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Here are the also-rans for the 2007 Philippine Twerp of the Year (see previous post to get the full story). In other words, here are those who might have garnered the title.

* Antonio Trillanes IV
He could have used his stature as a senator to effect change in the governance of the country. Yet, he squandered this opportunity and trashed the millions of votes that made him a senator when he chose to try to lead an uprising against the government. Many believe in his cause to discredit the Arroyo regime, but not his methods which always carry the specter of violence. Now, he may spend his time, not on the Senate floor, but mopping a prison floor.

* Teofisto Guingona
He showed his mettle when he was a Senator. He was highly respected during the impeachment of former President Joseph Estrada. He was widely cheered when he bravely withstood water cannons trying to stop a peace rally he was leading that was passing through Mendiola. Yet, when he joined Trillanes at the ill-fated stand-off at the Manila Peninsula hotel, people merely shook their heads. Many felt that Guingona should have long retired from politics, remained a statesman and done something more meaningful to uplift the plight of Filipinos. His misadventure with Trillanes was seen as an ambitious albeit subtle move to be President of the country should Trillanes’ coup succeed.

* Benjamin Abalos
Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman, found himself smack at the center of two controversies. One, elections fraud in Mindanao; the other, a bribery scandal which also involved stories of romps with Chinese maidens. Because of the latter, he was forced to give up his Comelec Chair. Yet, he loudly vowed to fight for his innocence no matter where it took him. However, to this day he remains deafly silent. Better to just fade away spending those millions and having memories of Chinese virgins.

* Joseph Estrada
He remained defiant about his innocence even if he was found guilty of plunder which meted him life imprisonment. He at first refused a Presidential pardon because he professed that the Arroyo government was illegitimate. To accept a pardon would thus admit to its legitimacy. Later, however, faced with the reality of spending the rest of his life in a stinky, overcrowded, prison cell, he changed his mind and accepted the pardon. Perhaps someone along the way whispered to him that he would be able to do more to try to topple the government if he’s free.

And our all-time favorite,
* Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Should we really explain why?

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Every year-end the writers of philiblogs.com put their heads together and compile a list of the Top Ten Twerps of the year in the Philippines. Since we’re all getting lazier each year, we’ve decided, starting this year-end, to just name a single Philippine Twerp of the Year. So, without much ado (don’t you just hate that phrase?), philiblogs.com gives you the 2007 Philippine Twerp of the Year:

GLOBE BROADBAND

And here’s why:

Globe Broadband’s service has been, to say the least, erratic for months now, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao regions. They not only have been giving their subscribers slow connections, but at times no connections at all and even lasting for more than a day.

When you call up support, you’re immediately fed with a recorded message weakly explaining that network restoration is ongoing and that the system will normalize "in the soonest possible time" (which actually can be from now until Armageddon). Because you’ve been hearing that same recording for months now, you’re thought is, "How long is this restoration going to take?"

So you’d rather speak to a real human voice to get the real score. However, when a live techie goes on the line, guess what? He/she merely reads the transcribed form of the recorded explanation!

When you try to delve deeper into what the cause of the problem is, they don’t know. When you ask when can you hope for the connection to return, they also don’t know. You feel like you’re a senator in an inquiry interrogating Iggy Arroyo. You’re just not getting any answers!

Thus, instead of being comforted, you get infuriated. Having nothing else to say, all the techie will utter is, "We’re really sorry for the inconvenience," like a broken record (I refuse to say anything that would incriminate me, senator).

The least Globe Broadband could do is to somehow let someone from higher management communicate with subscribers and detail what is the cause of the problem, what they’re doing about it and when is the estimate time of complete restoration.

They can do this through a print ad, through snail mail, e-mail or even telephone. But they choose to scrimp on expenses, remain quiet and leave the subscriber in the dark. Instead, they would rather feed a recorded message or techies reading the script of the recorded message.

Then you start to see all these slick advertisements on TV on how wonderful Globe Broadband is, plus marketing tents cropping up all over the place where sales reps talk about the technology of Globe Broadband; and you just know the costs of these can run up to hundreds of thousands of pesos a month.

Yet, they do little to satisfy the demands of their current customers.

Globe Broadband gives new meaning to the term, "customer service."

For this it is given the distinguished title of "2007 Philippine Twerp of the Year!"

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