The first part of the program was the Presentation of PoliticalArena.com v2.0 by Racquel Cagurangan, General Manager of PoliticalArena.com.

Politicalarena.com is the country’s first socio-political networking site, developed to promote awareness and interactivity in the local political scene. It provides users with a common platform to access information about candidates and, at the same time, offers candidates with a venue to disseminate information to the public, real time.

Just like any other networking site, politicalarena.com encourages visitors to register and voice out their concerns, express their views, interact with candidates and learn more about Philippine politics. They could also post photos, upload videos and share their views through blogging, asking questions and posting testimonials.

Taking the May election and Social Networking to the next level

Major changes have been introduced to politicalarena.com, the most notable one being the reduction from 22 ‘perceived’ presidential candidates featured on site down to the 10 official presidential candidates.

The site also now includes not just the presidential candidates but their running mates and the whole senatorial slate. This will provide users with access to majority of the candidates running for national seats.

While politicalarena.com introduced a lot modifications to better cater to its member’s needs, some features still remain the same. Users can still upload and view photos and videos in the Photos and Videos section of the site. The Forum which encourages healthy discussions on everything related to politics ad the Philippines is still s great venue for site members to gather and discuss. The News, Announcements and Calendar sections of the site still continue to relay important information on current events and other campaign activities.

What’s new?

Politicalarena.com promises a lot more for its browsers and members as it takes social networking and 2010 elections to the next level – with more exciting and interactive features – for a more informed and intelligent electorate.

Official Candidate List

After COMELEC’s recent declaration of official candidates, the website has included the complete list of candidates for the national positions, together with their respective profiles.

Now, have you ever wondered how this new voting system works?

Another part of the program was the Demonstration of the PCOS Machine Testing conducted by Miguel Avila, Smartmatic-TIM.

Now here’s the step by step tutorial of how this new voting system works:

Step 1

Fill up your ballot bu shading in the ovals next to the names of the candidates you want to vote for.

Some position will require you to choose more than one candidate, so read the instructions carefully!

NOTE: DO NOT OVER-VOTE! If you vote for more than the maximum number allowed, your votes for that position will NOT BE COUNTED.

Step 2

Insert your ballot into the counting machine. It doesn’t matter if you insert the ballot bottom first or upside down.

Step 3

At the end of the process, the voting machine will count all the votes cast and produce thirty copies of the election returns.

It’s that simple. Now, are you ready to cast your vote?

“VOTE WISELY”

Watch and be amazed.

They Don’t Care About Us performed by the CPDRC Inmates produced by Byron Garcia. Thanks to Sony Studios who made this event possible.

Here’s the story I got from Yahoo Music.

Michael Jackson was a fan of the more than 1,500 Filipino inmates who performed the choreography for his video “Thriller” in 2007 and created a viral hit.

Jackson watched the videos of Cebu Provincial Detention And Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) prisoners during breaks from his tour rehearsals for “This Is It,” his choreographer Travis Payne said.

Payne recently contacted Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, and arranged to make a surprise visit to meet the performers in the high security prison, the Philippines’ Manila Bulletin reported.

Payne spent two hours on Sun., Jan. 17, and Mon., Jan. 18, teaching the dancers the routines from Jackson’s posthumous “This Is It” film.

“The Drill” is the last scene Payne and Jackson worked on together before the pop icon died in June. The clip was released over the weekend, days before the Tues., Jan. 26 release of the “This Is It”DVD.

The CPDRC performance videos of Jackson’s “Thriller,” “Dangerous,” and the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A,” among others, are all well done.

But Payne, who worked with Jackson for more than 10 years, was able to take their performance to new heights. Their rendition of Jackson’s “They Don’t Really Care About Us” is comparable to the scene in “This Is It.”

The “This Is It” version is a highlight of the film. It features a group of dancers who were digitally replicated to appear as an army. Payne’s work with the CPDRC men brought this virtual sequence to real life.

The inmates were not initially receptive to participating in the choreographed dances, said Bryon Garcia, a security consultant for the prison. He suggested the activity to keep the prisoners busy during their downtime, the Manila Bulletin reported.

According to the New York Times, Bryon decided to post videos of the prisoners dancing online to publicize some of the positive changes he implemented at Cebu since joining the staff in 2004.

That was just amazing. Brilliant performance by the inmates! Good job guys. 5 stars for Travis Payne and the other MJ dancers. You all did great.

This is an awesome tribute to Michael. He would be very much impressed. May he rest in peace.

Also, as an evidence, here’s last November 9, 2008 issue Sun Star have published:

HIGH school students across the country might be able to learn Spanish in their schools, if plans for the integration of the language in the curriculum push through, said an education official Saturday.

“We hope that it will start next school year,” said Department of Education (DepEd) 7 Director Recaredo Borgonia.
Interested high school students will be allowed to pick Spanish as an elective course in their secondary studies. However, only those that perform well in class will be allowed to take the elective.

Requirement

“We cannot make it a requirement for all the students to take up Spanish. If the student doesn’t perform well in English or Filipino, you can’t expect them to do well in Spanish. So it is better that it just an elective, for the students to decide,” said Borgonia.

However, plans for the integration of the Spanish language in the curriculum are still in the early stages, he said.

“We are still preparing for it. Nothing has been made clear. Right now, we still need a task force that will draw up plans to have Spanish taught as an elective (subject) in secondary schools across the country,” he said.

An earlier DepEd memorandum called for the integration of Spanish in the curriculum for the current school year. However nobody took charge of the program.

Borgonia said they were hoping to fully implement the endeavor this time around.

“It will be done on a pilot basis. Not all schools will immediately implement it. It will be one school per region at first,” he said.
In order to effectively teach Spanish, public school teachers will be taught by Spanish teachers.

“Through that, we will have teachers who have the competencies to speak and teach Spanish. By effectively teaching students Spanish, teachers will be able to help students get a sense of history,” Borgonia said.

“The students get a good sense of history. And also, by learning Spanish, it is a good tool for industry and business for the students in the future,” he added.

Our professor have told us that Spanish subject before has 24 units, but based in our curriculum in this generation, we only have 3 units.

And now, they’re trying to bring Spanish subject back, not just in universities but also in high schools. What for? They say Spanish is also a really useful language because when you go abroad most of the people also knows how to speak the language, most commonly in Europe.