Below is the article written in Newsbreak warning all the candidates to be very careful to bloggers.

The politicians be warned, bloggers don`t mince words. (From Newsbreak, January 29, 2007)
By Carmela Fonbuena

He only meant to humor the politicians in that particular entry, but blogger Postigo Luna, using the name of a street in Intramuros where the COMELEC’s main office stands, is very serious about the elections. His blog, www.comelec-ako.blogspot.com, discusses the issues faced by the beleaguered commission—automation, registration, candidates, commissioners, cheating, etc.

In his last entry in December 2006, he lashed out at “last-minute [voting] registrants.” He wrote: “You had almost two years to sign up, but you didn’t, didja? The COMELEC field offices can reasonably accommodate only so many people on any given day. Beyond that number, services start bogging down. That ought to be as obvious as the nose on your face.”

“The Philippine blogosphere is vicious,” says Abe Olandes of www.yugatech.com. He’s a technical consultant who has helped several Filipino bloggers start up and maintain their blogs. “Having a blog is a good indication that the blogger is vocal.”

Bloggers are now sharpening their knives for the electoral season. They had a Christmas gathering in the Mall of Asia, and politics, apart from tips on earning money through blog traffic, was part of their discussions.

“Several political bloggers are already gearing up for the elections,” Olandes says. Postigo Luna tells NEWSBREAK that he will be “merciless.” Using informal language, bloggers are highly opinionated, argumentative, and, sometimes, whimsical. Some of them are lawyers, professionals, students, and politicians.

Their raw take on issues or non-issues is published online for everyone to read. Whether people visit their blogs to read what they have to say is another matter. “I’ve witnessed the growth of blogging in the Philippines since 2000 and I believe that it was the political crisis of 2005 which made blogging more popular,” says Olandes. “I think it was the Garci tapes that triggered it all. People suddenly found the urge for their voices to be heard, and blogging was the easiest and most effective tool to communicate their ideas and opinions.”

Observes Postigo Luna: “Local bloggers are predominantly anti-administration and some of them are pretty good hecklers. [They post] hate comments on my blog since I am sometimes incorrectly perceived to be an administration agent. I think they will vote that way as well, if they vote at all.”

Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Manuel Quezon III’s www.quezon.ph/blog is one of the more famous and credible blogs, with his entries eliciting hundreds of comments each from loyal readers.

He predicts that the election will be “a major disappointment. There are so many imponderables that the only thing sure is that they will probably be messier than anyone expected.” Quezon says he intends to blog about the congressional elections as much as the senatorial race.

“There will be a lot of interesting local races that are of national significance. I will most likely concentrate on the alliances that are being formed, because they are revealing when it comes to a couple of things. First, the current standing of the administration; second, the emerging clash between the President’s own party, KAMPI, the putative administration party, Lakas, and its other allies, e.g., the Liberal Party. Third, they are a sign of whether the President will rule as a lame duck after 2007 or whether she will gain a second wind and remain a player for 2010 or beyond; and finally, they are the opening salvo in the 2010 polls.”

Olandes believes that the “bloggers will play an important role in influencing voters, most especially our overseas Filipino workers as they are the ones that really need to be informed or [have] the craving for first-hand account and information about what’s happening locally. Bloggers will serve as a check and balance to what goes out in the mainstream media. Blogs will serve as a platform for the unheard and even if it’s just a whisper, a thousand of them might be loud enough to get attention.”

Quezon is a little less optimistic. “The bloggers will be interested in the 2007 elections “only if something big happens…. The blogosphere here reflects the Philippine media in general,” he says. “Politics is a far-off fourth after the big three: Showbiz, Food, and Lifestyle/Gadgetry. The minority interested in politics has shown staying power, and for the political blogs that have survived, their readership has remained intact, involved, and engaged. They are even growing, but slowly and without the immense numbers reflected in other blogs. My guess is if you’re not engaged now, you won’t be even during the campaign season.”

“The problem I see is that a lot of the bloggers live abroad and not all of them are even overseas absentee voters,” adds Postigo Luna.

The 2007 elections will measure how active the Philippine blogosphere really is.

Bloggers should unite in fighting those crooks that will make some cheating in the election.