GSD launches ‘100% Politics’ to raise level of political discussion

STARTING today, Gold Star Daily will be giving the major political parties in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental a platform to present their respective development plans and governance agenda.

“100% Politics,” which will be a regular feature in this paper’s opinion pages, is aimed at raising the level of issue-based and fact-based public discourse on matters of politics and governance by the competing political groups.

The space will allow the political groups to present their programs, agenda and arguments. But in the process of articulating their ideas, the groups are expected to keep with good taste and propriety, things that have been lost and which many no longer value in other public discussion platforms these days, particularly in social media where there has been an influx of meme-based political mudslingings and rabid trolling.

“This should prove to be interesting in that the different groups are expected to convince the public why they deserve to be supported and why the others are less deserving or undeserving,” this paper’s editor-in-chief, Herbie Gomez, said of the groundbreaking platform.

The Gold Star Daily has asked each of the political groups to choose their best writers and representatives who are not candidates to articulate their causes, advocacies, concerns, and take on issues of the day once a week.

The political groups — PDP-Laban’s Team OKKA, Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, National Unity Party, Centrist Democratic Party, and Padayon Pilipino  — have agreed and picked a day for their group columns.

“What and how they choose to make use of the democratic space we are giving them through their representatives is entirely up to them now. At the end of the day, readers will just have to judge for themselves which groups have better ideas, clearer direction and governance agenda or which groups are all trash and really have nothing to offer,” Gomez said.