Presidential candidates on the campaign trail

(10 Feb 2004)
1. Philippine presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. with running mate Loren Legarda on stage at rally to launch election campaign
2. Wide shot of cheering crowd in auditorium - pans
3. Wide shot of Poe on stage with crowd
4. Supporters in audience shouting (English): "F-P-J (Fernando Poe Jr.)"
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Fernando Poe Jr., Philippine presidential candidate:
"We need a leadership that will apply the rule of law. We need a leadership that has political will. We need a leadership that inspires confidence, not fear (crowd cheers)."
6. Wide shot of Poe and fellow campaigners on stage with ticker tape falling
7. Close-up of Poe
8. Presidential candidate Raul Roco at school campus - zooms in on Roco with arms raised in air
9. Crowd watching
10. Roco walking through crowd shaking hands - pans

STORYLINE:

Election posters went up and candidates addressed their first rallies as the traditionally festive - and often violent - Philippine presidential campaign opened on Tuesday.

The May 10 poll promises to be the most contentious since the 1986 snap election that led to the downfall of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and restoration of democracy, according to local media.

The main rival to incumbent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is movie star Fernando Poe Jr. who kicked off his campaign at an indoor stadium in Manila's Pasay district packed with about 20-thousand supporters.

Poe's spokesman said the event, with its giant video screens and fellow celebrities was "tailored for television".

The actor is a 64-year-old high school dropout who is courting mostly poor voters who helped elect his friend and fellow film star, Joseph Estrada in 1998.

Poe says he wants to restore confidence in government.

But he's said very little of his programme and has avoided media questions, raising concerns over his lack of inexperience.

Currently lying in third place in voters surveys is prominent former Senator Raul Roco.

He opened his campaign in a more subdued style, spending time with university students in the capital.

Roco served as Arroyo's education secretary before the two fell out.

He has a clean reputation and has fared well in popularity surveys, but lacks the backing of traditional political parties.

The elections are already off to a bad start.

A multi-million (m) U-S-dollar scandal has scuttled plans to use computers for the first time to speed up - and clean up - the ballot count.

Notoriously slow hand-counting, which has fostered vote-rigging and violence in the past, will be used again instead.

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