Who I’m not voting for

I’m too often approached these days by people asking, "So whom should we vote for President?" I always reply with a practised look that I hope they’d read to mean, "Ask yourself, not me." Still they persist, "Is so-and-so really okay?" as if an inside dope on their chosen one would make them think again. I believe in surveys, and when pollsters say that seven out of ten voters who’ve made up their mind for a candidate won’t change it, then that’s that. So I just feign, "I don’t really know." After all, pollsters also say, a good 10 percent of voters will decide on election day itself.

I also believe in the sanctity of the secret ballot. I value our right as voters to write whoever we wish and keep it to ourselves. Only now will I confess that I scribbled "Hitler" in the two presidential elections during martial law. And that I also spoiled my ballots in the two plebiscites in between by checking both the "yes" and "no" boxes. I’ve since reformed and learned to write real names of real candidates. But I’m not now about to do a cardinal sin – note the small "s" – like somebody who admitted to have voted for Ramos in ’92 after warning against "Protestants like him." Still, by keeping my vote secret, I can help make puzzlers out of post-election surveys, like the 64 percent who claimed they too had voted for Ramos, when all he got was 23 percent of the ballot. Like them, I like to think I went for the winner. Rather, I like the winner to think I went for him.

I suppose voters ask newsmen for advice because they believe we know best who should run the country. Boy, have we got ‘em all fooled, including the wisest! Emerson once described democracy as a government of bullies tempered by editors. But then, the best that newsmen do during campaigns is to dig up dirt about candidates. Why, they show up for press conferences with a notepad and a shovel. Considering that I’ve written mostly unflattering items about all the "presidentiables", people who seek my advice should know that my shovel is a size-XL. But they still suspect I’ve held back, and ask for more tidbits. As for the candidates, it can only be a boon for us dirt-diggers that they regard politics like show biz. You know, "publicity, good or bad, is still publicity." So after the election, they send us thank-you cards.

To persistent askers, I’m tempted to enumerate who I’m not voting for. But then, I don’t want to be a Joker like Arroyo. There he was, advising people to not vote for FPJ and go for GMA, but ending up reviled by both camps and by the other candidates as well. That’s because he said it’s wise to vote for her who’s hounded by allegations of corruption, than him who’s "just plain hopeless." Any high-school dropout would resent that; so will supporters of a doctor of economics. Joker was just being accurate, though. As head of the Senate Blue-Ribbon body, he received many allegations of Palace shenanigans, and going by his findings, they have remained just that: allegations. But he made it sound like it’s a choice between the lesser of two evils. He forgot that there are a righteous alternative, a third force, and a worse evil. The same goes for our vice presidential bets.

Speaking of choices, many people are saying they won’t be able to fill up all 12 senatorial slots. This, despite 54 names to choose from. Ask them why and they’ll crack the text joke about FPJ being asked how he intends to clean up the government. "See my Senate lineup," he supposedly beams, "they’re all trapos." And they say the same for GMA’s ticket. An e-group has been campaigning against SEEMMOT, an acronym for two GMA and five FPJ candidates, reminiscent of JOE’S COHORTS of the 2001 impeachment infamy. I won’t mention who SEEMMOT stand for, lest I accord them more publicity to merit more thank-you cards. Suffice it to say that the electorate already had thrashed five of them in 1998 or 2001, one is an incumbent, the last is out on bail for treatment of rectal bleeding. It they’re thrashed again, the Magic 12 seats would open to better choices like Sonny Alvarez or Orly Mercado or Pia Cayetano or ... who else? Confidentially, I won’t be able to fill up all 12 slots either.

For me, the important blanks to fill up are for local officials, and for district and party-list reps who also dwell on local concerns. They, more than national winners, will affect our lives. It will depend on them if we will get the basic services we deserve: peace and order in our community, garbage collection, greening of surroundings, free-flowing traffic, business and tourism boosts. In my Quezon City the choice is easy: continue these days when we’ve never had it so good, or return to the nine sad years of neglect. That’s why Sonny Belmonte is the favorite bet, four-to-one. It’s under SB that motorists reclaimed Commonwealth Avenue from vendors, Cubao regained shoppers’ appeal, Novaliches traffic unclogged, garbage is regularly picked up at only half the cost, La Mesa Dam was reborn for local tourists, businesses perked up, police got more cruisers and weapons, barangays put up day-care centers, public markets became clean, streets are better-lighted at night, Payatas dump was largely converted to mass housing. All that, with a budget surplus to boot, since city tax collections have tripled. (I’m told that Erick San Juan intends to replicate these in a smaller scale in the smaller adjoining town of his surname.)

Quezon City voters who won’t be able to fill up the senatorial slots are sure that they will for councilor slots. Knowing that it also takes good co-workers to make a good mayor, they are voting straight for SB’s team. So will I. As I said, I like the winners to know I went for them.

Now, if only I can find my voting precinct on Monday.

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Catch Sapol ni Jarius Bondoc, Saturdays at 8 a.m., on DWIZ (882-AM).

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