Seems like the harder we try, the less we get noticed. When you are after 43.8 million voters, there is just no way you can make serious inroads without mass media. And these guys know it. 2 staff reporters from 2 different major newspapers admitted to me that their stories about Ang Kapatiran, written after lengthy interviews were killed by their editors. Explains why during the last 3 months, front page fodder would consist of the most inane thoughts and activities of the well-funded candidates. Big media will not give us idealistic greenhorns even a small opening. They are squarely on the side of business as usual.

Voters are hungry for issues and platforms and yet, look at the top 10 candidates considered shoo-ins: 4 refuse to debate at all. They cynically stick to the proven “gold-standard” of collecting votes. We have to scrounge for those precious minutes of free airtime and we have been allowed only a few seconds every week. In this game, you don’t pay, you don’t play.

I take all these obstacles as character-building exercises. Nobody can ever accuse us of getting a free pass.