A passerby ignores the campaign posters of both local and national candidates that practically cover this side of Davao City’s Buhangin District. (davaotoday.com photo by Wether b. Saldaña)
Clearly, this practice of bestowing endorsement to electoral candidates reveals a condition of uninformed electorate. For why should voters base their judgment on the endorsement of someone if they are knowledgeable of the faculties and qualities of the candidates? Is this not a revelation of the ignorance of the citizenry about the politics of their country or about the competence of the political aspirants?
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
It’s barely five days to election day! And most every politician who stakes a candidacy is in a scampering mood, engaging in a “campaign rush. Excepting the illicit acts of vote-buying and other activities prohibited by law, the desperate move is to solicit the endorsement of some influential personalities or institutions.
Kris Aquino, the President’s ebullient sister, has capitalized on her title as Queen of all Media, and has caught the amusing attention of everyone, by her voluntary act of endorsing certain candidates both in the national and local political scene.
On the headlines in a metropolitan daily, bets are said to be eyeing for the command vote, to be delivered by a commonly known religious sect whose members will never make the mistake — much less, think — of disobeying their supreme head. Indeed, it’s a sure heaven-rained (or hell-fired?) SOLID VOTE, if one is blessed by the endorsement of the INC!
In the sanctuarial realm of another Christian sect somewhere in Southern Mindanao, a similar act of endorsement of a debonair pastor is devoutly sought by politicos. And the Catholic charismatic El Shaddai, boasting of millions of followers, is not to be beaten or left behind!
Wow, where but in this nation of 80 percent Christians is this phenomenon of pure obscurantism observed! Or the chalice of blind obedience filled to the brim!
Clearly, this practice of bestowing endorsement to electoral candidates reveals a condition of uninformed electorate. For why should voters base their judgment on the endorsement of someone if they are knowledgeable of the faculties and qualities of the candidates? Is this not a revelation of the ignorance of the citizenry about the politics of their country or about the competence of the political aspirants?
Does this not also point to the vacuity of the people’s consciousness about the social conditions, issues or problems of their society? So, how can they ever be relied upon to choose a leader who can resolve or change these social verities for the people’s benefit? How can they ever be trusted to vote wisely or intelligently?
On the flipside, this also speaks of the lack of integrity of the candidates themselves. For why should he seek someone else’s endorsement of his candidacy if he has faith in his own virtues as an aspirant for an office? Is this not in fact a big insult to his own integrity and probity if he begs for endorsement or affirmation of his aspiration as a political bet?
On the larger context, this phenomenon exposes the ineptitude of the government agency tasked to undertake and supervise the electoral exercise. This opens to us the incompetence of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to enforce the rules of the electoral game. Or, are they knowledgeable of the intent and purpose of the laws governing the electoral process? Not to mention the principle by which these laws are mandated for observance and implementation?
Our Comelec officials seem to be forthright in mouthing certain “dos and “don’ts” in the conduct of the elections. But do they give headway in enforcing them? Just take the case of the supposed mandate of “level playing field.” Why, in the name of all the victims of injustice and unfairness, does this injunction of the principle still not given determined enforcement and implementation?
What the Comelec should have done is to prohibit individual political ads by the candidates in the media, especially on television. It should have been the government to provide free and equal time to all the candidates of the same category or level. As it is, the wealthy aspirants are given infinite edge or boundless advantage over the unmoneyed but highly qualified ones.
And, in order for the electorate to be able to express their “truly informed and intelligent” will, the government should suspend all the commercial ads for products in radio and TV and allow only for strictly equal time of all the political candidates during the campaign period, at the expense of the government. Not of any other agency or institution, or individual.
In this way, the electorate or the entire citizenry will be able to know all the political bets “from head to foot,” so to speak. And there should be a law to forbid any religious institution to make a so-called “command vote.” This is contrary to the ideals of a democracy.
Without the abovementioned conditionalities, the elections as they are currently done, will never be the elections reflective of a true democracy.
Without these meaningful reforms, Philippine elections as they are today, would always be cloaked with hypocrisy. It will prove itself as an instrument of the ruling landlord and capitalist classes to subjugate the people in perpetual poverty and misery.
And the Comelec? It will be true to its character, that is, of utter bankruptcy in implementing the ideal and essence of “universal suffrage” in its strictest sense.
Don J. Pagusara is a native of Mindanao, a multi-awarded author and a Palanca-awardee.
Comelec, Commission on Elections, davao, El Shaddai, Election, Iglesia ni Cristo, Kris Aquino, political ads, political endorsement
