Why we should vote and why we shouldn’t vote

“What good does it do that she avoids being impeached, but loses her moral right to govern?” – Randy David On President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

There are two schools of thought when one thinks of voting:

One is the school of thought that voting is the only way to change a society.  These people take the cudgels of voting on the premise that their leader will do everything for them afterwards.  By voting, for them would mean that they are doing their duty as citizens and they would leave it at that.  After voting there is just the sheer hope of having their “trusted” and “voted” leader do everything for them.

Second is the school of thought that voting is merely a practice to supplement a higher social responsibility.  These people believe that they can instill change by helping the leader they voted and criticizing their leader if it needs be whenever that leader errs or if worse comes to worse unseating that leader.  These people believe in the individual responsibility of voting and not relying on others on making their lives better.  In their own words they would say “What matters is not the practice of voting itself, what matters is the aftermath of that practice.. If that practice made the peoples lives better or worse.”

But there is also a fast growing school of thought today, one which is consistently growing in the middle class and the academe.

This is the third school of thought, “The cynical school of thought” The people who believes that no matter who one votes for, the same problem will remain in the country, this block believes that the problems of the country lies not within the framework of government or its leaders, instead they believe that it is the people themselves who has a problem.  They believe that the filipino is inherently incapable of looking for themselves that all filipinos specially in politics are all the same “Corrupt” and “Corruptible”.

Now a friend of mine asked me If  I am going to vote come election time.  I answered him:

“If you can prove to me that the comelec will steadfastly protect my vote and will put to justice those same people whom Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo worked with, and if you can tell the military and the police to work for the people and not against them then I will vote”

As I see it we have come to think that the power of the ballot ends with one, what we don’t realize is that we are the ballots. We are the names we place on the paper to be counted and the ink to be marked.

What we lost last elections due to fraud and massive cheating we owe it to ourselves to vindicate them.

The truth of the matter is we do not do so.

We do not put to justice the sinners and the accused.

We deny the power that is bestowed to us constitutionaly.

In fact we disdain it.

The truth of the matter is that we’d rather partake of another election even before we let the dust settle and we clear the grievances of the votes that was stolen from us.

How ignorant of us to think that we could do better now by taking part of the same system that destroyed our rights and made a fool of ourselves.

But history is a better teacher than reason, such that looking back at the time of Cory when there came the snap elections back in the 80’s the Filipinos were able to prove the opposite, that it can convince itself that indeed it was able to cleanse itself from within.

Perhaps all we need is a stage to watch the fight and throw our bets.

The comelec is the stage, we are the bettors.

The future is what we are betting on.

God help us all.

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