1.Why did you enter the enclave of politics?What prodded you to compete with other candidates who have well-oiled political machinery, famous, and have so much resources?What makes Kapatiran candidates different/distinct from others?How would you describe country's political system?

Our country is going down because our leaders are thinking about the next election all the time. Our leaders regularly fail to plan in advance and invest in the future. Why should ordinary citizens continue to default on our responsibilities to our country to persons more interested in becoming Mayors of big cities and visionless individuals who treat governance as a way of making a living? I estimated that a doctor could see about 70 charity patients a day and at the end of 20 years treat half a million patients. In 20 years this figure would represent .25%. Why should we abandon the formation of public policy to persons who don’t appreciate the enormous responsibility and trust given to them by the people?

“Competing” with other candidates will provide the public with an idea of who we are and what Ang Kapatiran represents? The people will see a big difference and will regret why the well-oiled traditional political machinery prevents better-prepared outsiders from participating.

2. Do you also have the same concern over alleged "rampant cheating" during elections? Do you believe that there's really padding and shaving of votes?So far, how do you evaluate this year's May elections?

Many people have told me it is futile to participate in Philippine elections because whatever votes we receive will not be counted anyway and that it is from poorly-funded candidates like ourselves that our votes are “transferred” to paying candidates. Message received loud and clear but this will not deter me from continuing to work 18 hours a day because this is a struggle for the heart and soul of our country. The stakes are simply too high for us to continue to take all these abuses lying down and in silence.

3. How would you evaluate people's response to Kapatiran? How's your campaign trail?Have you identified so far your bailiwicks? How would you evaluate your political machinery? Is it enough to help you to be enlisted in the Magic 12?Are you not discouraged by the surveys depicting that none of you has a chance to win such seat?

Personally, what keeps me doggedly going despite all the insurmountable odds that you enumerate is the sincere and intense support that we get from complete strangers, kindred souls. It is great comfort to realize that there a lot of us who feel the same way for our country and there is a lot of passion out there for substantial, non-violent change. We are not willing to compromise however by joining the fray and spend indecent amounts of money that could very well go into feeding programs for poor and hungry children. I am not ashamed to admit that I am asking people to pray. We have relied on our human capacities for too long and look where it has led us. To resolve our serious problems will need much more than faith in our human faculties.

4. If you'll be given a chance to lead, what are your advocacy, and programs? What do you think are the needs of this country-socio-political and economic?What do you think is the best antidote to country's problems?

Our country needs leaders who have genuine faith in the Filipino people. The opposite of faith and belief is fear, we urgently need leaders who will not be afraid to seek a different direction. We have assiduously complied with all the conditions set forth by various financial institutions and compared to our neighbors, we have only lagged behind even more. We need to get away from this “utang-import” mentality that is keeping us from fully realizing our potential to produce. This mentality is keeping us from effectively negotiating with other countries regarding trade agreements, lending rates, environmental accords…We need leaders who will deal with the international community as equals. We need leaders with clear visions for our country. We need leaders with road maps on how to achieve these goals. We need credible leaders with the right priorities (education, health and infrastructure) and who continuously think of investing for the future. Courageous leaders who have no problem making tremendously difficult but morally correct decisions.

5.Any appeal, message to Filipino people?

We seem to have lost all semblance of control in our country. The peace and order situation is appalling, human rights abuses are routine, our economy appears to be at the complete mercy of external forces, corruption is rampant, we expect to produce succeeding competitive generations without investing in education and healthcare. It is time to take our country back from the narrow, self-serving interests of entrenched traditional political entrepreneurs. We urgently need to change course. This will require the united effort of all of us, law-abiding, hard-working, God-fearing and silent citizens who compose the overwhelming majority in our country. We have the power to change our nation. The process may be long and difficult but we have to begin immediately.

A large portion of the campaign is devoted to researching relevant issues of the day. I don't have a campaign staff yet to handle these matters. These are the answers I supplied to an organization that maintains a website where Senatorial candidates can express their views:

A. Access to Quality Education
List two specific steps you will initiate or support to ensure greater access to affordable, quality education.
(Please limit your answer to 250 words.)
Repeal the Automatic Appropriations Law and this will allow our negotiators to demand better terms for all our debts. Education is allotted 11% and debt service 28%. By dropping interest payments to 23% you will effectively raise the education budget by 50%. You will be able to double teacher salaries (and subsequently attract the best minds in the country), buy relevant textbooks and construct schools. When these basic requirements have been improved, the curricula can be modified to stress communication and computing skills; emphasis should be likewise placed on inculcating a sense of history and identity among our students that will lead to a greater appreciation of their country.

We need to exploit the internet. Each classroom should have one DSL-connected computer for every 5 students. This will provide unfettered access to the New York Times, Encarta and mathematical websites. These resources provide an enormous wealth of information which may be inexpensively accessed. Computers will also enable distance-learning among adults who missed out on educational opportunities in their youth. Communication between experts at home and overseas will be facilitated and our students will be able to participate in discussions all over the world.

B. Employment Opportunities for Youth
List two major policies and programs you will initiate or support that will generate more quality domestic jobs for the young generation.
(Please limit your answer to 250 words.)

We live in a global economy and the availability of domestic jobs will depend on how competitive our youth will become. This requires purposeful national will to invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure. We need to wean ourselves from the “utang-import” mentality which retards our productive capacity. There needs to be a national movement which will force us to produce most of our needs. Clearly, the prescriptions set forth by some major lending institutions which we have diligently followed for more than 20 years have not been effective in stimulating our economy as effectively as our closest neighbors. We hardly create finished products. Corruption is more rampant in an economy that is loan-based because it is easier to steal something that was not earned through work.

No further trade liberalization will occur pending a thorough review of their effect on national interests. We need to begin negotiating more courageously with the idea that disadvantageous terms translate into higher mortality rates, lower standards of living, worsening poverty and less competitive citizens.

Let me tell you what goes on in my mind late in the evening at the end of a tough campaign day waged in 100 degree (37 Celsius) weather, nutrition complements of Jollibee, fresh running water available only once during the entire 14 hour period with of course no soap…what am I doing here? Far from my wife and daughters, my friends, my books and my gin. How my life has changed!

But this campaign has allowed me to see things that would never have been available at youtube. Those of us who live in Metro Manila should be required to take a field trip to the poor areas of Mindanao and Visayas. Every public official must be made to witness and subsequently experience the deplorable living conditions that result from their leadership.

Things are not going to get better. We are not planning sufficiently for the future. When we allocate from the budget 28% to debt service and 1% to health and 11% towards education we betray our national inferiority complex. How else do you explain giving the highest priority towards satisfying our creditors at the expense of crippling successive generations?

Let me show you why this is a “killer” policy. If we were just to cut interest payments by one percentage point and move this amount (approximately PhP12 billion) to health, we would be doubling our budget for healthcare. To illustrate, every single day, 75 Filipinos die from tuberculosis. If we were to make widely available the 4 anti-TB medications (INH, pyrazinamide, ethambutol and rifampin) at a cost of PhP2 billion, we would potentially cut in half the mortality rate of tuberculosis, 13,000 less deaths each year. Can anyone clinically dispute the cost-effectiveness of such a policy?

I have heard a lot of talk and a lot of promises from all these traditional politicians and nobody ever makes a disclaimer that she or he has been around all these years and is precisely part of the problem. Why should the electorate expect them to undergo a conversion during this brief campaign season? The hour is late.

Am I a glutton for punishment, or what? ANC called and informed me they had a vacancy in the Senatorial Forum and asked if I was interested to fill-in. Considering that I appeared only 2 weeks ago and found the experience quite anxiety-provoking, to put it in mild terms, I readily volunteered. Media exposure has been hard to come by because of our lack of money. Many radio stations ask for “packaging fees” and some of them even invite you to their shows only to be informed a few minutes before the interview that “permission” has to be sought from the mother station (going rate is about PhP 1000 a minute for poorly funded candidates).

Face to face with the jet-black aperture of a tv camera, live and with a nationwide audience of sofa-quarterbacks will convince you why there are so very few takers in Philippine politics. For a newcomer, it is a terrifying experience, more so when you are pitted against people who do this for a living. I psyche myself with the thought that not a single one of these traditionalists can distinguish a gastroscope from a colonoscope. I am the interloper in this arena.

I wasn’t surprised with the conduct of the forum. Rehearsed answers supplied by researchers, carefully crafted phrases in the vernacular—to a proposition that totally missed the point. We could have gone on and on dreaming and imagining the whole week and creatively hatch plans and programs for health care in this matter but not come up with a way to pay for all these musings. I tried my best to focus on this most important consideration. When will we summon enough national will to decide on what priorities truly matter?

I would have appreciated a little more than the 8.5 minutes they allowed us because how substantive can you be given a subject so broad and critical with that little time? I had to gloss over some of the questions and emphasize certain points because I knew these opportunities were rare for non-traditional candidates like me. So pardon my stutter and forgive me for being repetitive. This is one reason why we should all become involved in these political exercises. We can’t continue to keep on letting these guys get away with it by default.

People, apart from donating small amounts of money have also been singing for us. In Cagayan de Oro we were serenaded with "Stout-Hearted Men", a Hammerstein song from the Broadway musical, "The New Moon":

You who have dreams,
If you act, they will come true.
To turn your dream to a fact It's up to you.
If you have the soul and the spirit,
Never fear it, you'll see it through.
Hearts can inspire other hearts with their fire,
For the strong obey when a strong man
Shows them the way.

Give me some men who are stout-hearted men
Who will fight for the right they adore.
Start me with ten, who are stout-hearted men
And I'll soon give you ten thousand more.

Oh! Shoulder to shoulder and bolder and bolder
They grow as they go to the fore!
Then there's nothing in the world can halt or mar a plan,
When stout-hearted men can stick together man to man!