Election in the Philippines will be held on May next year, but as early as the first week of this month, the political battle already began. A lot of aspiring politicians, celebrities, incumbent government officials and ordinary citizens wants to grab a position in the government. Seven months before the election, these aspirants already show their ‘other’ side of personality just to gain the trust of people, starting to blabber and shooting bullets to each others’ rivals. Winning in election is like grabbing a grand prize or a championship for them.
May it be a celebrity, a former politician, a high ranking official, a random citizen or an ex-convict politician – they are all the same, promising a better government for the country once they win. A promise during election which most of the winning candidates failed to fulfill. And then they will run again in the next election, make promises and failed to do it again.
As an ordinary Filipino citizen and a registered voter like me, this kind of cycle is very tiring. People pushed their bets to file for candidacy, support them and their propagandas and promises during campaign and vote for them. If their bets win and not meet their expectations while in the position, failing to fulfill all the promises and some flaws starting to be seen, these people will start to exercise democracy. They will protest on the streets expressing their exaggerated freedom of speech. They will criticize the governance and demand to go down and give up the position, even file for impeachment because their elected official is corrupt and not suited to run the country.
Then, these people will build up again another bet for the next election, and the history will just repeat again and again. if I’m going to see this cycle in another picture, the reason why our country is continue struggling and still belong to the third world, is not only because of corrupt government officials, but also because of its own people.
People who lack support but full of complaints. People who always protesting once their expectation failed to meet. People who act as analyst or economist but lack of sense of patriotism. People who love to ruin others’ reputation because they are not allied. People whose habit is to create problems and not being part of the solution. People who always critize in a negative way. Maybe one of the main problem are these kind of people.
This upcoming national election will be my fourth time to vote for the highest government position in the country. And unfortunately, so far, none of the presidential candidate I voted for the past elections won. Maybe my criteria in choosing my candidate is not the same of those majority of the people.
This time, I still don’t know to whom I’m going to give my support. It’s not that it’s still early to decide, but I think choosing a candidate this upcoming election is like choosing a bet in a color game or in talent show. The more talent the more advantage. Candidates are promoting their political party color – red, pink, yellow, etc. Most of the times, those who are popular or those who have lots of money succeed to win. Those who are not so popular or those who show sincerity, who have empathy and sympathy to people are always left behind in the counting.
Election in the Philippines will always be like a circus or a variety show – full of fun and excitement but always lack of quality and dignity. Change for good won’t happen in our country unless the government and the people unite for a good cause and politics to be set aside.
“Just my personal views and opinions”.
MySimpleWorld 