The 2010 Elections: Will We Vote Right?
Will we find our way in 2010?
Will the Philippines’ 50-million registered voters, aided by the country’s first ever automated elections systems, get their votes properly and speedily counted?
If that does happen, the scourge of wholesale electoral fraud: Dagdag Bawas finally will become an unlamented historical footnote.
But the automated elections system, assuming that it will work, is not the silver bullet that will restore good government and political stability that will nurture ‘the sick man of Asia” to good health.
We must make the right choices. We must closely study the programs and reforms the wannabbees for the elective positions.
With the polls a little over 300 days away these are posts for which we are expected to make intelligent selections:
(5,802 Total elective posts)
1 President
1 Vice President
12 Senators
80 Provincial Governors/Vice-Governors
1,630 Mayors/Vice-Mayors
(136 cities ; 1,494 municipalities)
812 Provincial Board Members
1,288 City Councilors
219 District Representatives
49 Partylist Representatives
After 14 presidents, will our 15th Chief Executive be able to finally unify our country, and lead the Philippines out of the social, political, and economic uncertainties facing it?
The ballot is our most potent weapon. Let’s vote right.
This presents a major challenge: how to encourage new voters to register and vote, whilst at the same time looking with a jaundiced eye at the new automated system! We must be deft and perhaps use one to spark interest in the other. This we cannot do if our blogs are filled — not with information and inspiration–but the insane yammering and fatheaded self-praise of trolls and pseudo bloggers in far away places with no stake in this that they care about. At Midfield, I am glad to see there is none of that and more of what we need. Stop casting pearls before swine…they will lead themselves down the ravine all on their own…We can hardly save them if they will not save themselves and would rather let wounds fester to gangrene and disintegration…
Spot on.
But beyond bringing out the vote, we must work to prod pour compatriots to vote intelligently, sift through the motherhood statements and the platitudinal promises.
We must peel off the packaging to see the merchandise and whether it comes with the heart, passision, and commitment to rule of law, to what is best for Filipino interests, and how we can nurture genuine national unity, and pill together.
No one else will do this for us.
cory is the best