If you’re reading this with your morning coffee and pandesal, let me make one last pitch for you to finish your breakfast, get changed and go to your polling place and VOTE. Whoever your candidates are, a vote cast is a vote for the country.
Whether you were an active campaigner or a passive observer, whatever color your wardrobe for the past few months consisted of, casting your ballot today is the most patriotic thing you can do. Whether you received money or not (pardon my cynicism), I hope you will vote your conscience, vote for those you truly believe will best serve the people.
If you’re up to it, go to your city hall,or municipio and watch the canvassing of votes, just to complete the full voting experience. There have been repeated calls for vigilance, to make sure votes are properly counted and canvassed, so — without casting aspersions on the integrity of the Comelec and the teachers serving as election officers — let us protect our votes all the way.
Hopefully by tomorrow or the day after the winners of Election 2022 will be known. Some will rejoice and celebrate; others will not be happy and there will be calls for protest, accusations of cheating… As they say, no one loses in a Philippine election but was cheated.
While all this is expected, I hope it will not reach fever pitch and turn ugly. The calls for unity and putting differences aside may sound like cliches, but we really must go beyond election mode; we have to go back to our lives without politics, we have to work hard to recover from the ravages of COVID-19 not just in the economy but in our own states of well-being — mentally, emotionally, relationally.
File protests if they are warranted, demand accountability for transgressions and wrongdoing and follow through on them…all within the bounds of the law and due process. It’s tedious of course and sometimes seems like a total waste of time and effort, but that is our democratic system — no shortcuts please.
The day after must really be a new day. Let’s not squander our future. — Lilianna Santos, Makati City