The contenders and voters

As the deadline for the filing of candidacy for 2022 elections draws very near, we are seeing more publicly announcing their bid for various positions.

Of course, the focus is on those who are vying to be president of the Philippines.

To date, Ping Lacson, Manny Pacquiao, and lately, Isko Moreno have publicly announced their candidacy.

Many are asking whether Vice President Leni Robredo will also decide to run for president of this country. The daughter of Duterte still has to officially confirm her bid.

Until the October deadline, however, it is still a wait-and-see situation. By November, the final official candidates will finally be confirmed.

With politics in the Philippines so dramatic, comedic, or abused, will there still be a switching/last minute giving way of official candidates to alternate candidates until May?

Or even when the official election results are out, will there also be a resignation or withdrawal of winning candidates in favor of alternates?

Like any soap opera, everyone in this country will have to go on abangan or itutuloy (to be continued) mode until the next officials will take their oath.

There is also no guarantee, though, that those who will take their oaths are the truly, genuinely, honestly elected officials.

Until then, the voters can seriously use the waiting time to register, then to pray, discern, and decide who they want to lead this country and for what reasons, and/or proceed to campaign and vote for their choices.

As a nation, from now and until next year, we can also go on prayer mode for genuine, clean, honest, peaceful elections of true servant-leaders.

CNN shared a profile of 61,843,750 registered voters in the Philippines culled from Commission on Elections data (please note though that the total number of voters will change once the registration period will officially close).

Of the present registered voters, 51.45% are women (30,026,953).

About 30.48% of the total registered (18,847,230) are within ages 18-29.

Senior citizens constitute more than nine million of these voters.

Geographically, more than half are in Luzon (55.94% or 34,596,884), about 20.71% in the Visayas (12,806,842) and 23.35% in Mindanao (14,440,024).

Calabarzon is the region with the most number of voters.

Three of the top 10 vote-rich provinces are in the Visayas, the remaining seven are in Luzon. If combined, these 10 top most vote-rich provinces have about 30.98% of all voters.

Cebu is the most vote-rich province (more than three million votes) followed by Cavite (about 2.1+M votes), Pangasinan (about 1.95+M votes), Laguna (about 1.9+M votes), Negros Occidental (about 1.89+M votes), Bulacan ( about 1.86+M votes), Batangas (about 1.7+M votes), Rizal ( about 1.6+M votes), Iloilo (about 1.5+M votes), and Nueva Ecija (about 1.46+M votes).

For sure, candidates and political parties have noted and will soon be guided by the updated voters’ profile for their campaign.

Among the present candidates for president, Pacquiao is from Mindanao while Lacson and Moreno are from vote-rich Luzon.

Should Duterte’s daughter declare her candidacy, Mindanao vote could be divided between her and Manny. Vice President Leni is from Bicol, part of vote-rich Luzon.

Lacson and Pacquiao are senators at present while Moreno is mayor of the City of Manila. They can all claim they have adequate political experience to lead the country as president.

Should Pacquiao win, this will be the first time a boxing champion will become president of this country. Joseph Estrada, a former movie actor, had earlier crossed over as president. Perhaps, Moreno had Erap in mind when he decided to run for president?

Shall we expect more political drama or comedy from here on?

Seriously though, shall we fervently pray for God to ensure the election of genuine servant-leaders for our country?