Monday, January 22, 2007

Election monitoring through blogs

In my column at Manila Times today, I tackled election monitoring through blogs.

I'm curious to know if there are bloggers today who will be covering the May 2007 election developments through their blog. If you are, let me know about it as I'll be monitoring this activity closely and write about it, at least twice a month, at Manila Times.

Whenever I meet contacts today, I often ask, what do voters need to inquire whenever they encounter a candidate wanting to be elected? Here are some of the popular responses:

1. Do they have relatives running for elections as well or are in an elected-position at the moment? If we are against political dynasties, we should avoid candidates who already have relatives in an elected position (or who are also running for public office).

2. What is their point of view on changing the country's constitution?

3. What makes them different and worthy of being elected? What programs do they have that can be of value to town/city/country?

I hope that the media, website election trackers, and bloggers who will be monitoring the elections and the candidates should at least consider getting explicit answers/position on the above three.

Earlier this month, I got asked what do I think of Richard Gomez as a potential Senator. If he will indeed run for Senator, I will surely ask the above questions. Will Quezon City Councilor Atty. Bong Liban have a relative running also for an elected post?

8 comments:

mschumey07 said...

Maybe you could check out one of my recent posts, Elections 101. We pretty much have the same questions in mind. I posted it late last month.

Anonymous said...

I am doing a blog on the 2007 election. Among the objecives of the blog are to advocate for a cleaner election and to encourage voters to choose their candidates wisely. I have included posts on pre-election surveys, political dynasty and several opinions on election related stuffs such as political text spamming. I have also added a page where election irregularities can be reported.

Janette Toral said...

mschumey07 - I'm kinda having a hard time to look through the archive. Can you post the link so I can cite in a blog entry?

rhodilee - thank you for update on this one. will check your blogger profile and see if your site can be found there. If not, hope you can mention the link here.

Anonymous said...

You run the Mar Roxas blog right? Anyway I'm collating and cataloguing various sources on the net re:the senatoriables here: The Usual Suspects. If you have posts/articles/etc about them that I haven't listed (ok, I haven't listed anything, soooo malamang wala pa nga link haha ^_^) feel free to comment and I'd put it up there

Janette Toral said...

Hi Jorge. Yes I'm temporarily running that blog until the office is ready to fully take it on (hopefully by July). I'll be mentioning your blog in my next article on online election monitoring.

Anonymous said...

I am doing also an election related blog.. Check it here www.halalan-2007.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

The blog is Philippineelections2007.wordpress.com. I have added a new feature in the blog, "Know your candidates", which aims to feature relevant informations voters may want to consider before voting.

Anonymous said...

I have made Link Search for Philippine Eleksyon 2007 at my site for ease of searching related news and details of candidate.