CHAOTIC

I was physically exhausted, my ears swelling from election reports of teachers with ballots hidden in their clutch bags. I myself saw the tallies on the municipal blackboard: “1,000 — Tingting.” When I returned, I read, on the same board: “10.” That was termed “erroneous counting” during the canvassing of votes like that of a precinct of 167 registered voters and miraculously, 214 ballots were cast. Wasn’t that vote padding?

Chaotic is the word that describes the political scene in Tarlac in 1998. Losers and winners traded accusations of vote-buying, cheating and bribing. But that was countrywide, too.

All of the above is not to be taken lightly because such actions interfere with a person’s freedom of thought and deed. Who’s to be blamed? Is it the buyer who thrives on money, intimidation by armed civilians and men in uniform, harassment of precinct watchers, ballot switching filled with the names and scores of candidates, or simply poverty? 

All of these plus manipulation of teachers as members of the board of election inspectors that’s the BEI’s and the Board of Canvassers are suspect, accepting political persuasion perfected every three years in spite of would-be charges and counter-charges of dagdag-bawas, dagdag-lipat and court cases. These days, with the Picos machines, there’s still the fear of manipulation in the transmitting of election results from the precinct up to the national level. Why? Because communication towers have been constructed taller than Smartmatics.

Of all the many charges that cropped up in that post-election assessment before the turn of the century to 2000, vote-buying still tops the long list. In barangay Balete next to our barrio Alto, I saw the kapitan during my surprise visit two nights before election. His name was Laderas, who incidentally ended up with a bullet in his head.

I was curious about the long line that led to his house from the barangay road. I dared tread into a villain’s den. The table Laderas was working on almost fell over as he covered its top with his arms. I accused him and for once he kept mum. His spunk was gone! But whoever heard of buyers and sellers jailed for this election offense? I have known teachers charged in court for siding with particular candidates. Though the insinuations are glaring, in the final analysis the culprits always go free, untainted after committing the fraud, ready to commit again in the next years the same injustice and be a part of any diabolical plot to rig the next elections. These so-called servants of the government mock the foundations of choice and democracy.

How shocked and confused I was when three teachers approached me then. Two Yaps were running, and Noynoy and me. One of the public school teachers told me in my living room in Tarlac, “Your opponent has given us P3 million in a box and it is in my house.” She has since retired as a schoolteacher. Her reputation was that of an astute manipulator. Thank God, she’s gone. But somebody else by hereditary rites must have taken her place!

I asked many questions and her answer was, “Only one of you can win. You or Noynoy, as we have relayed the same to Congressman Yap. It’s either him or his son. Not both.” To continue, she said, “You can decide now. Counting resumes in 30 minutes.” 

I decided then that it was I who would give in. Such was my fate, concluded by teachers, mightier than God. It reminded me of what Cardinal Sin said to my husband during EDSA I: “Peping, leave some things for God to do.” That was God’s will?

Part of elections has always been how to combat this methodical nemesis that hounded even Ninoy Aquino and Cory Aquino during their lifetimes. No one can seem to win over manipulators so that courting them way ahead of time is better than one can ever think.

Every candidate must remember that gratitude is a rare virtue in public service that well-meaning officials don’t experience. We’ve endured knowing that because we never made a living off politics, so the returns were never good. I have become cynical after serving and sometimes give up maternal politics hounded by frustrations. I see what is visible. Those who endure accumulate so much wealth to build their family houses and acquire commodities and use people like pawns on chessboards. 

“What is happening to our teachers and electoral processes?” voters ask. That question has been uttered so many times. As goes our lives, so goes our country.

Having new leaders will be a promise of a better tomorrow. I pray, I pray. I know, as a mother and public servant, what we need is not to look at someone else to improve our plight, but to look at ourselves and find out what we can do, individually and collectively, to bring our nation toward national progress. I agree that by resorting to our Filipino values, one of them being pagkabayani, we can all move the country forward, hindi labis, hindi kulang, with the principle of moderation. It could bring morality in governance and improve the lot of our people.

Pagkakaisa, unity, solidarity must be utilized to define our future. Pakikisama and pakikipagkapwa-tao means to treat others as you treat yourself.

A warning: “Filipino values are ambivalent in the sense that they are a potential for good or evil, a help or hindrance to personal and national development, depending on how they are understood, practiced or lived by. But if your teachers did their job, you would have been taught how to serve and tell the good from the bad.”

The Filipino values utang na loob can lead to paki-usap, nepotism and cronyism and their abuse could lead to class distinction or the “malakas-mahina system” or the palakasan system.

How now? We need competitive, critical thinkers, and acting individuals to assume leadership roles with flexibility in any community to contribute to the realization of our Filipino identity with a strong sense of national pride, inculcating moral and spiritual foundations; if we stopped wishing and started willing and doing and convincing voters their true voice might be heard, these voices would be counted and respected!

Of course there’s still the unresolved issue of who gets the 11th senate slot. There will be charges and counter-charges of dagdag-bawas, dagdag-lipat. But in the end, as our national consciousness has proven in the past the biggest loser of all is the Filipino people. For example, the employee who slaves well beyond office hours and still finds prices way above his salary; the mother who must constantly worry about the safety of her children; the soldier whose wounds have barely healed and who must once again go off to war to fight in the same land against the same enemy; the overseas worker and the expatriate who shake their heads in disgust when the BBC and CNN flash updates on hostage situations.

What is happening to our world? Once, the only thing people were fighting for was their freedom. These days we are battling against everything. Poverty. Political instability. Terrorism. Drugs and teen immorality.

Our collective sanity is being pushed to the brink by all the chaos that permeates our lives. From the national troubles to the everyday tragedies we see in the streets and in families.

The question we now must ask is, “How much more can we take?” The Filipino can take plenty because he continuously strives to be his best for himself for his early advancement because the government can’t do it alone. It needs honest, well-meaning, never devious citizens and lawmakers to move us into dignity in every station of our careers.