As for Me and My House

These past months in the Philippines, posters and streamers have covered building facades, walls, tree trunks, and fences; leaflets and sample ballots are strewn all over. On TV and radio, the political ads dominate the airwaves. The dailies brim with news of political campaigns, debates, and killings.

Finally, today, everything comes to a head. It is Election Day. An estimated 45 million voters will troop to the polls and choose their senators, governors, congressmen, mayors and other local officials.

A number of voters—wise ones—whom I personally know are NOT voting. In fact, only 10% of those who are abroad are going to participate in the “absentee voting” scheme in this election. They have their reasons:

“I have been voting every single time and what do we get? Officials who are in there for their own selfish reasons, never for the people.”

“Useless exercise! Nothing will ever change anyway. Once candidates taste power, they get sucked into the system of bad governance—corruption is ingrained in government.”

“Most of the candidates for senators are turncoats. They can’t be trusted. We are left with no choices.”

“We have been a developing country for so long. No election will ever make us into a developed one. The winners, most of them members of political dynasties, will drag us further down.”

“We have become one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In terms of progress, we’re trailing way behind countries which were once at the bottom.”

“It’s a sham! Cheating is in place. The powers-that-be will rig the elections the way they did the last time. Voting will just legitimize evil schemes."These are big and strong arguments for one to be frustrated. And to lose hope! In the last five years, we have seen the greatest exodus of Filipinos—to find jobs and relocate their families in other lands.

But as for me and my house, we will vote.

Although we are just as frustrated, sometimes angry, as those who have given up on elections, we see this exercise as one chance—no matter how slim—to move forward and to bring about change. Out of the 37 candidates for senators, whose platforms we have discussed lengthily (with passion) among ourselves, we now have a list of 12. But each of our lists is different from the other.

Well, while we are a family, we are also individuals with differing, well substantiated opinions. But on one thing we agree: we will vote.

My son, JB and his wife Gianina, who are in the USA, have asked my husband for his list. I don’t know if they agree with that list, but they too, will vote.

I guess we believe in doing something to effect change. Up until we can come up with an alternative to elections, we will vote. I don’t begrudge those who refuse to vote, for this is democracy after all, but I feel that not voting is abdicating one’s duty as a citizen. I remember my late father, a lawyer, who used to remind me, “Voting is your right. Don’t squander it.”

It took America 200 years to get to where they are today—a world power. The Philippines is not even a hundred years old (I am counting from the time we were truly free from colonizers).

Is there hope? It may seem like there is none; like a prayer unanswered for so long. The Psalmist in Chapter 31 lamented, “How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

We’ve echoed this lament as a nation for so long, as well. We took to the streets and marched for what we believed in. In our Wednesday prayer meetings, our country and leaders always top our concerns.

Yet 70% of our countrymen are living below the poverty line (the government figures are different), squalor is everywhere, children are begging and sleeping in the streets.

For how long?

Will this election solve it? Will any election for that matter? For one thing, there are three righteous men in the list of candidates for senators. They belong to an independent party which has no machinery to wage a campaign, much less to win: Bautista, Paredes, and Sison. But I see them as symbols of change (one columnist calls them her conscience votes), and for as long as there are symbols, there is hope.

Like David, we lament and we get impatient seeing the Philippines as it is today, but we who believe in a God who is just and merciful know—there is hope indeed. Elections provide the teeniest of flickers, but it’s a sign of light nonetheless.