by William I. Casabar

What’s up?

It’s collision season again in politics. The good or bad prospects are ubiquitously present.

Given the country’s long-existing social, economic and environment turbulence—politics, which will be on the spotlight in May, will pave the destiny of the country.

Every one, regardless of his level of optimism nor pessimism on the 2010 national race, is going to take a pause for a moment, and would have to decide and hand-pick the ones whom he thinks can give hope and medication to our society’s maladies.

YES—in the person of electoral candidates!

Even before when I was not yet a registered voter, I had always thought of this.

That politics, in many ways, serves as an opportunity for those who want to serve genuinely.

Sounds optimistic but after all that our country has experienced and still is going through, it is very timely among us to be more vigilant this coming election.

I cannot help but chuckle every time I face the idea that while there are a lot of colorful figures in politics, business and even religion who topbilled this year’s line-up for the next political leaders particularly for the presidency (10 candidates for the said position), only few among these aspirants had proven enough of their worth in serving the general public productively and whole-heartedly. Though some of them have long-standing experiences in the public service, they had done nothing “much” impactful in the lives of the Filipinos aside from their mind-inducing political ads that bombarded us.

Mainly, the very challenging part is we would all be able to find out if the appointed leader fits the position only by the time he is elected. It’s a good thing if he delivers good performance, but if not, there’ll be no chance for the people to withdraw their votes and that only means we need to endure the tenure of the present elected leader and would have to wait another long period until his term is ended.

From there repeatedly, we begin again with the “false-belief” system, that the future hope for our troubled country all depends on who will be the next President.

But isn’t it more logical if we put it this way? That the stability or progress of our country does not necessarily depend on changing those “unfit” elected officials or waiting for another election to come out but from the very first, before the election takes place, we must contemplate and if it’s possible, to do an extensive research about the previous performance of the aspiring leader so that we can properly choose and judge his qualifications.

I hope it does not sound repetitive or much worse, stupid, but that is how I think our election usually goes.

Another biggest factor that we, voters, must be keen of is to avoid being ensnared by fake political ads.

Media is a very powerful tool in campaigning. Even the underachiever with empty promises can be an electoral candidate once he invests in the use of media, which can make him, despite his false status and accomplishments, from “zero” to “hero”.

Some of our countrymen who belong to classes A, B and C or at least those who finished higher education, could not be easily fooled by this tactic. Unfortunately, the majority of the voters who are highly-susceptible to this kind of trick are those who usually belong to the class D category, especially the “masa” and proletarians. That is the obvious reason why it is common to see campaign ads with them as the target viewers/audience.

In that way, a “personality-based” ad can overshadow the ads of candidates with good platforms.

The media then becomes an influential tool to brainwash people’s thinking.

Now that we have the chance again to appoint new officials who will lead the country for another six years, it’s high time for among us to  give our best shot.

I am fully aware of the so-called democracy in our country and that we all have the freedom to vote the candidate whom we want to lead us, but each of us, however, should be accountable for the betterment of our country, that includes being responsible in choosing the candidates.

And what is that “best choice”? Of course, I am not supposed to endorse my bet here, but “best choice” for me is choosing the candidate who passed our thorough evaluation.

Every one should cast his vote because each vote is essential to change the destiny of our beloved nation.

Now is the time to do it right.