THE CAMPAIGN

First-World Techniques, Third-World Setting

The X-Men: The Story of Activists-Turned-Political Consultants

With a Little Help from (U.S.) Friends

Campaigning, Filipino Style

Spinning the News

Campaigns on the High-Tech Road

Songs in the Key of Politics

PHOTO ESSAY

The Presidency as Image

ELECTION PERSPECTIVES

Elections are like Water

Between Tinsel and Trapo

The Enigma of the Popular Will

VOTER'S VOICE

First-time Voter

Regular Voter

Non-Voter

Hope and Elections in Payatas

THE LIGHTER SIDE

Making (Non)Sense of Politics

Election Lexicon

Quickie Quiz for the Politically Insane

TO BE fair, the presidential hopefuls who have ads running on TV at present make better presentations than those who want a Senate seat. This is the first presidential campaign to have political ads since 1986, after all, and with the incumbent, a movie star, and a televangelist among the candidates, there seems to be a madder scramble for media exposure in whatever form. At the same time, unlike the senatorial bets, the candidates for president are fighting over just one blank in each voter's ballot, meaning the ads would have to go beyond reminding people of the candidates' names. But as Lacson's strong leaders ad shows, scrutinizing a candidate's assertions can be an interesting, if not crucial, task for any voter.

The president herself has three TV ads at the moment, even if almost every move she makes is covered by the media, and even if her critics say she has been campaigning for the last three years. But that may be why her new commercials do not say much; her administration's projects are already being touted by many ads paid for by the government, and they always make it a point that they were products of her efforts and her policies.

Still, her handlers are leaving nothing to chance, and they proceed to remind voters in at least two of her commercials about all the things the president is supposed to have accomplished. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is even made to rattle them off herself — and she is made to admit as well that there may have been some things she could "have done better." Then comes the clincher: According to her ads, she is the nation's "last, best hope," which can only make one wonder what such a claim is based on. At the very least, it seems to negate all that Arroyo had said earlier, because if she really had achieved so much, then the Philippines would truly be a "strong republic" that could be run even by someone other than herself. But the president's handlers seems to be so uncertain of that and of her chances at getting reelected that they also resort to the requisite celebrity endorsement, hiring controversial TV host Kris Aquino for yet another Arroyo commercial.

Lacson, for his part, has been quick to the draw in challenging the administration's claims. Shortly after the administration presented its senatorial ticket, which it dubbed 'K4' (for Koalisyon ng Katapatan at Karanasan sa Kinabukasan or Coalition for Truthfulness, Experience, and Hope), Lacson hit back with an ad that declared him as anti-K4. The ad says K4 actually stands for "krimen, kurakot, katiwalian, at kahirapan (crime, extortion, corruption, and poverty)," which may well be how viewers now remember the acronym, considering the commercial's heavy rotation on TV.

The ad promises peace and order under a Lacson presidency. It is a believable promise, given the public perception of Lacson — a former police general, just like Thaksin — as being very tough on crime. And while the ad doesn't say so explicitly, viewers are encouraged to believe that once the crime problem is crushed, the other big worries such as corruption and poverty will be solved as well.

Yet while he establishes that fighting crime is his number one priority, Lacson does not say in his commercial how he would go about ridding the country of criminals. But then his handlers probably thought it best just to leave it at that, since Lacson, again like Thaksin, is considered by human rights advocates as too trigger-happy. His stint as the commander of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission under the Ramos government in particular left him with a reputation for shooting first and not even asking questions later, and the memory of that could conjure, rightly or wrongly, the image of a potentially berdugo president.