GMA Network partners with 'the best of the best'

It was a powerful display of the vital role that television plays in today’s politics. The heads of some of the country’s most respected institutions trooped to GMA Network’s headquarters to forge a partnership to produce the most comprehensive coverage in the nation’s history, Eleksyon 2010. “We are very, very fortunate that the best of the best are going to partner with us as our equal partners and co-workers in the biggest and widest, most comprehensive coverage of the election in 2010," said GMA Network President and Chairman Felipe L. Gozon. The network’s nineteen partners represent sectors considered essential for ensuring fair and honest elections, including watchdog groups, print and web media, and telecommunications. Before signing the memorandum of agreement, all gave brief remarks about what each entity brings to the partnership.

Committing the telecom giant’s resources to the effort, PLDT/Smart Communications' chairman Manuel Pangilinan said, "Our goal is to provide our media partners the latest and the best technology that is available." The partners were so diverse, Pangilinan quipped, that they included both “Ateneo and La Salle, Benedictines and the UP School of Economics." Bro. Armin Luistro, the president of De la Salle University, said his school joined the partnership to help save democracy: "I share the belief that the 2010 elections is a very critical event that will spell the difference between complete de-democratization or a movement towards democratic deepening." Fresh from a Comelec meeting where he helped revive the poll automation project, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento declared, "I’m very sure that with this providential collaboration, a visionary one, many good things will happen with our country in 2010 and thereafter." Some institutions were familiar partners from previous elections, such as the AMA Education System which will reprise its quick-count role, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Catholic Media Network of radio stations nationwide. AMA Chairman Amable Aguiluz V said that they will be relaying up-to-the-minute updates on partial counting. “We will not just give you the unofficial and partial election results, we will give you the correct and true unofficial partial results and we will give it to you faster than you can say Kapuso," he said. Eleksyon 2010 also includes a historic number of universities, reflecting the importance of youth and new voters, who number nine million, more than in any previous election. Joining for the first time are youth groups Youth Vote Philippines and RockEd. “We’ve never really partnered up with anyone… but 2010 is just too important for us to remain fashionably rebellious so we have decided to partner up with GMA," said RockEd project director Erwin Romulo. The coming election season is marked as well by the growing prominence of the so-called “new media." Media professionals world-wide observed how the Internet helped decide the US elections last year, when Barack Obama skillfully harnessed the web to communicate with the grassroots, raise funds, and get out the vote. For the 2010 elections, even erstwhile rivals GMANews.TV and Inquirer.net agreed to cooperate for the sake of wider coverage. Representing GMANews.TV at the ceremony was its new editor-in-chief Howie Severino, who remarked, “The elections are bigger than media competition. The public interest is much more important than private interest." Many agree that while the web is a sunrise media industry, television is still at high noon, using its place in the sun to convene such a show of force, all for the sake of “democratic deepening." The complete list of Eleksyon 2010 partners: GMA Channel 7, QTV, RGMA, dzBB, GMA New Media, GMANews.TV, GMA Pinoy TV, Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT), Smart Communications, Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), Inquirer.net, Catholic Media Network (CMN), AMA Education System. University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics, Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) School of Governance, De La Salle University (DLSU), University of Santo Tomas (UST), San Beda College of Law (SBCL), Solar Entertainment, Youth Vote Philippines, RockEd. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), Philippine Bar Association (PBA), Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), and the Commission on Elections. - With a report by KIMBERLY JANE T. TAN, GMANews.TV