News: Mariano: “Overcoming apathy the biggest challenge”

Abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak: In 2004, Darwin Mariano was an Aksyon Demokratiko youth leader for then presidential candidate Raul Roco. Today, he subsists by working for the corporate social unit of a cement firm. After work, he devotes his time and energy to the Movement for Good Governance (MGG), a new group seeking to build a 10-million constituency of voters who will choose competent candidates advocating the cause of reforming government. Abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak had a chat with him last February 3 at the launching of the MGG.

Q. What’s the difference between MGG and other groups seeking reforms?

A. I think it’s the timing. For the first time, people genuinely feel that short cuts no longer work, and that real substantive change has to come from ordinary people, groups from all areas, all sectors, all areas of the country, coming together to work on the things that we agree on, the things that we have in common, the goals that we have in common rather than focus on the things that make us different.

The KRAs [Key Result Areas] are very simple, and which is why I think it’s also different and why it’s potentially very powerful: 10 million people who will sign up and commit to helping reform-oriented candidates, candidates who agree to debate and defend their record and be judged against a clear criteria. And then an election process wherein the results at the precinct level are made public so that you prevent or deter those who want to cheat at the canvassing. So very easy, so I think it’s easy for people to come together and rally around a movement whose objective is clear.

Q. What is your biggest challenge?

A. I think overcoming apathy. The people who are here are people who have never given up hope. Unfortunately, I think that’s not always true, and I think what you only need to do is to show people, bring them in to connect and contact with others who have not given up hope and they rediscover the hope that they have in themselves.

Q. It would seem from this small gathering that you have not reached a critical mass?

A. Yes, that’s why we keep pushing. It’s hardest at this stage where you’re pushing, when you’re starting. But we’re far bigger now than when we started. There’s no one history, no one past to the organization. At the end of the day, it’s still a fight worth fighting. It’s a journey worth taking for everyone.

Q. It would seem the MGG still lacks the support of the masses?

A. No, there are many youth organizations. We’re already starting to build a group in the urban poor. I think what’s important is to get the support of the middle class because they will provide the resources, manpower, money to help bankroll the broad campaign needed for change. Without the middle classes’ support, mahihirapan tayo, and that’s what we’re trying to attract people with activities like this.

Q. In 2004, you were a youth leader for Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko. What’s the difference between being a partisan campaigner and helping the MGG?

A. I’m doing this in my personal capacity. I think it’s easier to get people to support it because it’s not personality-based. I’m not selling a candidate, I’m selling an idea. And in fact, it’s an improvement also from the type of politics that you want to support, from a personality-centered politics. No matter how qualified the candidate is, you’re trying to rally everyone to support ideas, to support advocacies. Hopefully, in the process, you move everyone.

Events: MGG 1st General Assembly and Juana Change Launch

The Movement for Good Governance (MGG) invites you to join us on Tuesday, 03 February 2009 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Robinson’s Galleria Indie Sine for its first General Assembly where Juana Change makes the jump from your computer screen to the big screen.

More importantly, February 3rd is the first coming together of the different people and organizations that comprise the Movement for Good Governance. We look forward to organizing MGG’s members and volunteers around our Key Result Areas. Our driving force is to unite 10 million voters to demand better governance and support reformists in the 2010 elections. As a first step, please ask your friends to come with you.

Tickets will be available at the gate for Php 100.00. Together, let us make our dreams come true — FOR THE PHILIPPINES WE DESERVE.

News: 10M votes for good governance

Philippine Daily Inquirer: A critical mass of 10 million voters is what a new movement aims to mobilize to bring about good governance ahead of and beyond the 2010 elections.

Movement for Good Governance (MGG), a coalition of reform-minded organizations, business leaders and individuals, has three long-term goals—voter registration and empowerment, election reform and leadership development.

But it is focusing on the 2010 elections as a major opportunity to exercise good governance and elect new leaders, the group said in a press briefing on Friday.

The organizations at the core of the coalition are Kaya Natin, Youth Vote, Young Public Servants, Hope, Transparent Election.org, Reform Coalition and RCN Visition 2010.

Some of its key movers are Milwida Guevara, a former finance undersecretary; Guillermo Luz, a former Makati Business Club executive director; information technology expert Gus Lagman; artist and youth leader Jaime Garchitorena; retired Gen. Jose Almonte and comedian “Juana Change.”

According to Guevara, the strength of MGG is how it has put together “a group of ordinary people who want to make a difference, who have hope and who would like to put a claim that this is our country.”

Guevara, president of the Synergeia Foundation which works with local government units in improving basic education, said MGG was not endorsing any particular candidate for president but “it’s possible that via an organic process ahead of the elections, views may converge to endorse a set of leaders.”

With regard to the first of its goals, the MGG will support the registration of young and first-time voters starting this month, mobilize 10 million voters to sign up and support good governance reforms and then organize communication platforms like public debates to help Filipinos understand the issues better and choose candidates wisely.

Effective automation

With respect to election reforms, MGG seeks effective automation to achieve transparent and faster canvassing of voters.

“Let’s use technology not only to prevent cheating but to make the elections more transparent,” said Lagman, of Transparent Election.org, who proposes the uploading of electoral results to the Internet after the manual canvassing of votes in the schools.

Luz said the country must fix the electoral system so that good candidates would be encouraged to run for office.

He said an online system would allow the candidates, voters, watchers the media and even the overseas Filipinos to keep track of poll results.

“Everybody will have power of information at their fingertips and that makes 40 million of us poll watchers, far better than the half a million that Namfrel can put up,” said Luz, formerly executive director of the National Movement for Free Elections.

Lagman, who was also IT chief at Namfrel, has designed a program called “Open Election System” that can speed up the canvassing of votes.

MGG seeks to encourage and empower grassroots and overseas Filipinos to monitor election results in real time and use available technology such as mobile phones and the Internet to protect the sanctity of the votes.

The coalition also seeks to guarantee the ability of overseas Filipinos to participate in and possibly influence the 2010 elections.

Direct mandate

On leadership development, MGG seeks to identify, empower and support “progressive political leaders who are sincere and effective in promoting reforms towards good governance.”

“We want to build awareness, get people to run, get good candidates to run, get people to register and get poll watchers from all walks of life,” Luz said.

Almonte, who was national security adviser to President Fidel Ramos, said that the mandate for Charter change must come directly from the people.

To ensure that any constitutional amendments would not benefit incumbent leaders, Almonte has proposed a referendum to be held simultaneously with the 2010 elections to ask the people if they wanted the Constitution amended.

If incumbent officials or those elected in 2010 would not benefit from the changes, Filipinos would likely vote “yes” in such a referendum, he said.