The Price of Selling My Sacred Vote!
Ordinary people today in my place are thinking about the aftermath of the elections just undergone.
These ordinary people (including me, of course) seemed to ignore the early warnings of Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), a national crusade for an honest and orderly elections; as well as the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), a private conduit of the Commission Election to ensure the sacredness of the ballot, not to sell their sacred vote to candidates who are attempting to entice them to do so just to win a seat in the local or even national government elective positions.
"Money talks everytime..." said a teacher. "People are really aware that corruption breeds another kind of corruption. The Media has been vigilant enought to remind the voting populace the importance of casting their sacred ballots. They generally tried to condition the minds of the people about responsible voting and even portrayed certain situations about the effects of corrupt voting; but, they refuse to heed..." she continued.
Since the first elections under the 1935 Constitution, breed of corruptions has already been in place. The potential leaders are fighting themselves to gain the upperhand of holding the national government. Maneuvers were undertaken, manipulation of the national consensus about decisions and national policies were railroaded to fit their own whims and caprices in running the government.
One of the prominent statesmen, Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Commonwealth during the American occupation of the Philippines, elusively shouted infront of many spectators: "It is better to see the Philippines run like hell by the Filipinos rather than like heaven by the Americans!!!" (Well, I'm not sure if these were really the words he uttered, I just remembered it now...never mind, just get on with it. It's my history thoughts that is failing.)
Well said Mr. Quezon...it is really going bad now. Your prophesy seems becoming true today. Even ordinary people is radically high enough to contest the government of such wrongdoings. Ha ha ha...wise enough to learn more about his miscontrued facts. No respect of whoever is holding the position of power. They greatly believed about People Power. What the heck! But examining their utterance, it seems though, money flows within their ranks coming from corrupt government officials or corrupt private moneyed-persons who paid their lot for 3-meals food for the day.
I have some information that rallying in the urban centers is now becoming a prosperous business among well-educated or ill-educated people in my country. Money talks, they said. And when money speaks, everybody listen, thence, act. But, of course, there are others who played truthfully the dimensions of their struggle for the sake of the poor. While this could be so, we could not truthfully assure the general public or the potential foreign investors, that the economy is running well. (Well, what's for the economy...my country is going dry...and there's is a great drought going on among truth-seekers, who else could be thinking that this country is getting the greatness that it lost sometime?)
As history will teach us the wisdom of learning more to gain more...the aftermath is worst enough to convince me that the decisions of the first statesmen of my country before it gained independence from the Americans WAS RIGHTFULLY WRONG!!!...but what they've done was awfully RIGHT!!! It's a matter of choice between good and evil, and it seems that the choice was between the two warring sides. It means that my country is living within the clutches of both good and evil. (Sigh!)
Anyway, going back to the price of selling my sacred vote....I should say that even 1/3 of my countrymen is doing this; another 1/3 is keeping this, and the last 1/3 is highly paying this...the summation would still reflect the rottenness of the hearts of those unscrupulous people who taught the Filipinos to see precious price of gold and silver; who taught the Filipinos to value more of their properties; who taught the Filipinos to study government from other countries and employ the same here in the Philippines; who taught the Filipinos that working abroad is much better than sacrificing a few peso to give it to the paupers; who taught the Filipinos to regain its greatness by empty promises so that others will follow suit; who taught the Filipinos to business as usual that everything they gained from their own practice of profession is worth than to stay stagnant among the poor; who taught the Filipinos that beauty is in the face of everyone that by grabbing the property of the other controls everyone who are living in it; who taught the Filipinos that we do not have our own identify that we belong to the culture of the world and every nations owns us!!!! (What the heck, no one might listen this poor shout...)
Okay...I thirst for the truth, really. But what can I do. I don't have to isolate myself from my countrymen; and I hope by doing so, I could learn a lot of wisdom by the way they treated their ownselves.
The price of selling my sacred vote?...it's the price of my whole country!
These ordinary people (including me, of course) seemed to ignore the early warnings of Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), a national crusade for an honest and orderly elections; as well as the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), a private conduit of the Commission Election to ensure the sacredness of the ballot, not to sell their sacred vote to candidates who are attempting to entice them to do so just to win a seat in the local or even national government elective positions.
"Money talks everytime..." said a teacher. "People are really aware that corruption breeds another kind of corruption. The Media has been vigilant enought to remind the voting populace the importance of casting their sacred ballots. They generally tried to condition the minds of the people about responsible voting and even portrayed certain situations about the effects of corrupt voting; but, they refuse to heed..." she continued.
Since the first elections under the 1935 Constitution, breed of corruptions has already been in place. The potential leaders are fighting themselves to gain the upperhand of holding the national government. Maneuvers were undertaken, manipulation of the national consensus about decisions and national policies were railroaded to fit their own whims and caprices in running the government.
One of the prominent statesmen, Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Commonwealth during the American occupation of the Philippines, elusively shouted infront of many spectators: "It is better to see the Philippines run like hell by the Filipinos rather than like heaven by the Americans!!!" (Well, I'm not sure if these were really the words he uttered, I just remembered it now...never mind, just get on with it. It's my history thoughts that is failing.)
Well said Mr. Quezon...it is really going bad now. Your prophesy seems becoming true today. Even ordinary people is radically high enough to contest the government of such wrongdoings. Ha ha ha...wise enough to learn more about his miscontrued facts. No respect of whoever is holding the position of power. They greatly believed about People Power. What the heck! But examining their utterance, it seems though, money flows within their ranks coming from corrupt government officials or corrupt private moneyed-persons who paid their lot for 3-meals food for the day.
I have some information that rallying in the urban centers is now becoming a prosperous business among well-educated or ill-educated people in my country. Money talks, they said. And when money speaks, everybody listen, thence, act. But, of course, there are others who played truthfully the dimensions of their struggle for the sake of the poor. While this could be so, we could not truthfully assure the general public or the potential foreign investors, that the economy is running well. (Well, what's for the economy...my country is going dry...and there's is a great drought going on among truth-seekers, who else could be thinking that this country is getting the greatness that it lost sometime?)
As history will teach us the wisdom of learning more to gain more...the aftermath is worst enough to convince me that the decisions of the first statesmen of my country before it gained independence from the Americans WAS RIGHTFULLY WRONG!!!...but what they've done was awfully RIGHT!!! It's a matter of choice between good and evil, and it seems that the choice was between the two warring sides. It means that my country is living within the clutches of both good and evil. (Sigh!)
Anyway, going back to the price of selling my sacred vote....I should say that even 1/3 of my countrymen is doing this; another 1/3 is keeping this, and the last 1/3 is highly paying this...the summation would still reflect the rottenness of the hearts of those unscrupulous people who taught the Filipinos to see precious price of gold and silver; who taught the Filipinos to value more of their properties; who taught the Filipinos to study government from other countries and employ the same here in the Philippines; who taught the Filipinos that working abroad is much better than sacrificing a few peso to give it to the paupers; who taught the Filipinos to regain its greatness by empty promises so that others will follow suit; who taught the Filipinos to business as usual that everything they gained from their own practice of profession is worth than to stay stagnant among the poor; who taught the Filipinos that beauty is in the face of everyone that by grabbing the property of the other controls everyone who are living in it; who taught the Filipinos that we do not have our own identify that we belong to the culture of the world and every nations owns us!!!! (What the heck, no one might listen this poor shout...)
Okay...I thirst for the truth, really. But what can I do. I don't have to isolate myself from my countrymen; and I hope by doing so, I could learn a lot of wisdom by the way they treated their ownselves.
The price of selling my sacred vote?...it's the price of my whole country!
posted by Unknown | Wednesday, May 12, 2004
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