Whoever the winners will be in today’s elections–whether you actually voted for them or only your neighbors did–will determine to a degree the fate of our nation in the next six years. But don’t bet on it because the problems that have bedeviled our jaded country for so long are so deeply-rooted our new leaders can only do or undo so much–granting we are able to surmount the glitches of the automated elections system and make the right choices. For all we know, the so-called Murphy’s Law—“If anything can go wrong, it will!”–is just waiting around the corner to do this nation in.
This country just cannot afford to have a failed election this time around should the forces of evil succeed in disrupting the exercise through foul means. The consequences can be catastrophic, we better believe it.
Some of these outstanding problems have been with us for as long as we care to remember: poverty, hunger, injustice, joblessness, private armies, corruption, insurgencies, the lack of economic opportunities, illiteracy, criminality, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, you name it. For instance, let’s not fall for the promises made by candidates who brag that they can lick poverty during their six-year term if elected. That’s a big “if” in the first place.
What this country needs is not a brilliant leader, if that leader lacks the moral strength and political will to lead by example. The outgoing administration has not, in many ways, been an example of a benevolent leadership. On the contrary, it has failed to lift this benighted country and its confused people out of the doldrums to be at least at par with its neighbors.
On election day, there are countries out there which will be watching whether the Filipinos of 2010 have learned the lessons of 1986 when they rose in bloodless revolt against a dictatorial regime which had held them hostage for two decades and brought it down decisively in a matter of only 72 hours. What a glorious example of collective will and determination they showed to change history practically overnight.
The 2010 elections is a golden opportunity for Filipinos to reenact the People Power revolt of 1986, albeit through the peaceful means of the ballot—not bullet—to turn things around and give their country new direction under the guidance of an enlightened leadership based on the dictum laid down by its most revered leader, the late President Ramon Magsaysay, that “those who have less in life must have more in law”. This country can never be truly great unless its poor and oppressed are lifted from their miserable existence and freed from want.
That is really what the 2010 elections are all about. We should not fail. We must not fail.
