Candidates 2019: ‘I believe I can win!’

CONGRATULATIONS candidates! When you filed your COC, deep down in your heart, you got that passion to serve your town, city, and province… your beloved Negros Occidental, The Land of Sweet Surprises. Don’t just be surprised!

In coffee shops, we always hear from political anatomy experts that, “Those who have money, enough money to spend will win in 2019 election.” Money could be one big factor for candidates to win but he should know how to spend it… where to spend it, with whom, and when to spend it. We do not technically say that he is buying votes. That could go down to his generosity account.

If you are an incumbent official, your voters will always ask, “What have you done in the last three or six years?” For the executives, their performances will be gauged on infrastructure services… (good roads, bridges, buildings)… health services (especially free medicine and frequent medical missions)… peace and order (war on drugs of Pres. Digong)… education (scholarship, free school supplies)… employment (casual workers, jobs’ fair results)… and others.

If you are a comebacker (coming back after nine years), people will ask, “You got nine years there, have you forgotten something?” Or, voters will say, “We need you back, you can restore what has been damaged.” If your performance was lousy, your people may opt for the incumbent executive.

For the aspirants, your hill could be steep if you will collide with the two giants. You have to prove that the councilors running under you are very qualified. Tell your voters who will be your consultants and who are the respectable citizen of your town or city who are endorsing you. Show your giant opponents that you are best in fiscal management, governance and you are astute in politics.

Candidates running for councilors are sometimes guilty of over speeding. Their platforms are not for legislative agenda. Many of them propose for project and program implementation. Implementation belongs to the mayors. Ordinances and resolutions are your concerns. Councilors do not go beyond what is expected of you. Do not bark at the wrong tree or look for the sun when you are facing the moon at night.

Good (at least) councilors are expected to speak and write in correct English (at least with a background in argumentation and debate), and should have skills in reading… noting details, getting the meaning of words through context clue, making inferences, getting the main idea, making a generalization, and making a conclusion.

If you were a councilor, you should not become Mr. Four Ps… pungko, pamati, pamahaw, pauli. Your constituents elected you not to become a member of the Committee on Silence. Now ask yourself, “Am I going to win?” Good luck!* instead of letting us find our freedoms. He called it imperialism. He is perhaps one of the first to strike solidarity with the Filipinos before there came such a word.

There is so much to learn from this history, yet here we are, more absorbed in Facebook, popular books of dystopia and young romance and adventure, and school textbooks offer limited texts to fire the idealism and proper grounding of the youth on our society today.

Those who continue the fire of Bonifacio’s legacy are the likes of youth activists. The Kabataang Makabayan, the group that sparked the First Quarter Storm in the Marcos’ years, was founded on November 30. The youth group Anakbayan was also founded on the same date. This honors nationalist, anti-colonial struggle that Bonifacio waged.

November 30 is also the founding of the Lumad group in Talaingod, the Salupongan Ta Tanu Igkanugon, which translates to Unity to Defend our Ancestral Land. It brings an organic dimension to the nationalist struggle of Bonifacio, one that is rooted on defending indigenous traditions and territories against globalization’s plunder of natural resources.

Salupongan’s celebration though, is marked by more struggles. The Lumad schools they started in Talaingod had been forcibly closed by the paramilitary the past few days. Strangely, the school heads and support groups that rescued the children, led by Bayan Muna’s Satur Ocampo and ACT Teachers’ Rep France Castro, are charged with “trafficking the Lumad children”.

It seems those who have well intentions are now treated as criminals. While those with arms and allies of imperialists are lording over the law. It’s a legacy of betrayal felt by Bonifacio, thus his legacy of struggle continues.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain./sunstar Davao