DENIED. Motion DENIED.

btw, i was more convinced where doronilla was coming from when i learned (thanks to mbw) that he had an axe to grind with her concerning an unfulfilled expectation of patronage. but then again, what else is new in the philippines?

also, who cares about your verdict?

I’ll take that Kingmaker is worth a solution (though a frustrated one) to break the current House control. To mention Erap as Kingmaker was effectively neutralized by Gloria’s pardon. The CBCP as Kingmaker (like what Cardinal Sin did) was pre-emptive by Gloria’s direct approach and travel to Rome, with icing on the cake – her relative is on the way to sainthood. The military as Kingmaker was given the large piece of the budget plus equipment upgrades, pay increases and pension funding that was the cause of instability before.

If I understood it correctly, the kingmaker has a gambit – you have to give up something in exchange. I am afraid, there is little left to the next kingmaker. In essence, the kingmaker solution is a gamble that serves no one except special interest.

I don’t agree with many of Doronila’s commentaries although he is often very incisive in his political analysis. But in case you don’t know, Doronila is one of the Philippines’ most highly respected journalists and political pundit. He is a colleague of Manolo at Philippine Daily Inquirer where aside from being a columnist he’s also an editorial consultant. He was editor-in-chief of the Manila Chronicle and former editor of Public Policy, the quarterly journal of the University of the Philippines. Doronila has a Master’s degree in politics.

If calling a pillar in Philippine journalism like Doronila “nothing but a prophet of doom” . . . .which also means he is not a serious writer and journalist at all but NOTHING BUT a scaremonger . . . is not name-calling, check again what name-calling means.

To save you the surf, name-calling means “the use of abusive names to belittle or humiliate another person in a political campaign, an argument, etc.”

Verdict remains. Still guilty.

Your view is very simplistic — in as much as we are into oversimplifications, think about this: no need to be a legislator to be able to change the rules in order to change the political landscape.

Kingmakers (but never king) have often more powers than legislators; they are capable of changing the political landscape without being legislators. Also, in many countries under authoritarian rule don’t have to be legislators to change their respective nations’ political landscape.

As ever, dangerous to oversimplify things.

The task is challenging but if you want to change the political landscape, you change the rules. To change the rules, you have to be in position to change the rules – and that is to be lawmaker.

Knowing that education is a long process and depends largely who is at the driver seat, getting elected as lawmaker is the most viable option. We would love MLQ3 and others here to replace the politicos and change Philippine history for the better.