It’s midnight. I should be in bed right now since I’ve been awake for the past 18 hours, but I felt like I had the need to write some musings down before I sleep. I haven’t written anything really serious on this blog, and by that, I mean, stuff like politics and opinions on current events and issues (well, I remember writing about one or two, but that was it). Not because I have no interest in them (it’s actually the exact the opposite) but I always thought they were topics too heavy for me to tackle on this very shallow space on the internet where all what I do here is talk about… me (and it’s weird because I don’t actually like talking about myself… see I don’t even get what I just said, how very weird of me). And this time it’ll not be about me, yay.
Elections have passed and new people are sitting on new positions. Those who had lost have conceded and some still crossing fingers that they could make it to the first place of the tally list. Ineligible to vote (for now) and merely just a concerned and curious citizen, I have been keeping an eye on the news for the partial and unofficial tally of the senators’ rank, as well as anxiously waiting for the proclamation of winners of cities and municipalities. I am so happy for my city that the mayor I wanted won (because dynasty sucks). Not even half of my bet for the senators made it to the top 12. I wanted this lady activist, this dude who put a river down south on the map of the world… not even a miracle would make them enter the spot.
Tonight going home, as were were listening to the radio in the car, I was listening to a balitaktakan on AM with a professor from UP/sociologist/journalist as the guest. He is an amazing person, and whatever he said was music to the ear. And food for the soul. I might even consider adding him to my list of idols, lol. Their topic was what else but the elections. He made me a realize that one of the anak-lang-ni-ganyan candidates was more than that stereotype she had. Sure, a lot of the candidates come from political families and are using their last names to their advantage (hello screen names on ballots and relatives’ faces on tarpaulins), but it’s not just we judge them just like that. I think it’s right that we should give them a chance to run. They don’t have to win anyway, and aren’t we the ones choosing in the first place? Well, nobody hopes that those with bad intentions be included in the roster… otherwise, those who don’t might as well prove themselves that there is more to their royal-sounding last names.
He was also telling a story of his voting experience where one of the PCOS machines of the precinct he was in was jammed, so the voter’s ballots couldn’t be fed to the machine. There is a box where the scanned ballots can be temporarily kept and as soon as the machine functions well, then the ballots can already be scanned. While that may not be much of a problem, the people can just place their ballots inside the box and leave, right? While they could have just left it and gone home already, they were actually willing to wait just so they themselves can see their votes be counted by the machine. Vigilance right there. That was the reason why it was very crowded in the classroom.
Probably that didn’t make much sense, and one might wonder what significance it was for me to write that down. I’m very sleepy as of this moment and I would like to write more, but before I hit that publish button, I’d like to write down a beautiful quote mentioned in their discussion:
Gamitin ang isip, hindi ang palad.
Literally, figuratively… either is right.
