To Vote or Not To Vote

Destined thousand miles away from the place where I am a registered voter, to vote or not to vote in the upcoming May elections suddenly becomes a major decision to make for me. It brings me back to Good Friday since it entails a lot of sacrifices that for one thing bores a hole in my already worn-out pocket.

I hate to admit it but it gets easy to be carried away by a despondent view that whether or not one exercises right to suffrage, nothing good comes out of it. Many people might think that whether we vote or not we still belong to the “most corrupt country in Asia” as Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PBRC) 2007 survey reveals.

Some rationalize voting as a “negative ROI (return of investment)”. They calculate that both financial (e.g. plane tickets) and sweat equities that they render in going through the tedious voting process do not just pay off. All these misgivings are not expressed without a huge sigh coming from the diaphragms of citizens who are frustrated and deeply troubled by the country’s filthy political landscape. I claim not to be an exception. However, letting myself to be punished for being governed by pseudo-leaders, those who are only motivated by self-interests and greed, because I did not cast my vote is an added burden I can not bear in the near future.

For a government system that has taken shape out of seveal molds of colonialism, effecting change into it seems to be a herculean task, close to impossible. They say that there is nothing wrong with the system; the flaw lies on the people who run it. It takes a foreigner in Paul Hutchcroft, author of Booty Capitalism (1998), to remind us that for centuries general type of people that we are electing into office are those that adhere to “rent capitalism” which describes “systems in which money is invested in arrangements or appropriating wealth which has already been produced rather in arrangements or actually producing it.” These people are either bureaucratic elites, who are benefiting rent extraction within the state apparatus or oligarchs, who “have an economic base quite independent of the state apparatus, but access to the state is nonetheless the major avenue to private accumulation.” Talk about the never-ending presence of political dynasties and the octopus-like reach of elite families’ networks in government, business, education, and other key sectors. Talk about the huge economic divide between the rich and the poor. Talk about poverty.

In my class in Philippine Bureaucracy, my professor observed that the problems within the system are deeply rooted in history so that bringing about change has to be radical. Dismantling the oligarchy dominating both the country’s economic and political arenas could well be a potent step towards a transformed Filipino nation. He said that Cory Aquino under a revolutionary government had such chance but missed it. “Ramos, who neither qualified as political aristocrat nor oligarch, had all the chance to do it . Well, he started it when he liberalized major trades and monopolies but when he danced Cha-cha his career indeed so was the pursuit to dismantle the oligarchs ,” he quipped.

Listening to my professor, a despondent and desperate side of me that desires for change in this country thought of radical change as not limited to bloodless revolts. But having been taught to value humanity and fear of the Almighty, I decided that it is best to leave bloody thoughts within the confines of the cerebrum. Nevertheless, I may not become a radical change agent in this lifetime but I am trying to live out words of Mahatma Gandhi when he proclaimed: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Thus, I will take part in a ballot next month.

Truly, my vote is just a pebble cast into a vast ocean. Alone, it won’t create a ripple. But it makes up the millions who decide that effecting change in this country affords no more delay. And isn’t it that it “only takes one man to do nothing for evil to triumph?” For anything, if there’s only one reason that I need to vote in this year’s election, it is to squeeze out my psyche any drop of hopelessness for the “Pearl of the Orient Seas.” I believe that there are more people teeming with hope in this country who may have just been waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it from their heart and make it come alive. May 14, 2007 can be just that moment.

After all, giving witness to hope, which is one of the amazing gifts given to humankind, is the essence of Jesus’ Resurrection. It lives on as long as it takes when every Filipino decides that his or her vote does matter. To vote is a stride taken by millions upon millions towards the fulfillment of the collective desired change. It stands to take the whole nation to a path embraced by sunshine. Once we get there, then we’d know that it’s Good Friday no more.