I’m looking at the social media feeds of my mates from the different presidential camps. Tomorrow is the official start of the campaign. I can see and feel their excitement, not just for their candidate, but more so for the next, grueling months ahead. I wish them all the best: good health and stay safe. 2004 was my last presidential campaign sortie.

PGMA launched her campaign in one of the towns up in the mountains overlooking Laguna Lake. I was one of the writers for a segment of the campaign called “Pulong Bayan,” a town-hall type of meeting people. The segment was focused entirely on PGMA and Kabayan Noli de Castro, the vice-presidential candidate. PGMA was running on a campaign of high, moral ascendancy, and launching it in a high peak overlooking Calabarzon was a great symbolic gesture.

Just like my mates who are beginning to start their deployment in all parts of the Philippines, back then, we where billeted in the Lake Caliraya resort cottages, the day before. That was the official start of my 3-months on the road from Thursday-Sunday because Monday-Wednesday I was still teaching.

I can vividly recall a presidential sortie in Dipolog on a Sunday, couldn’t fly back with most of the team because the PAF plane was already full, and I had a class Monday morning. That is another story. I’ve been involved with media projects from FVR (1992), Erap (1998), PGMA (2001). I’d say my first taste of a presidential election was in 1969, the Marcos-Lopez tandem, when I was a junior volunteer for Radyo Patrol. And that is another story.

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