Time to reconcile, forgive and move on

The elections are over. The winners have been proclaimed. It is time to heal the nation and move on as one people, with one goal and one purpose.

The times of bitter political campaigns are over. The days and weeks of antagonism, adversarial and confrontational electoral contests are done. It is time to clean up our surroundings, set aside our partisanship, forgive our opponents, and start a new life of forward-looking and positive-thinking attitude. All painful words had been uttered against the opponents, all nasty issues had been raised, all serious charges had been hurled. Now, the entire electoral process is finished. The winners had been proclaimed, the losers have been informed. The people must bow down to the will of the majority. It is not always the good guys who win. It is not always the more qualified who prevail. But that was how the cookie crumbles. There should be an end to the bitter contest. The losers must accept defeat. It is time to move on.

I recall in history that when Don Sergio Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party lost by a few thousands vote to a fellow Visayan, Don Manuel A. Roxas, of the Liberal Party, as the president of the Philippines to replace the late Manuel L. Quezon, our grand of man of Cebu, Don Sergio, called Don Manuel and conceded to Roxas even when all the votes were not yet totally canvassed. Such gentlemanly act of statesmanship resulted to the cooling down of the atmosphere of heated antagonism among all their respective supporters. That was done by Don Sergio despite the fact that Roxas attacked him bitterly during the campaign. Roxas used to be a NP party mate of Don Sergio but bolted their party when Roxas lost to Osmeña in a clean Nacionalista convention. Roxas did not accept his defeat in the convention and founded the LP.

Don Sergio gave us a lasting example of political dignity, “delicadeza” and the character of a truly dignified public official. It is unfortunate that in our generation we are not seeing a lot of such gestures anymore. After the elections, we should have the character of Don Sergio in accepting the will of the people. The candidate's victory is not as important as the verdict of the majority of the voting electorate. The voice of the people as expressed through the ballot is accepted by the losers as the will of God. That is what our society lacks today. We are a nation which is gradually losing our national soul. We are a people who are silently losing our moral fibers and sense of rectitude.

It is now time for winners to reach out to the losers and for losers to congratulate the winners. There is an end to the electoral process. It is not elections every day. Thus neighbors must reconcile with neighbors. Relatives must come together again after they supported different candidates during the polls. Elections are temporary but friendships and blood relations are forever, or almost forever. It is time to forgive, to reconcile and to heal. And we should move on as one people and one nation. We cannot move forward with bitterness in our hearts. We cannot be productive and healthy if we still carry the burdens of anger, spite and vow of revenge.

Power and influence, positions and victories are all temporary. What matter most are our sense of dignity, our peace and our happiness for the rest of our life. We can only attain these if we know how to forgive and move one with joy and gratitude in our hearts.