What would you ask the Senate bets?

MANILA, Philippines – You’re at least 18 years old, first time voter in 2013, and you intend to set aside the candidate’s glossy political ads and see if they’ve got something between their ears and your interest at heart.

You place them under scrutiny – “pagsusuri,” we say in Filipino.

That’s what the University of the Philippines Student Council in Diliman and other campus organizations will be doing on Thursday, January 17, in the first of a series of debates among senatorial candidates.

At least 9 senatorial candidates from various political parties will debate electoral reforms, foreign affairs, and economic issues as they affect the youth voters.

The Thursday event will be held from 1-5 p.m. at the Malcolm Hall Theater at the College of Law in UP Diliman.

Rappler, as media partner, will be live blogging the debate (http://bit.ly/elections2013), while the university’s radio station, DZUP (1602 kHZ on the AM band), will be live streaming it.

The series of debates, called “Ang Pagsusuri,” is part of Tatak Botante, a voters’ education project by UP student organizations and the Commission on Elections.

Candidates will be asked questions on:

• Electoral reforms: political dynasties, campaign finance, party list system.
• Foreign affairs: disputed territories, Visiting Forces Agreement, overseas Filipino workers.
• Economic issues: relaxing the 60-40 ownership of businesses, oil deregulation.

What would you ask them? You may tweet your questions to @rapplerdotcom using the hashtags #PHvote and #AngPagsusuri.

Find out what happened during first leg of the debate here (or click here to view the live blog in its old format):

– Rappler.com