It takes a good leader to make hard decisions. It takes an awesome leader to make hard and unpopular decisions just when he needs to be popular – like in the run up to an election year for example?
From this news report, it seems like Noli de Castro knows what an awesome leader is. I mean, sure, it was Cerge Remonde who said
I think we should not glorify and glamorize these people by giving in to their demands as to whom they would want to negotiate with. I think that could be a very bad policy.
But the way things work around here, if de Castro wanted to score a few easy brownie points, he could’ve easily overriden sensible voices and gone on to Sulu for the photo ops. It is, I think, to his credit that he seems to be toeing the reasonable line with this one.
Which prolly begs the question, when has he ever gone against this government? I’m all for that whole loyalty thing, but there comes a time in a politician’s life when, if he can’t break ranks, he can at least make his discomfiture known. Has de Castro ever done that?
The answer to that question will be relevant to those who are now considering him for 2010. He’s done a significant amount of good, sure; but a person who has kept his ass too safe will turn off the voters.
All told, de Castro might know what it takes to be an awesome leader, but is he good enough to actually be one?
Filed under: 2010 watch, news, politics , Abu Sayaff, ICRC, kidnapping, negotiation, Noli de Castro
Gary Granada takes on GMA Kapuso Foundation for using his revisions to their lyrics (for a jingle he was commissioned to compose) without attribution – and here’s the kicker – using an audio-cast! Pure public relations genius, that! On one level, you’d think that the choice of medium – new media – was prolly a no-brainer. Granada was talking about music and lyrical composition after all, and it packs a helluva lot more punch to have the audience actually hear the claimed IP klepto-ing than to just say “I wuz robbed!” But on a PR level, Granada got his side out first, and did it in a way that puts GMA on the defensive in a really bad way. For one thing, Granada’s tone was calm and even throughout – not hysterical in the slightest. That alone clues you in that this is serious. But not so serious that he doesn’t joke a little. The touch of humor tells you that he isn’t desperate for sympathy – and by extension, that he’s not desperate for allies and is not out to raise a jihad. Like a general closely following Sun-Tzu’s play, Granada has chosen his battleground, and has clearly chosen it well. GMA is now on a slippery slope that it will, perforce, have to try to defend using legalese. In a country positively exhausted with the concept of “legally-right even if morally-questionable,” good luck with that
What the rest of the world understands as the process of preparing for war or other violent conflict, we gleefully appropriate the word “militarization” to refer to the naming of former military officials to top government posts. Implicit in the use of the word is the promise of dark days of repression to come, the demise of liberty, and the extinction of all that is good and beautiful …. zxngrkCKZ!



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