Mong Palatino

I should not get all the praise for the many victories achieved by Kabataan Partylist this year. I have to recognize the bigger contributions of our officers, personnel, and members throughout the country. I am also blessed for having a superb and hardworking staff. Let me introduce the cool and intelligent Congress staff of Kabataan Partylist….

@adarna. Her name is Sarah Maramag, our Chief of Staff. She is a prolific writer and an outstanding political activist. She wrote for the Philippine Collegian during her undergrad years. She used to be a national staff officer of Anakbayan and College Editors Guild. Like me, she is a big fan of Eat Bulaga. She is afraid of cats.

@glygotiangco. She was president of the PUP Student Council during Edsa Dos. We were contemporaries in the National Union of Students. She is part of the People’s Chorale, an activist cultural group. She is our political affairs officer. She is single and very happy at the moment.

@jose. Jose Cosido is a former president of the College Editors Guild. He designed many of our official campaign materials. He is our projects officer. Jose recently figured in a Facebook “incident” but I think the evidence has been deleted.

@jmragaza. JM Ragaza is our media officer. He is also our website admin. Aside from writing our press statements, JM drafted two of my privilege speeches. JM loves to watch movies but he walks out every time the movie sucks. Case in point, JM didn’t finish the film screening of New Moon at SM.

@eightyseas. Airah Cadiogan is our legislative officer. She prepares interpellation guides, issue briefers, and committee spot reports. She wrote most of the bills and resolutions we filed this year. Airah spent two years in South Korea as an exchange student. Her love life is always a mystery.

@bikoy. Victor Villanueva is our researcher and legislative officer. He drafts bills and resolutions, plenary manifestations, and issue primers. He is an award-winning and famous blogger. Bikoy should start a food and travel blog.

@paul. Ka Paul is my close-in security. He is a veteran activist. He is now a lolo. Congrats!

@bern. Tito Bern is our driver. He is the oldest member of @kabataancrew. I consider him as part of my family. His laing recipe is the best.

@mongster. This is me. I often tweet my political activities. Through twitter, I share the url links of excellent and interesting web articles. I also announce new blog posting through twitter. Via SMS, I tweet while inside the plenary hall of Congress. I plurk my personal activities. I rarely open my Friendster and Facebook accounts.

Officially, I’m the boss since I’m the congressman. But this title is conveniently overlooked inside our office because we are all activists. Besides, halos magkakasing-edad kaming lahat. Pantay-pantay kami sa opisina. My advantage is that I have the biggest table and I don’t answer the phone.

This is how our office operates on a regular session day: Everybody scans the online news in the morning. We email news stories that are related to our work. We also email new updates from google alerts for Kabataan Partylist. We report for work before lunch. We arrive at 9:30am if there is a committee hearing in the morning. Airah or Bikoy prepares a summary of issues to be tackled in the committee. JM drafts a press release. Sarah will review these papers. Gly ensures the completion of administrative and political tasks inside the office. We meet to collectively discuss our position, statement, and tactics. Then I attend the plenary session at 4:00pm or 5:00pm to hobnob with the rich and powerful. The session highlights will be livetweeted by our staff. Around 7:30pm, one of the members of @kabataancrew will accompany me in the lounge for a light dinner.

I will let @venzie, the party secretary-general, to introduce our HQ staff. But I have to mention Anna and Carl, two of the founding members of Kabataan Partylist.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am and is filed under congress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.