IDU breaks into Intra IVs octos.

Three teams from the Intramuros Debate Union (IDU) broke into the octofinals of the Intramuros Inter-Varsities Debate Competition. The IDU, a consortium of debate societies of Mapua Institute of Technology, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, Collegio de San Juan de Letran and the Lyceum of the Philippines University, is the host of the said tournament.

Breaking fifth with eleven points is my team, Lyceum C. The other breaking IDU teams are Letran A and Mapua A with ten and nine points, respectively. The tournament saw eighty-plus teams from around seventeen colleges and universities competing.

Here is the complete list of the octofinalists*:

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Funny Taro Aso video.

Here’s LDP president-elect and soon-to-be prime minister Taro Aso dancing as a samurai in Manila during the ministerial meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum last year:

The only other politician who could such a thing is Junichiro Koizumi. And Koizumi got the LDP a landslide victory.

But then again, now is different from three years ago. It would take Aso more than an otaku costume to beat the DPJ.

Aso wins. For now.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has just now elected Taro Aso as its president.

Speculation that the presence of so many candidates might deprive Aso of the needed majority votes and lead way to a run-off where anti-Aso forces could consolidate and deny Aso the party presidency for the fourth time did not take place, as the former foreign minister was able to secure 351 out of the total 525 votes in the first ballot. 

Amazingly, former Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano landed second with 66 votes. The other favorite, TV personality and Japan’s first female National Security Adviser and Defense Minister Yuriko Koike, landed third with 47 votes. I find this surprising, for Koike enjoys the support of Koizumi and his children. But then again maybe it’s Koizumi’s support that made her lose?

Aso, who just turned 68 the other day, is set to become the country’s first Catholic prime minister when the Diet convenes this Wednesday. But the next question is, how long will Aso hold power?

He may try to buy time as much as he want, but there’s no doubt that a snap elections this year is inevitable. The LDP election got for the party much publicity, but most in the media described the hype as what it really was: a political kabuki geared towards grabbing the limelight from the DPJ, kind of like the Postal Debate during the Koizumi era.  

Aso, a former Olympian and a self-proclaimed manga addict, is popular and populist. But it remains to be seen whether he can do a Koizumi under the present circumstances. Yes, he is popular. But the LDP and its policies are not.

PHOTO FROM AFP

Lyceum breaks into CMMA for third time.

I haven’t been on-line for quite some time now, which is why I apologize to my colleagues at FilipinoVoices.com for being unable to vote for the site as Blogger’s Choice in the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards.

I resigned from my part-time work last week and I’m now in the process of investing my modest savings by opening a small sari-sari store here in Fairview, Quezon City; which explains my absence from the blogosphere these past few days.

Anyway, I’m blogging to congratulate Sef Cervantez, who was the graphics and lay-out artist of The Sentinel during my two-year stint there, for breaking into this year’s Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA). His three entries have been shortlisted as finalists in the Best Print Ad, Student Category award.

I got the news from a good friend who won the same award just last year. Ever since the Lyceum first submitted entries to the Student CMMA, its students have consistenlty won the Best Print Ad award.

Here are Sef’s entries:

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After Fukuda: the showdown.

WHO’S YOUR BET? Clockwise: LDP presidential candidates Yuriko Koike, Taro Aso, Kaoru Ysano and Nobuteru Ishihara 

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is now reaping the consequence of deciding to re-install Ichiro Ozawa unopposed as party president this month. No less than the party’s secretary-general, Yuko Hatoyama, is publicly worrying about the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election’s monopoly on media coverage.

But you can’t blame the media. And the public. The DPJ has decided to junk real selection process in favor of convenience (it knows that Ozawa, whom the party begged to stay when he resigned last year, is the only one among its ranks cunning enough to lead the party to an electoral victory). The LDP, on the other hand, is seeing a multitude of faces, most of them young and popular, vying for the party’s– and the country’s– top position. It is easy to say which party’s presidential election is exciting and which is boring.

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FUKUDA QUITS.

Couldn’t post a blog entry because my connection at home is still down. I’m in an Internet cafe in the University now.

Yasuo Fukuda has just resigned as Prime Minister yesterday, citing his unpopularity and his failure to get the Opposition, which controls the Upper House, to cooperate with his policies as reasons. This is not at all unexpected, but just like Abe’s abrupt resignation last year, the timing is surprsing as it came only a day after the government announced a multi-million dollar economic stimulus package.

“When taking into consideration that the people must come first, we must not create a political vacuum by horse-trading,” Fukuda said. “On this occassion, we must promote policies under a new line-up– that is my conculsion and I have decided today to step down.”

He then hit, for the last time, the Opposition, whom he tried last year to invite to form a coalition government: “As long as some Opposition parties continue to prevent me from doing my job, I think I would just cause confusion.”

Minshuto has been very vigorous in its blockade of key government policies as the dominant party in the Upper House. But Fukuda’s Jiminto has always been at fault, too, for ignoring the Opposition’s valid points most of the time. 

I can’t really blog about this major development at length today because I have class. But I sense that the LDP is gearing up for parliamentary elections, which is why the party has to get rid of the unpopular Fukuda.

It is certain that the LDP would elect a popular leader who will lead them to the polls. Yes, Taro Aso will now, finally, get his chance to occupy the Kantei, which probably means goodbye to the Fukuda Doctrine and hello once again to conservatism. Or maybe it’s goodbye to Jiminto and hello to Ozawa?

PICTURE FROM KYODO