Vote for the common good
Aweek from now, Filipino citizens will carry out a duty with far-reaching consequences for the nation. Prudent voters are now preparing a “kodigo,” a list of the candidates they have pre-selected, as they anticipate casting as quickly as possible their ballot and leaving behind the expected disorganization, long queues, oppressive heat and cramped classrooms-cum-voting precincts.
There is much to be said for the “kodigo” mentality of coming to the polls prepared. For this midterm election, each voter has to choose candidates for 12 seats in the Senate, the House of Representatives and elected posts at the provincial, city and municipal levels.
A list of pre-selected candidates saves time for the voter and his or her fellow voters, who may have to report to work or carry out other obligations after voting.
However, convenience is not the primary purpose of this list. How does one prepare this list of candidates? What guides a citizen in including this candidate, rejecting another, or preferring this party-list group?
Do not sell your vote. That is primary. The ballot represents every citizen’s power to legally and peacefully influence the future of the nation in electing the people who will pass laws, create policies, plan and implement programs, use public funds and generally serve the Filipinos, especially those who have materially less in life or are marginalized and oppressed.
One’s support for candidates should be based on informed, careful, and critical evaluations of those who are courting the electorate.
Christians seeking to follow their conscience may seek to be guided by recent pastoral letters, which are posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) website (cbcponline.net).
Last April 28, Archbishop Socrates Villegas’s pastoral message emphasized the duty of the voter to elect in the light of the country’s struggles with the “Six Ks”: “kamatayan, kabastusan, korapsyon, kahirapan, kasarinlan and kasinungalingan.”
The cultures of death, impunity, immorality, corruption, poverty, oppression, subversion of sovereignty, lying and disinformation have always beset the nation but electing candidates who have not opposed or resisted these systemic abuses means also continuing to oppress fellow Filipinos.
Villegas asked citizens to evaluate candidates not according to their electoral promises but by the stances and acts they have taken regarding the “Six Ks”: are they advocating, carrying out, condoning, staying silent, avoiding, resisting, or opposing these social evils?
Both Villegas and CBCP president and Davao
Archbishop Romulo Valles warn voters about political dynasties, which have entrenched themselves by subverting what should have been the democratic process of elections.
In his Jan. 28 pastoral letter, Valles urges Christian lay people to participate in the May 13 elections through “non-partisan involvement” and “principled partisan politics” as an “exercise of their Christian faith.”
For Valles, principled participation embraces not just campaigning for candidates that have shown their commitment to the welfare of the Filipino people but also using social media to elevate and articulate voices that have been marginalized, ignored or silenced in public discourse.
Social media can be a force for social transformation, especially in the election of the next batch of officials who will serve in the middle of the term of President Rodrigo Duterte. While political experts point out the prevailing trend of midterm elections yielding results favoring the incumbent, Villegas and Valles point out the opportunities to educate voters to use the ballot to influence peaceful changes.
Valles singles out the youth, urging them to tap their social media skills to let these diverse, marginalized voices be heard and “be a part of national conversation” and “advance what is true, what is just, and what is for the common good.”