THE Philippines is 123 years old and in all these years, we have often worn the Luzon lens when we talk of the country; more so of the National Capital Region (NCR). There are people from Luzon who have not traveled to Mindanao because of the peace and order situation there and the preconceived notion that Mindanao is different from the rest of the country.

THE Red Cross (RC) is a humanitarian organization, and never has it been associated with profit. If we go by the International Red Cross (IRC) and Red Crescent Movement (RCM), it is an "international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering."

THE 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA) is an election budget, which was submitted by the Executive last August 23 to the House of Representatives, where budget review will commence. Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has set September 16 as the date for its House passage. The Senate will therefore have half a month to complete its review before the end of the general registration on September 30 and the filing of the candidacy certificates from October 1 to 8 per the Commission on Elections (Comelec) calendar.

DEMOCRACY is supposed to be the rule of the majority, defined as 51 percent of the total turnout of voters. There is total registered voters and turnout. We look at the former as the sum total of registered voters broken down by island as: Luzon (56 percent), Visayas (21) and Mindanao (24).

THE bold move of Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson and Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto 3rd to declare candidacy early is a welcome development for we should be able to size up candidates not by sheer soundbites, but by actual platform of governance that tells you where they plan to take this country post-pandemic, and how we will solve the economic problems that come with Covid-19.

WITH President Rodrigo R. Duterte delivering his last SONA yesterday, heralding the opening of the third regular session of the 18th Congress, one can just count the working months before the campaign starts going to May 2022: five months in 2021 and two months in 2022, or a total of seven months with February to May 2022 as campaign and E-day. The seven months will mean passing the General Appropriations Act (GAA), the most important legislation for the remaining months, before everyone goes campaigning. Take note, all elected legislators will have filed their certificates of candidacy by October before Congress can actually debate on the GAA.

THERE are reasons why some people differ from others. These could be primarily because of political socialization. Political socialization is the "learning process by which people develop an understanding of their political identities, opinions and behavior." Through various agents of socialization such as parents, peers, schools and media, the lifelong experiences of political socialization play a key role in developing the traits of patriotism and good citizenship.

THE horn has been sounded for the start of opposition research, contrasting messages and character assassination of candidates left and right as we prepare for the October filing of certificates of candidacy. It appears no one seems to be willing to stand up and declare to the people his/her intentions, which is quite unlike what Vice President Jojo Binay did soon after winning the vice presidency in 2016. Binay made clear to everyone, as logic would dictate for a person in his position, he was interested in the presidency.

THE sudden death of Benigno Aquino 3rd (BSA3), 15th president of the country, comes as a shock, considering not much was made public. That is why people stayed on to listen and hear the medical certificate announcement, the confirmation of the sisters, the interview of the longtime driver and yaya, the very revealing talk by former Energy and Cabinet secretary Rene Almendras about "flatline" not being revealed to the sisters and seemingly pieces of the puzzle that do not fit in the narrative being made. Then the 15th was cremated, but he was not Covid-positive.

POLITICS is said to be a game of addition, not subtraction. You go to bed with the enemy and you forget about previous opposition research that caused one's political fate to unravel - is addition for some. The recent 1Sambayan launch pretends to be capturing the rainbow in the spectrum of ideas when it does not really do so. It merely created a sandbox.

RARELY would a president leave office without reforms done, whether pervasive or just a drop in the bucket; whether it is acknowledged by all or just a few. A six-year term allows a leader to decide where he wants to go, how to do it and how to make the reform rooted for sustainability.

ANY candidate that looks only at the peripheries misses out on a huge swath of territory in campaigns, and those are voters in the middle of an array. In the case of the country, there are fringes occupied by the Yellows together with progressives who have formed an alliance for purposes of increasing the shrillness against President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD), and directly at the opposite end are so-called diehard supporters of Duterte, predominantly class D and E from Mindanao and who are veteran voters.