By Churchill Aguilar
I MAY not agree with who you are voting for in the coming elections but I will not hesitate to fight with you on your right to cast it. Our votes are the essence of democracy. It is the very reason why our great heroes like Jose Rizal put their lives on the line and lost it. It was their fundamental dream that someday their posterities (that’s us now) would be heard and would have a say in all affairs of the government. But unless you cast your votes, it remains powerless, and the deaths of thousands of Filipino heroes would be in vain.
Our right to vote is so fundamental and so vital that it constitute a whole article in our constitution. With such, our right to participate in governance was cemented so that the authority of our government emanates from our collective will.
Yet how much of our voice get truly represented in the outcome of elections when time and again our electoral process has always been tainted with violence, vote-buying, fraud and ballot snatching. And for some unexplained reason, massive brownouts during counting of ballots. Good thing we are now going to use battery operated picos machine.
Unless our votes were done without coercion, bribery and undue influence then democracy is but a castle in the sand. More importantly, our votes have to come out from an informed choice. It has to be exercised freely and intelligently otherwise it will remain as an expensive icing on a rotten cake and would end up to be just a huge charade.
What we need therefore is a paradigm shift from our traditional view of looking at elections as just checking ballots to get it over and done with into seeing it as a fundamental duty to self and to our loved ones including the unborn in making sure that the coming years would be more prosperous and safer. With this mentality, we shall be moved to take time knowing full well who we are voting for because truly we are not only gambling our present but our future as well. With this paradigm as well we become more vigilant in securing the sanctity of our collective votes and actively safeguarding them before, during, and after elections. Only then can we have a clean, honest, and credible elections.
So instead of spending the next three years criticizing the lapses of the next elected officials, vote for nothing less than the best.
In our desire to have a clean and honest election, my office (XU-GLI) is partnering with Comelec and Namfrel in coming up with yet another running event dubbed as “Run for Secure And Fair Elections 2013” on Sunday, May 5, 2013. This run hopes to encourage more participation in the upcoming elections as well as advocate clean, honest, orderly, credible and genuine 2013 election. Details will be posted on facebook, posters and print ads.
We are now accepting sponsors who believe in our cause and would like to make this advocacy a great success. We can be reached at 858-3116 local 2022.