Responsible citizenship is more than conscientious voting

With the 2016 elections in mind, we must now start doing a serious rethinking of our democratic ways and attitudes as a people. We must come up with fresh ways of behaving as citizens in a democratic country.

We do acknowledge that ours is a democratic society. But we don’t seem to appreciate our being democratic citizens. There may have been flash displays of our being responsible and democratic citizens, but these came “retail”—like a goodie to be drawn from a vending machine. That is, we take it only when “driven” to by a need of the moment.

Besides, many of us appear to be uninformed about our rights and obligations in a democratic country. We hardly live up to our responsibilities as democratic citizens, aside perhaps from paying taxes. But to be a truly democratic citizen goes beyond paying taxes. We have to actively participate in governing this country by choosing the right leaders during elections. We don’t do this, we don’t get a government that favorably responds to our needs and we get a rotten government. As the aphorism goes, we get the government we deserve.

But responsible citizenship is exercised not only during elections. It should be a way of life, a habit and an attitude. Besides choosing conscientious leaders who have the country in their hearts, responsible citizenship also entails being vigilant and critical of government and public servants’ official actions. We can be critical of government, why not? But this should be done within the bounds of reason and law. To air antigovernment sentiments without justifiable reasons would be irresponsible.

Our sense of nation should also be constant. But this sense seems hard to come by except when there are national catastrophes that jolt us or fellow Filipinos who stir up our sense of nationalism with their triumphs.

We submissively accept the deficiencies of government because our attitude as citizens is one of indifference. It is high time that we woke up to the reality that we cannot go on living this way as a nation; we have to learn and recognize the value of being responsible and democratic citizens.

—REGINALD B. TAMAYO,

assistant city council secretary,

Marikina City