Set aside rancor and hate, a post-election advice

Four days after the elections, re-electionist Manila 6th district Rep. Benny Abante Jr has offered some words of wisdom to voters whose candidates lost in the polls, specifically in the presidential race.

“Alam ko hindi madali. Alam ko masakit matalo. Batid ko na pag malalim ang paninindigan at matindi ang paniniwala, mahirap tanggapin ang resulta ng isang eleksyon (I know it’s not easy. It hurts to lose. I understand that when the fight for something is passionate, it’s hard to accept the results of an election),” Abante said in a press statement on Friday, May 13.

“At the end of the day, however, we must go back to the reasons why we so passionately supported and campaigned for our candidates: We did this not for the candidates themselves, but for our children, our family, and our country. And it is for them that we must now begin the process of healing, that we must now start coming together, that we must now set aside rancor and hate, so that we can all move our country forward and start building a better future for one and all,” he continued.

Abante, a Baptist pastor, cited Colossians 3:13-14: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

“Sa eleksyon, may panalo at may talo; ngunit kung tayo’y magtutulungan at magkakaisa para iangat ang buhay ng kapwa nating Pilipino, lahat tayo panalo (In an election, there are winners and losers; but if we help each other and work together to uplift the lives of our fellow Filipinos, we all win),” Abante said.

Abante is the presumptive representative-elect of Manila’s 6th district garnering 95,431 votes (79.37 percent) in the partial and unofficial results by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).