Brutality of the Goddess

This coming elections has gotten me all fired up.  It will be the first of its kind that I’ll be taking part in, after all; and I am more than interested and more than serious to vote for the people whom I think can best represent me and who can give me what I deserve as a citizen of this fair country.  Never mind the fact that cheat bonanzas will be sporadic.  That’s given in Philippine politics.  The trick there is not to let it dampen your zest to have a say on how your country should be governed.

That being said, there are a few things that a lot of us ought to remember before we cast our votes.  For those of you who have been in and around the election process since goodness knows when, these sweet reminders may not necessarily be out-of-the-box-new.  For first time voters, well, you may have heard it before but then, it does pay to read through just incase you may have forgotten a few practical dos and don’ts of election time.

YOUR VOTES ARE NOT FOR

SALE

. Sadly, a lot of us have forgotten this bit—or to put it more appropriately, a lot of us play amnesia-victim when it comes to this.  But seriously, your right to vote has no price tag precisely because it’s not as cheap as you think it is.  No one ought to buy it because in principle, no one can afford it.  The right to vote is your official vanguard to all your other rights.  The act of someone offering you money in exchange for your vote is reason enough not to vote for him/her—he thinks you’re that cheap.  Selling it to some corrupt and selfish idiot who has an I.Q of a cretin is tantamount to selling your right to enjoy to the fullest the faculties of life.  You don’t deserve to endanger yourself.  And oh, my apologies to cretins.

BEWARE OF THE BECAUSE-OF-ME POLITICIAN.  Yes, they do exist beyond the TV screen and they may be living amongst us.  The Because-of-Me politician is, as the name implies, someone who claims that you owe him/her your vote because he/she believes that only he/she has been able to contribute a jillion things to society and that only he/she has made your life an iota better.  Here is a quintessential Because-of-Me politician line: “ Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala mo karoy pagkaon!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala tay taytayan!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala napaayo ning atong dalan!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, nag-ugod-ugod na sa kalisod ang atong nasod!”  should you come across someone of such nature, drop him/her from your list.  The old brag has failed to realize that, in the first place, it’s his/her job to serve the people and the fact that he ran for office means that he/she is willing to be a servant leader.  Second, he/she owes it to the people to do his/her job well considering that money used for his/her projects are tax payers’ money.  The money that he holds as his monthly salary comes from what you pay in taxes.  You deserve to get back in terms of quality services what you paid to the government in terms of taxes.  The reason why we have new infrastructure projects and probably social services is because of your efforts.  You do not owe your public servants anything.  They are the ones who owe you something.

DITCH MR./MS. POPULARITY.  Election time is a time to look for people who can sit in public office and assert our best interests as citizens while he/she is at it.  Ergo if someone runs for public office simply banking on his popularity—on his being famous (or infamous at that), drop him/her from the list.  Election time is not a popularity contest.  It’s serious business.  It can determine the progress of your country in the next three years or so.  Someone who banks on his/her popularity as his/her main reason for running should be tied up in a sack and smoked.  Clearly the person has no tangible plans for the people. He/she clearly has no platform to speak of and will only end up talking about him/herself and his/her family background stretching as far back as his/her ancestors during campaigns.  Now, that kind of speech isn’t even worth listening to.

SCRUTINIZE THE PLATFORM.  That is, if the candidate has a platform of government to begin with.  The platform consists of the candidate’s general program of action.  In dunce world lingo, that’s basically what he/she plans to do once he/she is in office.  You wouldn’t want to have an airhead occupying a seat in public office, now would you?  And you certainly wouldn’t want someone who’s as detached to the people he/she is bound into service to as Pluto is as far away from the Sun.  You want to have someone who has the vision.  Someone who also has the ability to implement what he proposes.  Someone who walks the talk, who practices what he/she preaches.  You get the picture.  You want to see a substantial platform that tackles the mobilization of human resources—education, transportation, infrastructure, the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).  You want to see a platform that covers development at a multilateral approach and at a broad scale.  Look for that and ditch the politician who doesn’t even know what a platform of government is in the first place.

DON’T EASILY BE SWAYED BY CHEEZY JINGLES AND EXTRAVAGANT ADS.  Believe me, being in government is not about who has the catchiest election jingle or who has the most colorful posters.  It’s about being the man/woman who can move heaven and earth just to make the people’s lives a bit more bearable.  Unless they can get the G7 (the seven richest and most industrialized countries in the world) to toss coins into the tin can every time they dance Boom-Tarat-Tarat, think again before writing them on your kodigo.

The clock is ticking.  The next few days will determine where our country will be headed to in the next three years before we finally change presidents (assuming but not conceding that she will finally leave Malacañang and quit fibbing).   This coming election is as crucial as any other election in our country so think about it.  Think about it really hard.  You’re paying them; you’re hiring them to serve you.  You’re the boss.  They’re the servants here.