Death by Suffrage

I don’t know how or where to start. Writing long and winding articles have always been where I’m good at. I have also been believed to have the gift of expression — I find it easy to say (or write) exactly how I feel. But now I can’t seem to mince words to express myself.

Photo by underbiteman

Something has gone awry these past few days — since Monday night to be precise. My heart is heavy, if not completely shattered post-election day when the results started coming in.

It just dawned on me — just now, how I should begin this post.

“Hi. My name is RJ and I am a sore loser.”

I have stopped updating my election results post just this morning after waking up to a persistent heartache — that which pierces one’s soul and wouldn’t stop until you bleed to death. You might think I’m just being poetic, but I’m not. I have put up with this for almost a week. I need a breather.

There is an air of melancholy in my otherwise bossa nova-filled house. I have been living off fast food since Monday. I can’t seem to cook or even want to. I can’t seem to empty my head of everything I’m seeing and hearing. I am filled with such sorrow as if someone had just died.

For days now, I am trying to sort this out and have resorted to mindless singing and dancing and an obsessive-compulsive reading of news feeds since after elections. It’s as if my phone is glued to my palm and my news feeds are what’s keeping me alive. I check on the news by the minute, afraid that I may miss out on latest events. But the truth couldn’t be farther — I was (and still am) hoping that one of these days I will find the answer to this nagging question: “What happened? Where did my vote go? Are you saying that while some candidates were hard put on raising issues and platform above ‘personality’ millions of people weren’t even listening?” Maybe they were listening — to public radio. Can you blame them? Debates are boring. Mudslinging is oh-so-fun. Scandals and rumors are titillating. Economic and constitutional reforms are not.

Plans vs. Zombies

I feel like a log drifting in open water. All these, because I have filled my heart and head with so much enthusiasm and hope that change is gonna come — and my candidate of choice would be that “knight in shining armor” who will snatch this damsel-in-distress-of-a-nation from the clutches of hopelessness and jadedness. Like the “Prince Charming” of fairy tales, it was destined to wake up this sleeping-beauty-of-a-nation. Not for happily ever after, but at least, for sustained socio political and economic stability.

But this is real life. No knights in shining armor, no princes charming. Heck, not even “sober” damsels-in -distress!

Nobody cares about sober plans. In this country, if you can gather a sizable crowd of zombies who idolize you (or the blood that runs through your veins), you can be president. Heck, you can even snatch the post if that’s what it takes! You don’t have to be believable. You just have to be a wonderful and convenient choice!

If this is a fairy tale, this is “The Pied Piper and the Charmed Herd: Destiny of Doom”. Okay, I made that up.

All hail the hypocrites!

I am not happy that we have once again found ourselves at this road. Doesn’t it all look too familiar to you?

The name. The reason. The circumstances. Even the battle cry.

I refuse to put up with all this hypocrisy about unity and acceptance and moving on. I am sorry. I am a sore loser and I’ll probably die being one. Go on your merry way with your unity rally, one less person isn’t such a loss to you — in the same way one more vote didn’t turn out to be significant enough to change the course of history.

Where are thou?

I miss Jose Rizal. Not that I’ve known him personally of course. I just wish he was here. His wisdom would have enlightened us.

I miss Andres Bonifacio too. His courage and trusty bolo would have inspired us to damn the odds and just do what the @#$@#$ we had to do to straighten things up.

I miss heroes of the old days — those we can only read in books. Those whose sacrifices were so real that the stench of their blood-soaked clothes will kill you. Those who never, not once, thought of doing it for themselves, but always for the country.

Those who despite standing alone, stood their ground and paid a dear price for it.

Where have they all gone? Why is it so hard to produce the likes of them in this generation?

Mere tokens

I have, for over a year, written until my fingers refused to type any longer, read until my eyes drooped in weak surrender — hoping and even believing that I was in fact, preaching to the choir.

I was wrong. I could have tried harder. I could have done better than being a slacktivist. Because if I did better, maybe I wouldn’t feel this bad. But then again, maybe even that would not have been enough.

You’ve probably sensed the stinking incoherence in my writing right now. I am sorry to disappoint you today. As of this time, I am going through difficult stages of denial, anger, grief and pain — in random order and in frequent attacks. I do not understand why I am not as happy as everyone else. And it’s not just because my candidate lost. It’s because he lost by a HUGE margin. So huge that I tear myself up each time I update the partial and unofficial results.

As far as I can see, we are nowhere near the end of the tunnel. And even if we get there, them political swindlers will just keep on buying new tunnels — because they don’t want us to see the light. Because if we did, we’d be so terrified to see how monstrous they all look like in broad daylight.

I won’t tell you there is hope. There is none. We have single-handedly (as a nation) killed hope in one day.

Parting words

Democracy isn’t about conceding to the majority. It isn’t about mindlessly following the herd to the ditch. It isn’t about repeating history over and over just because someone said “Practice makes perfect.” — this isn’t sports or arts — this is the very fiber that holds us together — the very ground we are standing on — the very air we breathe. And logic dictates that it isn’t even about the majority knowing what’s best for everyone else.

Democracy is an exercise of people’s responsibility to defend the weak and to subdue the strong — to uplift and protect the interest of the true minority in order to maintain balance, order and harmony. In simple terms — to take care of each other.

And by that definition, the democracy you all so proudly speak of — is dead.

P.S.

Due to these recent events, I have decided to stall this blog. If it were up to me, I’d rather not blog about politics again (but some things are too difficult to let go). That’s how devastated I am of these elections. I may or may not blog again, I don’t know. And while I cannot bring myself to say good luck, I’d rather say God Bless the Philippines — the land of my forefathers and the land of my descendants! Me and my son will serve this country the best way we can.

“…Buhay ay langit sa piling mo.

Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi,

Ang mamatay ng dahil sayo.”

– “Lupang Hinirang”, Pambansang Awit ng Pilipinas

pnoy ako, pnoy tayo org poster (in support of noynoy aquino's presidential bid in 2010)

Preaching to the choir

They say people who blog (bloggers), a tremendous percentage of which are well-educated, well-informed, “well-off” and well-”everything”, are the ones running the “online show” — and this assumption is not without basis. Go ahead and search the net for familiar terms and you’ll most likely see the same blog over and over again. Another case of the “bourgeois” lording over the masa crowd looking for vital information online? Maybe.

An unwitting, unconnected, un-influential, regular Joe searching for “best presidentiable” being diverted by Google to so and so’s PR9 blog and being lectured and enjoined to vote for “change” — the good old “good vs. evil”  sort of mentality — putting personalities in a box or grooming a personality to fit in a customized box. Continue Reading

There is no greater honor for a blogger like me than be dedicated an entire post as response to one article I’ve written, specially if it’s from no less than one of those bloggers I have great respect for. It doesn’t even matter if that blogger disagrees with me or not.

True to his blog’s tagline, @cocoy is indeed “conservative in what he says, liberal in what he accepts”. If you are a reader who disagrees with most of what I write, please do yourself a favor by reading his response — he will give you a crash course in  “Disagreeing with Grace 101″ and “The Art of Subtle Yet Effective Persuasion”. Very nice article, @cocoy. I enjoyed reading it.

And now, to return the favor… :)

I actually wanted to leave a comment there but it turned out longer than his post so in the interest of unwritten net propriety I had to do it here. I apologize in advance for this lengthy post. I do not have the time to edit and make it shorter.

The question, I think is not whether Noynoy is too good to be true but rather more on whether he can deliver results as he promises. It is not whether his character is "without reproach" but more on whether his character is strong enough to weather the storms (political and natural) that is sure to continually hit us. It is not whether he is experienced or not. The question is whether experience will "make him" or "break him".

@Cocoy writes:

Perhaps, more than the assertion that Noynoy Aquino is inexperienced, this is something he must overcome. RJ has a point. And she isn’t alone. It isn’t merely, Noynoy Aquino but more than twenty years of failure by our leaders to lift our people out of poverty. It is like a woman breaking your heart, over and over again. How then do you trust?