Dear Philippine Youth Voter
Dear Philippine Youth Voter,
Election dust is starting to settle. For those who voted for the winning side, you must still be celebrating with your fellow winners. For those who feel the agony of defeat, you should keep your heads held high. You fought valiantly until the end, and there is no shame in “coming up short!”
So why I am writing about the Philippine elections in a nursing blog, you ask? Please read on!
A Highly Spirited Election
If you are not really paying that close attention to the elections, you may have missed all the mudslinging that has been going on from all corners of the archipelago. It wasn’t nice. In fact, it was downright UGLY!
Instead of talking about issues, platforms, and what can those running for office offer when they win, their supporters resorted to name-calling, belittling, and insulting. Sure, this has always been a pervasive scene during election season, but why can’t people discuss matters intelligently? After all, those who are in the Philippines and the Filipinos abroad only desire what is the common good.
Words like unity, change, etc. were often talked about in campaign sorties. Candidates promised to give the voters the sun and the moon. Despite them always coming up short when they finally control the reigns of the government, people still hung on to those words hook, line, and sinker.
People all want to improve from their current situations in life. They just look at things from different perspectives, perhaps. Supporters of a leading opposition candidate laud the accomplishments she had while in office. However, others dream to prosper like the “golden years” during the Martial Law.
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The Martial Law Years
The question to ask is: were they really the “golden years” as they are projected now?
I was barely six months old when Martial Law was declared. So, growing up, that was all I and my contemporaries knew.
I remember that back in grade school, we had a free huge pan de sal (something like a dinner roll) during recess. They were so dense, harder than a rock, in fact. This is not hyperbole, I tell you.
Most of them smelled old and dingy, but were supposedly nutritious. They were fortified with malunggay leaves, hence the name Nutri Bun. So we got “Go” from flour, “Glow” from malunggay, but where was the “Grow?” Ahhh! The protein or the “Grow” component was supplied by the extra ingredient: small crawly bugs, which we call in our Ilonggo dialect as hukaw! Can you blame me then if my share often ended up in the garbage can?
Sure, there were infrastructures but I remembered the road in front of our house was always under construction. The reason for that was the cheap mediocre materials that were used. We grew up smelling asphalt like it was rugby. I could still feel that very distinct addicting smell in my nasopharynx even as we speak.
I didn’t personally know anyone who was a desaparecido – mostly leaders nabbed for speaking out about the atrocities of the era. However, I knew of other outspoken youth of the time who joined rallies and protests. The things we saw on the very few channels on television were calculated and carefully worded lest they offend the high and mighty people in power.
Curious about those happenings, I perused everything that I could get my hands on: books, periodicals, and even propaganda materials. I sought to understand things from both sides of the aisle and derive my own impression from them.
Post EDSA
I was in my teens when the political upheavals peaked. People were tired of having their rights curtailed while living in a pseudo-democracy. They finally woke up ready to take on the challenge of restoring true democracy.
The outright cheating during the 1986 Snap Elections emboldened the people to gather peacefully and marched arm in arm. Filipinos from all walks of life linked arms and faced certain death should the Strongman decide to mobilize the military. Day after day, for four days, in late February, people grew by the tens of thousands. They shared resources as their number grew. They slept and woke up in protest along the vast expanse of the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA).
February 25th was a day that will live in infamy! That was the date when the long-occupants of the Malacanan Palace (the Presidential residence) finally left for Hawaii.
Never to come back again
at least that was the general consensus at that time! My, my, how wrong were we?
The Filipinos expected a total 180 degrees about-face after the People Power revolt. Short-sighted as we are, we started noticing that change was slow, inconvenient, and difficult! We got impatient and disgruntled. Yes, even the youth shared the same sentiments, sadly.
Term after term, we elected people who had the best promises. We liked popular people who can entertain us. Unable to do a proper parliamentary procedure, what of that?
More than any qualifications, name recall became the cornerstone of the Philippine political arena. So what if they were convicted of plunder when they can get down and dance the “budots” with us?
The Effect of Social Media
This latest election is the most consequential for the youth of today. People are free to post anything on social media, regardless of whether it is true or not. Mental conditioning becomes prevalent. With the advent of everyone being able to edit anything to sway perceptions, social media has been the single most influential catalyst of this election.
People can twist things to suit their own narratives. This is very favorable for candidates with deep pockets because they can pay “influencers” to kind of embellish the truth. A lie is easier to be believed if it has some hint of truth in it, right?
This is the reason why we are where we are right now! We have come full circle, sadly.
Worse, we have conveniently forgotten that the ultimate freedom we fought hard for in 1986 is the reason why we are able to freely express ourselves!
The very people that our own parents and grandparents threw out of the country more than three decades ago are poised to take back the palace.
Nope, we did not just open the door widely for them. We laid out the proverbial red carpet for their grand welcome!
The Youth of Today
I keep racking my brain about how we got back to where we started and I couldn’t, for the life of me, find a logical explanation. My brother said that I have to be thankful for the institution of the Philippine Heart Center, without which our mother’s heart disease would not have been appropriately diagnosed.
For sure, I am thankful for that, but its construction and operation were not made possible by one family’s wealth. It was and still is, operating on the dime of the Filipino people.
Luckily, my nieces, my nephews, and their contemporaries are an idealistic young bunch. They engage with people to have intelligent discussions regarding this election and beyond. They reason out that it is their collective future that is at stake, and no one can argue with that!
However, for first-time voters like them, this is hard to take. They feel that their efforts, time, and ideas are wasted. They feel lost, confused, and disenfranchised. It is up to us, the older generation, to appease them and encourage them that life goes on! They have to keep that idealism burning within them so that they are emboldened to keep an eye out for the good and the bad that is happening in the country.
I sincerely hope and pray that they don’t become jaded and cynical. This is partly dependent of course on how the incoming administration directs the nation’s trajectory in the months and years to come.
Yes, you and I can hope and pray for our sakes, but mostly for those whose lives are just starting to blossom…our YOUTH!