It is difficult to decide on whom to vote for because the candidates we have out there all carry a “baggage.” They don’t have strong leadership qualities. Worst, they each have ‘issues’ to reconcile with. Two weeks to go and here we are forced to decide who amongst them is the lesser of all evils; is the least corrupt; is the most efficient; and who will be selfless enough to “think of the country and the Filipinos.”
I notice that many of the alta sociedad or high society individuals choose their candidates based on their connections. In other words, the candidate who they will benefit from the most. Many may disagree with me but this is the trend I see nowadays.
The masa or the low-income (or who have no income at all) voters choose a candidate based on the promises made to them. They believe everything the candidate says on the entablado (or the stage) even if they are empty promises. They are easily thrilled and amused by the candidates dancing and singing. And when the show is over, they are given food and drinks to fill-up their empty stomachs. As they leave the arena, a brown envelope is given with a cash gift which seals the deal. The candidate who throws the best ‘party’ serving the best food and giving the best show wins their vote. Such voters live in squatter colonies. Government officials and political dynasties protect them so that they can manipulate, exploit and influence them when a need (such as this election period) arises.
Then you have the hardworking blue-collar workers and middle class. They are literate enough to know that they are being fooled. They are the ones affected with poor government services. And right now they are frustrated and mad on how P-Noy’s administration managed the country for these past years. As F. Sionil Jose (National Artist for Literature) wrote about the sudden rise of Davao City Mayor Duterte in the presidential race, “If Duterte wins the election, his victory will be brought about by millions of Filipinos fed up with corruption at all levels of our society, and frustrated that the gains of the Aquino administration do not translate into their improved welfare and safety. The Duterte vote is the voice of angry Filipinos.”
Another group of voters are those who join a bandwagon creating a block vote (where an organization decides on a candidate) like the Iglesia Ni Cristo or the Jesus is Lord group. These voters don’t think, they follow.
Gone are the days when you have voters who fight for a cause and stand by it. I guess this is impossible because the choices of leaders we have nowadays are limited. The days of chivalry are long gone. Our leaders today do not necessarily stand for what is right but what they want to think is right even if it is wrong. The party system is weakened by the candidates’ personal interest.
Two weeks before the election and we notice realignments among parties. Politicians have started to jump ship and hang on to those who seem to be winning the fight. What matters most is that they keep their “connection” to the winner. Loyalty doesn’t seem to count anymore these days. Politicians may call it “survival of the fittest,” but observers, and thinking voters simply look at it as sinister acts that indicate what kind of leaders we will have come proclamation day.
As these politicians flock from one candidate to another, we notice the resurgence of the balimbings (the traitors, just like a balimbing fruit which has many sides). These politicians or even political dynasties spread themselves so thinly always wanting to be sure they have landed on the safe side as the father supports one party, the brother another, the aunt another and the rest is history.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Politicians have begun the war of words, throwing bombs, explosives to one another. They are all out there with a vengeance hoping against hope that they get that power to rule over this nation which they will ultimately destroy.
My very close friend, veteran writer and biographer Nelson Navarro expressed the emotions we are going through in his blog: I will be glad when all this election madness is over. Watching people try to stave off defeat, especially those with a lot to answer for and crimes they have to account for, exasperates and amuses me no end. Everybody is trigger-happy, unleashing bomb after bomb, carpet-bombing style, and heedless of collateral damage to those who may just happen to be in the way. War-frenzy to the max, if you please, the sort that brings out the very worse in people who ought to know better and behave like God-fearing people they profess to be. I can only imagine the day after the dust settles and the loudest mouths will have to shut up and slink away someplace to lick wounds, hopeful that those they ran over will forget or be kind, that ‘balimbing’ culture will reign as it always has in this unfortunate land. Seeing people lacerate each other, indeed friends heaping abuse on each other with impunity, serves as a lesson of what not to do even in your darkest and most aggrieved moments. What does it profit you to win any contest and be the lowest kind of human being you could ever be? There are no angels in politics, true, but self-righteousness, next to outright lies, is the most grievous fault of all. Good manners I don’t expect, just fairness and a dash of humility. I am most appalled by sanctimonious heirs of corrupt dynasties passing judgment on more recent alleged thieves, as if grandparents who were first on the public troughs got their filthy billions straight from God, if not, the violins please, honest labor. The rot is stinkiest at the top but we put the onus and scorn on the plebos down the totem pole. Hence, it will take a long, long time to redeem our country after so many years of elections run like basketball or cockfights, ‘sa pula sa puti,’ which of course can be rigged and, in any case, the results do not really bring any real change to the country. The excess of passion and fighting spirit only benefits the sponsors, promoters and patrons of the game – like the Roman emperors tossing bread and circuses and depravity on the mob. The rest of us are entertained. If we do condescend to partake of the spectacle to drive boredom away, and, if wily enough, win bets to feel it has not been a waste of time.
This is the Philippines. This is a manifestation of our broken past. The political culture is still barbaric. Although it may seem like a festive, colorful and lively occasion to the outside world, it is a sorrowful, distressing, heartbreaking, sad and sorry state we are truly in. We need to wake up and start changing from within.