There is still hope

Today marks the start of the official campaign period for candidates running for local government positions from provincial governors, vice governors, congressmen, to city or municipal mayors, vice mayors, board members and councilors. Actually even before today, these candidates have already been promoting themselves and letting the people know that they are running for various local elective offices because the Supreme Court allowed them to do so in its ruling in the Penera case. But starting today they are already subject to the campaign rules and may be disqualified for breach thereof. In other words, they are allowed to play even before game time but once the buzzer sounds the official start of the game, they have to abide by the rules at the risk of being thrown out by the referee which is the COMELEC.

Of special interest are the local elections in Quezon City, where a big number of residents are from the middle class, including our family. Indeed the city is the birthplace of all our sons who have learned to love the place and to serve the people in the community. One of them, Jopet Sison, already served as 4th district city councilor for two terms until a higher and more profound calling in public service beckoned. This coming election, his brother Joel Sison also decided to run for councilor in the 4th district and blaze the same trail of public service to QC residents taken by Jopet.

Undoubtedly, the game of politics in this country has become so rough and dirty. The campaign for votes is now centered more on the persons of the candidates and less on their platforms and programs of government. Candidates sell themselves to the voters rather than their plans and policies if elected. The worst part here is that in selling themselves, candidates employ deceptive and false propaganda in a brazen attempt to fool the electorate into voting for them. Politics is really one game that a great number of people would rather not play. In fact the longstanding joke is that if you want to lose friends and gain new enemies, convince them to enter politics.

But when my son Joel Sison initially brought up this idea of entering politics, there was no vehement objection on my part anymore. Firstly, because I usually do not interfere with or make decisions for my sons, but merely advise and guide them. And more importantly because I thought that if we want reforms in our government and society, or corrections on the perceived wrongs in our politics, we cannot attain it by staying on the sidelines fence sitting, and just keep on criticizing and heckling. We have to plunge into it and perhaps feel the dirt before we can prove that it can be cleaned and played the right way. Hence I did not stop Joel at all when he decided to run for councilor in the 4th district of QC. On the contrary I have decided to help him all the way to the extent of conducting house to house campaign for and in his behalf.

I still believe that our kind of politics can be changed for the better so that it will be shorn of its dirty connotations. But this change cannot happen overnight. It must be undertaken pragmatically in small measures, one small step after another, starting from the bottom up. And the very first step is to conduct a campaign strictly according to the spirit and intention, not merely according to the letter of the election laws and rules, with all their loopholes and varied connotations. 

Hence in the coming elections, Joel and his campaign staff and supporters have seen to it that no campaign materials will be distributed and no campaign posters will be put up before the start of the campaign period, even if most of the other candidates are already cluttering every nook and corner of the city with such stuff just to drill their names into the voters’ minds. They have also ensured that at the start of the campaign period, campaign posters are to be put up only at areas allowed by law and that voters’ solicitation of temporal assistance should only be met if they are urgent and vital. Their idea is to conduct the campaign and win the election mainly through personal introduction, rapport and direct contacts with the voters, promoting specific plans and programs; rather than through use of deceptive propaganda materials and marketing strategies merely promoting name recall.

But aside from reforming our politics and the conduct of campaigning, Joel Sison decided to run for councilor in the 4th district of QC after looking at the city’s political configuration and realizing that the greater number of the city’s legitimate residents are not interested in the election and therefore do not participate in running the city’s governmental affairs. In the 4th district alone, about 70 percent of the voting population comes from the A, B, and C sector while 30 percent comes from the D and E group. But in the past elections, only about 30 percent in the ABC class went out and voted while there was a 90% turn out of voters in the DE sector. Hence to have a government that is truly representative of the legitimate residents, the middle class’ interest and participation in the elections must be aroused. And this can be done by giving them a rallying point which is precisely what Joel and his group is trying to do by introducing politics with principles and proposing reforms designed to further promote the residents’ interest and welfare.

To be sure, there are many young, idealistic candidates all over the Philippines who are running for office with pure and noble intentions of rendering genuine public service. They are the ones who somehow instill in us the feeling that there is still hope for our country. Let us not fail them.

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