Vote wisely! Your future depends on it!

We’ve heard them all in those months of campaigning by our politicos. We heard all those lurid stories, the scandals, the rumors or the lies, all the half-truths and often times, the real truth coming from all quarters… using some kind of publicity stunt just so political candidates land in the newspapers or are featured in late-evening television newscasts. We’ve seen all those political advertisements in the newspapers or on TV or heard them on AM-FM radio or even from loudspeakers noisily blaring on top of jeepneys or multi-cabs asking the electorate to vote for this or that candidate.

Yes, we’ve seen and we’ve heard them all and by now, I’m sure that the Filipino people are getting a little bit sick and tired of them, even though politics is still our country’s most popular pastime! Today, all that’s left is for the voters to make the biggest decision of their lives… a decision that will affect each and every Filipino family… because voting for the wrong candidate will only worsen our already precarious economic and social situation. Yes, today, the voter makes that crucial decision; he is the king, the sole decision-maker, to make this country better or worse. In Cebuano, he is "Haring Lungsod!"

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Lest you may have already forgotten, if President Joseph "Erap" Estrada hadn’t been impeached and there had been no EDSA Dos, today would have been the day when an Erap-weary Filipino nation would be electing a new president so we could finally get rid Malacañang of Erap. However, thanks to Divine Providence, EDSA Dos booted out the crooked Erap when we ran out of options and installed Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who became president for the three remaining years of Erap’s rule.

In a way, this gave President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) hands-on experience in running this country and in those three years, I’m sure that President Arroyo realized that if our nation continues in the same path, the Philippines can never move forward. When she took her oath on EDSA, she told us about New Politics, yet we were dismayed that her brand of New Politics contained not only new political faces, but also old politicos whom we had discarded way back in the first EDSA Revolt.

This is perhaps the reason why so many people cheered the President when last year, she decided not to seek her own term of office. After all, the Arroyo administration didn’t usher in real reforms and the New Politics was just a rehash of yesterday’s politics. But somewhere in the inner sanctum of her conscience lurks a true stateswoman and patriot, a social reformer and most important of all, the guts to put forward a plan to change our political ways… ways that can lead this nation to a better tomorrow.

The first EDSA Revolt 18 years ago brought down the corrupt and hated Marcos dictatorship. It was the clearest proof that Filipinos wanted the Marcoses out because Martial Law didn’t move us forward, but backward. In 1972, prior to the declaration of Martial Law, the pet peeve of the conjugal Marcos dictatorship was the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the hated oligarchy. On Sept. 21, 1972, Marcos declared Martial Law and the oligarchs were either imprisoned or they left the country in a huff.

When Martial Law was declared, many people thought that it had good beginnings though we know how he muzzled the media and made a mockery of press freedom. But in time, while he got rid of the oligarchy (like the Lopezes) he installed a new cancer in our society — cronyism. Yes, his cronies took whatever the oligarchs left behind so in a sense, the hated oligarchs were replaced by the hated cronies. Thus, during the decades of Marcos totalitarian rule, nothing much changed in this country.

Well, the EDSA Revolt supposedly changed all that! But then, while the cronies went into exile, the oligarchs returned with a vengeance, and when the dust settled, even the cronies came back to haunt us. So while EDSA dismembered the Marcos octopus, the severed tentacles developed a life of their own, mutating into what we now call the "political butterflies."

In the end, the oligarchs or cronies are nothing but bloodthirsty leeches (garapatas as RJ would sing) sucking the honor and dignity of our people through a corrupt leadership… a leadership rendered ineffective and corrupt because of a corrupt system. So what do we have to do? Elect a new set of leaders again? Well, haven’t we been doing exactly the same thing over and over since 1946? From being second to Japan in 1946, we’re now second to the last? So where did we go wrong?

Again, this is what I’ve been saying all along: that the Philippines is akin to a bus, brand new on July 4, 1946 with just a few passengers on board, but which is today totally battered, bent and broken and overloaded with passengers all the way to the roof. But what are the passenger’s concerns or demands? Who’s going to be the next bus driver?

Yes, I dare say that the majority of Filipinos today think that a new president can change things for the better and this is why too many people are offering themselves as the better driver for this sick nation. We’ve seen and heard actor Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ), Sen. Raul Roco, Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson and Bro. Eddie Villanueva each offering a new beginning for this nation complete with motherhood statements to stop corruption and eradicate poverty and solve crime. For me, all of them are nothing but bus drivers!

Whether you like her or not, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) is the only presidential candidate who offers a fresh new hope for real reforms through Charter changes so we could usher in a federal system of governance and rid ourselves of the root cause of what really ails our nation — a centralized or unitary system of government which only worsens political patronage and creates political butterflies. The Soviet Union fell because it was a centralized government and didn’t give importance to Russia’s diverse cultures. Like it or not, the Philippines is an archipelago with diverse cultures and people. It is time that our political leaders understand this.

If President Arroyo is leading in this race, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, it is because of the hope she brings to our various cultures… that someday, Imperial Manila will give equal importance to all Filipinos in this country. As China’s great reformist, Deng Xiaoping once said, "With a Good System, even Evil men cannot do Evil. Without a Good System, even Good men cannot do Good, but may be forced to do Evil!" Well, to the Filipino people, the time for change is in your hands. Vote for a new system of governance!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.