With less than 20 days before the highly charged-national and local elections, emotional disagreements among neighbors, friends, even relatives are on full throttle. Perhaps, a lot of unfriending on Facebook, Viber groups and even cancellation of Twitter accounts may be happening. All done towards drowning out all unfavorable” or “unwelcome“ political opinion from either side into your personal social media system.
But what I notice though is the seeming lack of political trending in the streets contrary to what we’ve seen in previous national election exercises. Except for the usual “oversized” and election posters in walls, trees and lamp posts, there is a subdued feeling that we may not be hyped or excited enough in the forthcoming presidential elections.
In the 2010 runup, you could feel the political electricity in the streets with yellow ribbons on rousing display in private or even public vehicles. In 2016, we witnessed the DU30 stickers again on vehicles, while the Duterte bracelet ballers was in every common man’s arm, a clear indication of the preference for the former Davao mayor.
Today, we haven’t seen pink ribbons for Robredo, red-green for BBM-Sara, or blue for Isko Moreno, checkered for Ping Lacson, red-white- blue for Pacquiao on vehicles in our streets. Also, we are not seeing common people proudly wearing their political baller bracelets, either Red-green, Pink, blue, checkered or red-white-blue nowadays. Why?
Is this an after-effect of the pandemic that people became more subdued, and even “secretive” in their preferences, that they would not flaunt them like they did in 2010 and 2016?
Or is it because the campaign is not exciting enough, and the people have grown tired of ubiquitous political propaganda with “fake news” and stage-managed events to sway public opinion?
Or is the public already influenced enough by all pre-election surveys predicting a wide, “insurmountable lead” by a candidate, suggesting therefore that the election is over but the counting?
Your guess is as good as mine.
But equally disturbing is the recent Easter folly presscon of survey ranking #5 Lacson, #3 Moreno and non-ranking former national security adviser Norberto Gonzales, all hitting at #2 VP Leni Robredo.
Until today, I cannot fathom the “messaging” of these candidates. Do they really think their joint presscon helped their individual candidacies and the voting public? They are saying that BBM enjoys wide support only because people hate VP Leni Robredo. And Isko was saying that if Leni withdraws, then BBM can be defeated. Lacson, on the other hand, painted VP Leni as deceitful in countless ways, while Gonzales raised the red card.
It is appalling to see how these gentlemen have probably lost their marbles or common sense in reading their own political situations. Why gang up on a fellow candidate when they should be saturating “vote rich” areas in the last three weeks of this exercise? I don’t blame analysts if this Easter folly presscon of Moreno, Lacson and Gonzales would be seen as an acceptance of defeat. Also, I cannot accept as “earthshaking” the reported incessant raiding of their supporters by the Robredo camp (Orbos defecting from Moreno and earlier Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez from Lacson). This is all part of the political mambo-jambo that happens every election. You win some, you lose some.
Honestly, people’s disinterest in political developments has further deteriorated even if elections are days away. Earlier, there was excitement over huge rallies and people participation all over social media. Contesting sides have individual claims on their drone and colored ground shots, all aimed at creating hype and “rising political tides”. But at the end of the day, these claims also killed itself in the battle of press release by the opposing parties. And once again, the online-active public got enlightened that these numbers and shots are just part of another illusionary political tool.
But in the next 20 days, expect “political earthquakes” designed to surprise and trigger switches in voter preferences. Be alert and probing since a lot of these creations will emanate or propagated in mainstream media.
Election day will come and go, just like Christmas, New Year and the recent Holy Week.
But it is a very important day when our country and people become powerful to choose their next leader. So let us agree to disagree on this day but come together after and support the winning candidate, whoever he/she maybe.
May 9 is a day where every Filipino is equal, poor, rich, oligarch, educated, uneducated, Catholic, Moslem, INK, Born Again, and whatever demographics, old and young voters. Let us not cancel each other out with their so-called intellectual superiority. Let us respect every person’s political choice.