Last week, on February 11, senators and party-list groups officially kicked off their campaigns to become the so-called “representatives of the people” in the two chambers of Congress.
And it is precisely because of the fact that these candidates for senator and party-list representative will, de jure (if not de facto) represent the will and the aspirations of the people that we should take our right, privilege and duty to vote seriously. We mean, REAL SERIOUSLY.
If we truly want to elect those who will represent our aspirations and fight for our interests in our Congress, what we need is a culture reset.
We need to stop thinking of our lawmakers as mere “milking cows,” sources of funds and “ayuda,” and instead think of them as the people who are willing to sponsor legislation that will benefit all Filipinos. (By the way, that kind of thinking should go all the way down to our local city or municipal or even barangay councils.)
We should think of our senators and representatives not as “demigods” to whom we should bow down to their will (to the point where they can flout traffic laws with abandon) but as people we can pressure with to set aside their own personal biases and instead work for our common welfare.
“We want change,” the populace has been yelling for decades, and yet past elections have shown that Filipinos calling for change have, ironically, become reluctant to change a system that benefits only a few political and economic oligarchs.
Filipinos, let us be done with lip service of change. If we really want a better future for our children, let us start by choosing the leaders who will genuinely represent our interests this coming May.
We have three whole months to seriously think about who we will choose to become our next legislators. That’s more than enough time for us to understand the stakes in this election and, as another cliché phrase (but one which bears repeating) puts it, “vote wisely.”
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