[EDITORIAL] A glimmer of hope in 2022

We barely have three months to go before the synchronized national and local elections. At stake in the polls are positioned from the presidency to the legislature and to the different local governments in the provinces, cities, and municipalities. Preparations for this major electoral exercise are underway despite the presence of the dreadful COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the pandemic, our country could not allow postponing the elections. A no-election scenario is extremely destabilizing and can worsen the economic recession that the country is good through. Since May 9, 2022, is already set as scheduled, the goal of HOPE remains there: honest, orderly, peaceful elections.

By mid-March, the campaign period for local candidates will officially start. A few weeks prior to the local campaign period, these early, large tarpaulins and other materials with images of candidates are displayed publicly with their greetings and other messages conveyed to the local electorates.

Soon, at the provincial, city, and municipal levels, the candidates will start to don hats, sing and dance before the crowd during campaign sorties, giving away shirts, smartphones, food, cash, and other goods. These are just a few of the gimmickries our politicians resort to soliciting votes.

As usual, the candidates will promise to give us the sun and the moon, which they themselves and the stupid listeners, knew very well that won’t be had. Roads, streetlights, multi-purpose buildings may be very old, tiring promises that many politicians promise during the campaign, but today’s electorates wanted to know new, innovative, and brilliant projects and programs that an aspirant would implement when he or she get elected. Not the usual concrete roads, irrigation systems, or buildings, but something that could help uplift the lives of the ordinary Filipinos. Or else, a substantial number of Filipinos will still wallow in the darkness of poverty and nothingness, because of the absence or the lack of livelihood and employment opportunities for them in the locality. Or, farmers and fishermen will remain among the poorest among the poor because the government’s assistance and programs have not reached them. Yet aspirants keep on mentioning them these days, repeatedly in their ads on TV. The farmers, the fishermen, and the worker sectors. Because the majority of the promises are for them, no one knows if these will be fulfilled when the aspirants are already there on the pedestal.

This early, the public can already gauge who will emerge as winners in the elections based on different surveys, attendees during their proclamation rallies, campaign machinery, and other barometers. Anyway, let us see who will win this derby.

Brainy voters, on the other hand, waited for the presidential debates aired on national TV to listen to the candidates’ stands on various issues affecting the country and the Filipino people.

What really speaks for the truth is the number of supporters who appeared and participated during campaign sorties, rallies, and meeting de avance. As they say, pictures speak a thousand words.

The COMELEC said that they will study rules on campaigning during pandemic to offer an alternative modes of campaigning using social media and other online platforms. As God-fearing Filipinos, candidates, and the electorates alike should always uphold peace and order, avoid any violence, because the true mandate of the people came from honest electoral exercise.

Election campaigns in the Philippines repeatedly turn into brazen, deceitful, and dirty exercises. This pandemic must not make the 2022 elections even dirtier.

Voting wisely this May 2022 election involves thinking about the path that our country should traverse in the next six years and even beyond.