Our week (or months) of living dangerously

Today is the day! In all of my 60 years, there have been very few days I approached with more trepidation than today. It isn’t even about me because the way I see it, my role and priorities have changed as a new dual citizen. Seeing the big picture and thinking less of “what’s in it for me” comes easier when you know most of your years are now history.

The reason today makes me so anxious is because I get the feeling that today, we approach an important crossroad for the country and future generations of our people. We have little margin for error and errors have already started to happen. Sara Soliven De Guzman, a colleague at PhilStar captures the feeling well in her Facebook post: “Exciting times in the Philippines... even if danger lurks beneath the shadows of darkness....”

I see today as the start of a week of living dangerously and that’s being optimistic about it. It could be the start of a month or months of living dangerously. You can feel society tensing into a powder keg of pent up emotions. The campaign season revealed the worse of our potential leaders. It would take very little to ignite that smoldering social volcano and there are so many potential events that could do just that, with or without the help of the current administration.

Against that atmosphere is the reality of still being at the mercy of an administration you can’t help feeling is up to no good. You just can’t get yourself to believe them that they are on the way out. It doesn’t help that their spokesmen, including a defense secretary whose words even the PNP protested against, say the darnest things that reinforce the feeling that they cannot be trusted. 

(Incidentally, Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza, who attended a joint military and police command conference in Camp Crame, said they have looked into the estimated 540 million messages sent by more than 50 million Filipino cellular phone users happened when he headed the Department of Transportation and Communications. How’s that for invasion of privacy and police state tactics!) 

The drama unfolds today. The first part of our agenda is to get the duty of voting done as early as possible. And let us make sure we do quality voting. We need to bring back honor, decency and true meaning of public service in our nation’s life. Because times are hard and we may need tough measures like what Greece is finding necessary to impose on its people, we need a President we can look up to because he or she can lead by example.

Banker Leo Alejandrino observed in an op/ed piece in BusinessWorld, that today, we are at “an inflection point in our history. They will be a test of whether the Filipino is truly deserving of his right to enfranchisement.”

Mr. Alejandrino summed up exactly what we are facing: “This country is in dire straits. Filipinos are worse off today than they were 10 years ago. We have a record budget deficit, a record national debt. Our education, environment, and health care are in disrepair. The corruption in government is encompassing. This cancer has seeped into the fiber of our society, into the values and mores of our nation.”

Thus, today, we have the chance to reverse this decay but for that we must choose wisely.

And our job isn’t over after that. We must be proactive in guarding the sanctity of our ballot and make sure the real will of the people is reflected by those PCOS machines. It would be a shame if we allow the machinations of people working behind the scenes for this administration or for some other interest not aligned with the people to be successful.

I realize that we have been a bit paranoid lately, taking in every other conspiracy story we hear. But given the sneaky record of the current government, (plus that Mendoza admission of looking over our shoulders while we text) who can blame us? While we ought to be more discerning, we also have to remember what someone said about how only the paranoid survive. As PhilStar Executive Editor Amy Pamintuan puts it, “you can never be too paranoid in this country where truth can be stranger than fiction.”

The stakes in our electoral exercise are high and many people who have a lot to lose will likely try anything to safeguard their private interests. In other words, everything is possible… anything can happen. We will be living dangerously in the next few days or weeks or even months until the next duly elected President is proclaimed, sworn into office and assumes control.

With this in mind, it is important we keep our cool and counsel our people to do the same. It is for certain that some of those darn PCOS machines will fail. Lines to vote will be long. Thousands will be disenfranchised. But the last thing we need is to lose our cool and spark any kind of violence or even people power. We should not give anyone the excuse to declare a state of emergency and extend their hold over us beyond June 30.

If anyone hears of any credible plan to destabilize the elections, expose the scheme right away. There are thousands of Boto Patrollers of ABS-CBN out there ready to get anyone in touch with the producers of the largest election coverage ever mounted by media in history.

In fact, one bright aspect of today’s elections is the role of new technology and mass media. Our usual suspects will be under careful scrutiny of ordinary people armed with nothing more than a cell phone that can take pictures and deliver reports instantly. Because everyone can be a Boto Patroller doing his civic duty, it will be difficult to do the usual magic operations that characterize our elections in the past.

The very ubiquity of technology today, from cell phones to Facebook and Twitter should prove to be the most interesting development in today’s elections. The same technologies have been very effective in reporting disasters and tragedies including mass murders. The Ampatuans wouldn’t be in jail today without a civic conscious citizen using his cell phone to expose this shocking and dastardly crime. Perhaps, these technologies, more than those PCOS machines, are the real safeguards we have for honest results.

Technology alone will not help us unless we all resolve to be vigilant. Let us now consider all of us as volunteers to assure clean and orderly elections. We are all going to be the eyes and ears always alert to report any anomaly in the conduct of today’s exercise.

It doesn’t really matter who our personal choices are. What is more important is that all qualified voters who want to vote are able to vote and our choices accurately counted. If we are able to do this in a peaceful and even boring manner, our economy will definitely experience a boost. We would have proven to the world that we are a mature and responsible people and those who want to invest here will find a safe and hospitable environment.

We all have to look beyond our own interests and look out for what is good for the country. If only we can be assured that our leaders will not attempt anything that will paint a picture of political instability for our country, maybe we wouldn’t be this worried about today.

So choose your candidates well. Let us not waste this window of opportunity to change our politics and our destiny. Let us not forget we always end up with the leaders we deserve!

Jokes

And because some people took themselves too seriously during the campaign period, they should be reminded of what comedian, vaudeville actor and social commentator Will Rogers once said:

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts’. 

 Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. This and some past columns can also be viewed at www.boochanco.com