By Monday (May 10), when Edge Davao hits the streets, most people who intend to vote shall have decided on the candidates they would want to get elected as president, vice president, senators, and all the way down to the local positions.
May 10’s political exercise is an election like no other – this is the first time ever that the country will have an automated election.
The pessimists and cassandras of doom have raised the spectre of failure of elections, conjuring up scenarios that bode ill for the country.
On the other hand, the optimists believe that the automated elections will succeed and enable the country to gain needed respect in the community of democratic nations. The positive-thinkers add a little prayer to their optimism, fearing as they do the ugly consequences of failure.
The world will watch us and, to a certain degree, judge our political maturity as a people on the outcome of this brand new system.
As ordinary people, we can do two things to help make the electoral exercise a success. First, is to participate in the exercise by going to the polling place early if possible and follow instructions on how to go about using our ballots correctly and feeding them into the PCOS machines, and second, by not selling our votes to candidates.
Failing to do these two, to our mind, removes one’s privilege to criticize those elected to government office.
However, let’s all be reminded that whoever emerge the victors in the May 10 automated election, the major challenges that we face as a nation will not automatically go away. They are the problems of poverty, corruption, injustice, unpeace, and the litany goes on and on. Most of these problems are so deeply-rooted it would take generations to completely solve them. What we need now is a leader who, with sincerity and resolve, will start the great work of eradicating them. This leader should be trustworthy because of his record of honesty and honor and one whose leadership can inspire hope in the people so that this country can be great at last.
