Here comes another one

In as much as I would like to avoid making comments on what's happening out there since I feel have stated my stand on most issues through this blog, I just can't help but react on this Inquirer article.

Again, the intentions are good and noble. There may be no personal agenda and the movers may be credible but Almonte????, anyway......

Somewhere, sometime ago, I know I have read something like this before. Advocacies such as clean elections and automation, voter education and empowerment, good governance have been battlecries for decades. Has anything changed? Nothing. And here comes another one and I doubt it very much if they will make a dent at all.

The strategy of these advocacies is very skewed. They always start with the media just as how this new group got the Inquirer headline. Well, that is a lot of free and big time space. It really gets the attention just how it did to me. But will anybody be talking about this group tomorrow? I doubt it.

When new groups are formed, it is always the media that is first targetted. Very logical since a press release is free, it gets the attention and creates awareness. But by taking that route, the advocay starts with a bang and ends with a pfffft. It is unsustainable, elitist and intangible.

There is only one free press release and that usually is the launching. That may be the only newsworthy part but the daily activities may be only good read in blogs or websites. The media will never give that daily free updates. The next option is the group to buy media space and that will cost. When money becomes an issue, disintegration begins.

It has been my observation that we are really have this penchant to form groups. At the onset, we believe we have common goals and aspirations. But through time, personal differences sets in, personal agenda gets magnifies, political colors come out and disintegration begins. Nothing gets sustained.

Elitist because ordinary Filipinos are mere observers. We are not active participants in this movement unless we are a member of a member group or know people who belong to this group. Why waste my time in the first place. Yes, the motives may be pure but I have seen this a thousand times before and nothing reall too off and what makes it different this time around. And where will my iconic magtataho come into the picture?

Gawad Kalinga has been very successful simply because their advocacy is very tangible, houses. From nothing you see someting. You can see it and touch it. That is very tangible and that gets a lot of support. But good governance, electoral reforms, votere education are very intangibles. Thay can be assessed through numbers and statistics which may be difficult for most of us to grasp.

For a movement or advocacy to really make a dent, it has to be sustainable, it can capture the imagination and it has to be very tangible. Lose one element and all the CHANGE that we all seek will not happen.