The Philippine Elections is NOT a Horse Race!

My wife and I were waiting for some friends for brunch at the Italianni’s restaurant in Shangri-la Mall a couple of days ago and I overheard a group of senior citizens in the middle of their brunch, exchanging pleasantries and talking about Philippine politics. I did not mean to eavesdrop on their private conversation but luckily I did because it has inspired me to share this with you.

Before reading on, I would like to disclose that I support Rodrigo Duterte for President, and have recently decided to support Senator Allan Cayetano for VP. If you are supporting these two candidates or not is irrelevant for this post. If you are a registered voter and will be voting this coming election then please read on.

A group of senior citizens are having an animated discussion about who they’ll vote for in the coming presidential elections this May 2016. One of them opened that he will vote for Binay. Personally, I was kind of surprised about his choice and I listened intently and waited for him to express a compelling reason to his friends on why they should also vote for Binay. He enumerated four.

1. He wanted to vote for Miriam Santiago but he doesn’t see that she’ll win.
2. He doesn’t like Mar Roxas.
3. Rodrigo Duterte and Grace Poe still have pending disqualification cases.
4. He just wanted his vote NOT to be wasted ( para lang di masayang boto ko )

Note that none of those listed explains why Binay would make a great candidate for president. And what I find most disheartening is how he arrived at his decision is the same as how gamblers rationalise on picking their horses on the track.

I think it’s safe to say that we Filipinos like to bet on a sure thing ( masyado tayong sigurista ). A lot of us are still on the fence or undecided when it comes to this year’s candidates. And definitely there’s a very good chunk of that majority who are still on a wait-and-see mode while the Comelec have their own pissing contest.

This mindset of casting our votes for candidates who we think would win should stop. Let’s stop treating our elections like we’re at the race track betting on horses gambling away our country’s future. Instead we should vote for the candidates who we think will make great leaders and will make changes to improve our country and every Filipino’s way of life.

While their brunch group continued on the discussion, I fought off the urge to walk over to their table and share my opinion and my view on how his decision making process is flawed. In the end, my inaction to engage our elders at Italianni’s led me to talking about this here.

I strongly believe that this coming Philippine Election will be pivotal in our country’s history. My gut is telling me that this will make or break the Philippines.

For this coming election I hope that we all can do the following:

1. For those who have already pledged their support for your respective candidates, may we all campaign in a respectful manner, convince others base on the merits and platform of our candidate.
2. For those who are still undecided, I hope we can take a more active role on trying to learn each candidates merits and flaws, their platforms, their type of leadership style. I hope that we could also actively engage in the conversation and not just be a passive observer. And ultimately come to a decision on who you would support.
3. And finally, let’s take it upon ourselves to engage those who still have the mentality that this election is like betting on the race track. Let’s help them decide on which leader they’d want to follow this coming election because ultimately every vote counts.

Let’s have a safe and clean elections! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!