Nicanor Perlas starts election campaign “where it all began”

Thu, 11 Feb 2010

Nicanor Perlas starts election campaign “where it all began”

By NNA correspondent Walter Siegfried Hahn

MANILA (NNA) – Three months before election day on 10 May, the campaign for the presidential elections in the Philippines officially kicked off yesterday – “It’s carnival time again” was the front-page headline in the Philippine Inquirer.

For the occasion, Nicanor Perlas, described as running on an “environmentalist” and “reformist” platform, returned to the Ateneo de Manila University which he once attended to answer questions from students. “Young people are least influenced by traditional politics and thus are more open for new ideas,” he said. He wanted to encourage the students to form their own opinions.

Perlas will officially start his campaign on 13 February not in Manila but in Cebu City in order in this way to highlight his ideas for a more decentralised politics, a key to fighting poverty in his view. He will emphasise his “environmentally friendly and non-traditional style” with a cycle run in Quezon City on Friday.

Since Nicanor Perlas was confirmed as a presidential candidate some weeks ago, the press has started reporting more about him. There was detailed reporting of a concert in his support with one of the most successful rock musicians in the country, Cynthia Alexander, also a Waldorf mother, and her brother Joey Ayala, famous in Filipino pop.

His proposal of a ministerial post for NGOs (non-governmental organisations) was also met with interest. This post was intended to give proper weight to the “third sector” of society and create a “new and greater balance of forces” – not just between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary but between government, civil society and the economy. “There is no real democracy without civil society,” Perlas said, adding that civil society would be involved in decision making if he were elected.

Perlas, whose agenda of government includes the eradication of corruption and advancing moral and effective governance in society among its top priorities, also stirred interest by adopting the imprisoned air force captain Joenel Pogoy as a guest senatorial candidate.

He described it as a human rights violation that Pogoy had been jailed by a military court because he had blown the whistle on widespread corruption in the Philippine Air Force. Pogoy had documented the selling of spare parts and inadequate maintenance of aircraft on, among other places, the popular video site You Tube and had criticised the wasting of taxes and the direct risk to human lives. “We should be honouring, not punishing such things,” Perlas said after the crash of a Nomad N-22B aircraft in which nine people were killed.

END/nna/wsh/cva

Links: captainpogoy.blogspot.com, www.nickperlas.com, www.nicanor-perlas.com

Item: 100211-01EN Date: 11 February 2010

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/

﻿Nicanor Perlas starts election campaign “where it all began”

Nicanor Perlas starts election campaign “where it all began”