Join the new world

Well, my friends, it's time for an election again. It's the Presidential elections in just a couple of days, and after my absence from ePhilippines after my first Presidency, it seems clear to me that I can't simply walk away from a country like this, and definitely not as it is. I feel that I've grown too close to the ePhilippines. It's long since become my eHome. I've already walked myself back into our congress, where I feel at home, and my beautiful MoFA position, not to mention returning, at least for now, to the Party Presidency of the party I founded here, the Philippines Health Party. When I was President, I had always hoped to achieve a second term at some point in time. Unfortunately, the month of March was a very busy one for me in Real Life, and real life must come first to a game. Therefore, I was happy to leave the Presidency to another who was ready and able to take the post. This ended up going to my good friend CruelBear. However, now that I have returned in full regard, and am able to be more active than I have ever been in my career in the Philippines, I feel that this is the month to make good on that second term goal. I have many plans to work on the well-being of the ePhilippines, and I hope that all of you voters will agree with my plans, and will be willing to elect me for my second tenure in office.

Experience

From This:


To This:


As a start off to my article, I thought it would be fitting to show you all a (not so) short list of my expeirence within the New World, in the ePhilippines and otherwise.

2x Congressman from Australia (Tasmania)
1x Congressman from South Korea (Jeollobuk-do)
4x Congressman from The Philippines (3x from Palawan, 1x from Visayas)
Former Vice President-Philippines
Former President-Philippines
Former Deputy Speaker of Congress-Philippines
Former Speaker of Congress-Philippines
Former MoFA-South Korea (Short Tenure in this office-Resigned to return to Philippines)
Former/Current MoFA-Philippines (currently in 4th term in Office.)
Former Ambassador to Israel-Australia
Current General of the Philippines Army
Founder of the Philippines Health Party
5xParty President the Philippines Health Party (nonconsecutive)

As you can see, I am one of the most experienced and prominent citizens in the Philippines today. However, of course, an experienced player isn't always everything. Now on to my full platform.

V2

The biggest focus for many countries these days is the imminent switch to V2. With no technical “official” release date, the new system may be announced to begin at any time, and those countries that are well-prepared will gain an advantage over those that are not. We cannot allow ourselves to fall behind. As such, I have already been speaking with players from around the world on what possible strategies we should undertake in preparing for the tumultuous times of V2. Some of these ideas will be sprinkled throughout this article, with names cited where I can, when the idea is not mine, or not solely mine. Secondly, I would like to create a small commission, comprising of the country's most active players, that will discuss any and all strategies that may be made and prepared for when V2 comes. This commission will stay in existence through the first months of V2, and will be decommissioned and made defunct as soon as the world, and more importantly the ePhilippines, has stabilized itself under the new workings of V2.

Foreign Affairs



As with every Campaign I've run before now, I feel that the Foreign Affairs department is my strong point. I have held many foreign affairs offices, and I feel that there is much to be accomplished in the coming month in this area. First thing is first: Sol is sick. It is little more than the wargames it began as. There have been improvements. As such, we need more interaction, and more improvement. As suggested in this article, I would support a more unified Core 4 (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and ourselves), as well as an increase in cooperation with China, Israel, and the other Sol Nations.

Outside of Sol, our foreign affairs appear to be stable, which is good. Improvements can always be searched for, but aside from an improvement within Sol, my minimum Foreign Affairs goal is to stick to the status quo, and gain advantage if opportunity presents itself.

Military



During my first campaign for Presidency of the Philippines, I openly admitted, on multiple occassions, that there was one weak spot in my eRepublik experience, and that was war and military. And, as Murphy's Law states, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and look at that, shortly after I am elected, there is a Declaration of War on behalf of our lovely pals Indonesia. And to top off this fact, just before that, we dealt with extensive land-swapping throughout Asia in order to protect China (Which, much to my own personal amusement, resulted in the temporary Keegan Knoll Empire of The Philippines, which varied in size throughout my Presidency).



Needless to say, I have now dealt with Military and War.

Now serving in the Position of General of The Army, I know how our Military functions now, and there have been discussions (As recently as one day ago) of changing the system slightly. These particulars, however, can be discussed at another time. However, the main component of my goal in Military terms is an increase in organization, efficiency, and activity. If at all possible, I will seek ways to keep the general populous informed of Military orders at any and all times. I hope to also find new, active, and trustworthy Commanding Officers. In addition to heading the Defense Department, our own Anarchist runs three of the five sections of Military, the others being run by current Vice President Jootli, and yours truly. Of course, Anarchist is more than exceptional at his jobs, but our lack of experienced and actively participating players causes those who are active to hold two or three titles at a time, sometimes. I openly encourage all players who are active and ready to get involved in this game to consider a Military path, if not many of the other opportunities that the Philippines can present.



Another military idea, the basis of which was provided by Niall H, and expanded upon by myself, correlates to both our preparation for V2, and my personal hopes of growing a closer and stronger connection with the rest of Sol. As any of you who have read the Admin's articles on the introduction of V2 know, the military system will be very different. Instead of the solitary form of weapon, there will be four: Tanks, Artillery, Helicopters, and rifles. Each of these weapons will have an advantage over one weapon, a weakness against one weapon, and be neutral towards one weapon. Because of this, if we focus our military to mandatory training in one of two opposing weapon types, then we will always have at least a neutral record overall against any opponents that choose to attack us or our allies. This sounds good, doesn't it? Well, it can be improved upon, pending some significant cooperation with other Sol nations. For an example, say that Malaysia trains solely in the two types of weapons that we never train in. Between our two armies, we can have an advantage against any kind of weapon, without cutting one small military from a country our size into four components. Or, alternatively, one will notice that I took note of the personal importance of Sol's “Core Four.” Well, there are four members of the Core Four. If those four members can designate their entire military to only one type of weapon, then we can have a total military between the sum of our parts, we will have a functional army with each form of weapon expertise, that is the size of each army combined. Of course, this four-country scenario is unlikely, but an interesting opportunity, nonetheless.

The most important part of military strategy, in terms of V2, at least, though, is to choose a direction, and stick to it. Suddenly changing which weapons a group should train with makes them more versatile individually, but weaker in each aspect.

Anti-PTO and “Party(less) Politics”



As anyone reading this that isn't brand new should know, one of the most troublesome possibilities in today's Philippines, is that of a Political Takeover. If one of our parties becomes lost to a PTO group, not only is one of our political groups displaced, but the PTO group gains a huge amount of power in takeover possibilities, including running a President to take control of the country. To prevent this, I hope to call upon all parties to be willing to designate some members to hold their votes as long as they can, and, assuming the safety of their own party, move (temporarily) to a party that is in danger of being taken over, and voting for the designated candidate (as there should only ever be ONE official candidate if the party comes under attack, for unity's sake). I similarly urge that if you see an untrustworthy candidate making it into congress, and a trusted eFilipino who could pass them with your vote, please vote for that citizen, regardless of party.

Economy



The economy, more than anything else, is in need of preparation for V2. One shining star in our shift to V2 is that Oil will continue to exist in V2, meaning our land and Moving Ticket Markets need not suffer due to the loss of oil as a source. However there will still be preparations to be made. In order to do this, we will, if possible, be stockpiling Gold for the shift to V2 (And screaming at Admin to give back Bayanihan, because that would help immensely, in this or any number of other goals.) Outside of V2 preparation, I also hope to work as hard as possible to prevent a drastic change in the exchange between gold and PHP. There have been recent market attacks, and we must work to make sure we can work through them if they come again. The eRepublik Stock Exchange is another interesting thing that has come into existence in only recent times. I propose that the Philippine government looks into the potential of investing small sums of gold to test out the market, and see if we can sustain some form of revenue from this new, interesting system. However, we cannot and will not risk large sums of money here, as putting too many tax dollars at risk could end painfully. Lastly, in terms of minimum wage, I will not change it. The reasons for this are obvious, however the possibility of changing the minimum wage has been presented before, and I would like to take here and now to assert that anyone who EVER wants to change it under the current system, and in all likelihood the new one, is wrong.

Closing Statements

And so it appears that my campaign article comes to a close. I hope that when election day comes, you'll vote for the best choice for you, whether that person is me or not. I certainly ope to do my best for the Philippines, in whatever capacity I can.