to the assumption that the market can solve everything better than politics can, and the clash between our (in many ways) highly traditional culture, and the dissatisfaction, even impatience, those who consider themselves inclined towards modern thinking feel (with regards to politics, first and foremost).

big mango writes on the greatness of leaders and how that greatness, to his mind, is premised on the idea of sacrifice.His entry reminds me of a quotation from Theodore Roosevelt that often makes it to yearbook entries, among other things:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Which serves as a splendid rationale for involvement in the public arena. But as Curtis points out in his documentary, for decades now, the assumption in the West (and by extension, anyone affected by whatever is intellectually in vogue in the West) is that no one in public life is really after the public good; the result being the assumption that politics is not, because it can never, ever, be, a positive activity; that instead, what can make life better is to leave the market as unrestricted and unfettered as possible, in itself an attitude unprecedented in human history.

This belief has affected those in a position to have an impact on society to an extent others can only aspire to: the middle and upper classes and that portion of the larger whole who claim to speak for the downtrodden majority (but who are themselves an elite, too). Iniibig ko ang Pilipinas! who has had experience in radical causes, points to this in his latest entry. And a very thought-provoking (and perceptive) case he makes, indeed. By taking a look at what he believes to be the flaws of Ang Kapatiran, he also points to the assumptions that group is fighting, when it comes to those who share the same milieu, though no longer, sense of politics as a useful public mission.

An interview with Kurt Vonnegut, courtesy of Open Culture; while Poor Mojo Newswire takes note of his passing; read The Guardian obituary.

Read the Military History Carnival. In The Politico: remembering the day Harry Truman found out he was president.

TV Squad on noises only young people can hear.

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