EDITORIAL - Vote with your mind, not with your heart

Exactly two weeks from today, Filipinos will be going to the polls to elect their next president. Perhaps no other presidential election has been as widely anticipated as this. They look to the outcome of the exercise as a real prize they truly deserve.

Why that feeling? Because the May 10 election will finally provide them the opportunity to get rid of a highly unpopular president in a peaceful way. They have long wanted to throw her out but realized the risk of violent consequences was too high a price to pay.

And so the people heroically endured the long wait for this moment. The trouble is that it is not clear whether the long wait has actually prepared the anxious Filipinos for the change they so desire.

The question begs to be asked: Are Filipinos mentally prepared to choose their next leader or have they been merely excited emotionally? How Filipinos answer this question will determine whether they will get who they truly want for the next six long years.

For there is a whale of a difference between having made up one's mind and simply getting a strong feeling about something. The choice of a president is not something Filipinos should leave to feelings. They have to arrive at a decision based on careful consideration.

Filipinos must remember that it only takes a fraction of a second for emotions to make their blood surge through their veins and make their hearts beat faster but that it takes quite a while for the brain to sort out facts to make a proper analysis and arrive at a case.

In other words, there is still time to set aside the great emotions stoked during the campaign period and sit down, take a deep breath, and truly, carefully, and open-mindedly assess the future unfolding before our eyes.

Filipinos are not perched on some rock-steady platform that they can afford to be shaken by the dire consequences of making a wrong move. The Philippines sits on a precarious perch. That it has not fallen can be attributed to God's continued grace. Let us not test God's patience.