UPDATED: Suggestions pa...

UPDATE: Sorry, nagkaroon ng problema. Nabura ko yung original post ko. Fixed now.

Para sa GO (siguro applicable rin ito sa TU):

1) Bakit walang official website ang GO (at TU)? Hindi ba basic yan?

Now sila Villar, Chiz, Kiko, at si Ping may sariling website. Pero yung mga ibang kandidato mukhang wala eh.

Hindi naman mahirap gumawa ng official website para sa Opposition (o Administration) hindi ba?

Kasi sa website na yan, pwede mong ilalagay at pagsamasamahin doon ang:

a) information, bio, achievements at platforms ng GO or individual senators.
b) websites at blogs ng mga individual senators
c) updates, schedules, appearances, at announcements ng GO team.
d) youtube videos (easy to do), photos of events and candidates.
e) information on who the GO candidates are for all the local races (e.g. sino yung kandidato ng Opposition sa Manila mayor's elections? Sino ang kandidato ng GO for congressman sa 3rd district of Manila? O sa Negros Occidental?) Siyempre, importante yan diba, para informed ang tao kung sino yung dapat nilang supportahan.
f) Newspaper articles on the GO national (and local) candidates.

Let the official GO website be the place where you can find all the information you need to know about GO. With webmasters, volunteers and bloggers updating the site daily.

Use the website to give exposure to some deserving candidates in the local race. It's important also to have a mailing list where people can subscribe to GO for email updates (on announcments, skeds). Or they can also subscribe via text messaging (an even better idea i think, since everybody has a cellphone anyways, lol)

Tignan nyo yung DailyKos site (Democrats) at RedState (Republicans) on how to do this. During the last election campaign, these blogs helped monitor, gave updates, and helped their repubs and dems candidates get elected.

2) Include GO's website address in the TV political ads or posters/banners.

Duh! I've been looking at the tv ads of both GO and TU, at napansin kong hindi nila binabanggit ang websites nila sa TV commercials! Same with their banners and posters. Alam natin si Villar, si Alan Cayetano at Chiz may website, pero wala yung website address nila sa tv ads o mga posters. Tignan nyo naman yung mga hawak na placards ng mga hillary supporters dito, ano yung nakalagay sa ilalim ng "Hillary for President" sign?

Maganda ang TV ads because you can reach many potential voters that way. Pero 30 seconds lang ito, at soundbites lang ang maibibigay nyo sa mga viewers. But if you invite people to visit your website or to the GO official website at the end of every TV political ad, then mas mai-inform ang mga viewers sa detalya ng mga platforms at positions mo by going to your site, diba? It's cheaper that way, no? You can also invite potential GO voters to register and subscribe to GO's email listing or text message service to get regular updates/alerts.

Here's some articles na binabasa ko on the email listing thing. Eto, eto, eto, eto at eto.

Now replace email listing with text messaging and... oops, i think i've said enough! ;)

3) I like this idea, which ellen posted:

Lacson has adopted Trillanes in his campaign.

GO has devised a positive side of big brother, big sister concept. The “strong” ones are helping the “weaker” canidates. So lacson, aside from helping Cayetano, is helping Trillanes. Loren is helping Coseteng and Villar is helping Roco.

I hope they expand that to local candidates too. Meaning, tulungan ng mga senators ang mga local opposition candidates (via endorsements) kung napadaan sila sa lugar nila. and vice versa. Yung mga sikat na local oppo candidates, dapat tulungan rin nila ang mga senatorial bets sa distrito nila and campaign for them.

I hope Tita Cory, or Susan, Kris or the "graduating senators" like jun magsaysay, drilon, serge osmena, will help campaign for oppo bets too. Isama na rin natin ang mga incumbents like Pia Cayetano, Biazon, Jinggoy etc. everybody should do their share in helping the opposition candidates.

UPDATE: Since every Filipino man, woman and child has a cellphone nowadays, I think there's plenty of potential of what text messaging can do in our elections to get people updated and more involved.

All GO has to do is--via TV, print or radio commercials--to encourage people to use their cellphones to subscribe to GO alerts and announcements by texting a join message to a designated short code, and they'll get updates and text alerts on GO news, announcements and skeds/appearances from the GO team.

Or they could go to GO's official website and invite people to register and subscribe to GO's email or text msg list to get daily updates, announcements and skeds of GO activities via email (or text messaging.)

And 3 days before election day, GO subscribers will get a text message reminding them kung sino yung 12 candidates na iboboto nila, and encourage others to vote for GO too. It's like getting a sample ballot, but in text message form. It's also about reminding you to convince a friend to get out and vote for GO. And telling your friend to convince another friend to get out and vote. And for his friend's friend to convince another friend to do the same.

And these text alerts can also be used to remind people to vote for GO affiliated local candidates (and to check the website on who the candidates are and their positions).

The ideal of course is to blanket the tv airwaves with 30-sec. GO ads. but that's too expensive. I think having a presence on the web is good (and cheaper), but i believe if we encourage people to subscribe to GO's text messaging updates and alerts, that could be a huge factor in turning out voters.

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the republicans had a huge database of emails adrs from GOP supporters, same with the Dems.

This was the email i got from the GOP (i subscribed to their email listing) for a "Get out and Vote" campaign 5 days before the 2006 midterms.

Yes, they lost in 2006 (because of Iraq), but they won big in 2004, did they not? because they got more people to turn out and vote republican. because they got more people to turn out and vote republican in 04.

Now, the effects of emails in our RP elections may be marginal at best, because most pinoys don't have a computer. But replace emails with text messaging, where every filipino has a cellphone, at iba na ang usapan.

Here's some of the things that the US political parties have been doing recently:

Cell Phones and Politics: Republican Mobile Activism in the 2006 Elections
February 1st, 2007

January’s Mobile Monday meeting in D.C. featured a fascinating presentation on Republican employment of cell phones and SMS text messaging in the 2006 elections, with a lot more detail than we’re usually able to get about on-the-ground use of this new (to the U.S.) political tool. Patrick Ruffini of the RNC discussed the committee’s use of text and mobile video to inform and motivate supporters, and Mike Connell of Connell Donatelli went into great depth about the DeVos campaign for Michigan governor’s foray into the world of mobile advocacy.

Patrick began the presentation with the RNC, which gathered “a few thousand” mobile activists as a start to building a 2008 election list by encouraging them to text a join message to a designated short code. The committee saw cell phones as a new channel to reach supporters with timely, topical messages, particularly as a supplement to more traditional email campaigns. The RNC could boost email open rates, for instance, by texting supporters that they had a particularly important note waiting for them while at the same time reinforcing the communications theme of the day. They found that they got more bang for the buck with SMS than with emails, since recipients were much less likely to ignore a text message (an effect that may diminish as text messages’ novelty fades). Not surprisingly, text messages were particularly useful for day-before and day-of Get Out The Vote efforts.

Eto pa:

How Text Messaging could change US politics

Opening paragraph:

Aug. 2, 2006 - Lollapalooza, the alternative music festival, conjures up all sorts of associations. Oil policy is probably not among them. But one energy nonprofit is looking to use this year's festival to lobby its cause—and is hoping to connect with music lovers using a very Gen-X technology: the text message.

As bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform on stage this month, representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund will peddle their policy, encouraging people in the crowd to use their cell phones to send the text message "MABO"—for Move America Beyond Oil—to a special number, or short code. The phone numbers of text-messagers will be compiled with specialized software, and NRDC Action Fund will follow up with those enthusiastic texters to enlist support for its MABO petition, which lobbies for specific policies aimed at reducing American oil dependence.

While NRDC Action Fund is ahead of the tech game here in the United States, text messaging, or SMS (for Short Message Service), in politics is hardly new elsewhere in the world. Opponents of Philippine President Joseph Estrada mobilized their supporters via text message as early as 2001, and a massive texting campaign was credited with boosting youth turnout in Spain's 2004 presidential elections. More recently, Mexico's president-elect Felipe Calderón launched millions of text messages in the days immediately preceding his narrow win over Andres Manuel Lopez Obradór.

Eto, the last 2 paragraphs of the article:

Furthermore, there's the issue of cost. Blogging, of course, is free to anyone with Internet access. Text messaging is not. "Most vendors charge a setup fee and then a monthly maintenance fee," explains Jordan Kessler, the Web-site manager for the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, which has also contracted with Alpert. These fees have come down significantly over the past year, Kessler notes, but they aren't nominal. IFAW paid POLITXT $15,000 to license its software, and $500 to $1,000 a month in maintenance fees.

"The economics is still being worked out, particularly here in the States," says Trippi. The most successful SMS campaigns abroad, including the ones in the Philippines and Spain, were essentially word of mouth, person-to-person messaging campaigns. That is, they were not coordinated by messages blasted from a central source. It remains unclear how well a blast model will translate, particularly given the fees.

Three Million John Kerry Supporters

As we look forward to the 2008 campaign, just how important is John Kerry's email list of three million supporters? According to The Hill newspaper, it's pretty damn valuable.

“Kerry has the best infrastructure that a Democrat has ever had, and it’s sitting in a Zip drive that he can carry around in his breast pocket.” [says Wade Randlett, his national finance chairman in 2004.]
“There is a zero marginal cost to communicate with them,” Randlett said of voters in Kerry’s database. “He can wait much longer [to decide to run for president] and suffer a much lower degradation of his base.”

"Only the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and MoveOn.org can boast of contact lists as large, say Democrats familiar with Kerry’s database."

The virtual John Kerry

With an e-mail list 3 million strong, the newly reformed liberal is primed for another White House run. But strategists warn against relying on the Internet to win in 2008.

And this: How Bush-Cheney 2004 made better use of its email list