HOTSPOT

By TONYO CRUZ

A couple of days ago, I met this accountancy student from a Manila university. Sometime over dinner, he asked me if I’ve made up my mind on who to vote for in the coming elections. It was totally random, the political question, as we were actually talking about our favorite foods.

“I actually haven’t gotten past three or four for the 12,” I answered.

And then he sprung it on me. He is a supporter of the Hugpong ng Pagbabaho and the PDP-Laban. And went on to name the one on top of his list. I won’t name his top bet here, but suffice it to say he’s not officially part of both slates but he’s the most rabid, crazy, stupid candidate.

“I feel the Yellows are just out to regain power. They haven’t paid for for the mess they created, the problems they made worse. I still haven’t forgotten the scandals and the incompetence. Have you?” he explained.

I didn’t engage. I just listened. The accountancy student has an axe to grind against the Yellows, and I can’t blame him.

It is quite different from the widely shared videos of the two women who professed support for a Senate candidate for the simple reason that, according to them, he looked good.

Quite different but also similar if you ask me. Sad but true.

We are told to go to the polls out of civic duty. It is a right of every citizen who would take the time out to register and then go to the polls to cast a vote. Those are the only two things asked of our voters.

But in between elections, and leading to the elections, voters actually have no or little say in the process. And this is where the problem lies, and why the accountancy student and the two women choose the candidates they have so far chosen.

The current president ran and won partly on the promise of change. For many, it meant turning its back on the practices of its predecessor. Voters saw a chance to powerfully say goodbye to the then-ruling regime and to hold the leaders accountable. Whether the President has delivered on his promise and whether he has used his office to deliver justice to the victims of the past regime, that’s an issue that resonates.

The elements of the past regime meanwhile have tried vainly to use the record of the current regime to cover up their own liabilities. There’s a claim peddled by spin doctors that the past regime’s biggest failure was allegedly weak communications. It is alleged, quite mendaciously, that the public’s fury in 2016 was merely because the public was misinformed, disinformed, or half-informed about its record. This line of reasoning extends further: The public is told they have made a mistake in booting out the Yellows.

Ocho Direcho is meeting resistance from voters due to this apparent attempt at historical revisionism, and its spiritual leaders’ selective amnesia. I don’t doubt the sincerity of most of its candidates. But the refusal or inability of Yellow leaders to hold themselves accountable, to bow down in shame in front of the electorate, and their arrogant claims that they are not only better but they would save the country from the current President — these just remind the nation of how tone-deaf, self-serving, and self-absorbed they were while in power, and how these malignant political players actually paved the way for the current President’s landslide victory.

Our people are not stupid. They are not idiots. They see through the opportunism of the Yellows — and that of the HNP and PDP-Laban slates. Many if not most of the administration leaders used to be Yellows or were part of the previous Yellow-led coalition.

Both slates have attacked the standard bearer of radical politics in the Senate elections -- Neri Colmenares. As can be expected, black ops by forces identified with the administration continue to slander Colmenares and the Makabayan partylist coalition through red-tagging. The putative HNP standard-bearer herself leads the anti-Red charge, while endorsing nuisance partylists like those of Uson and Cardema. The rabid anti-communists in the Yellow opposition join them and proudly proclaim that they successfully split the opposition by excluding Colmenares from the Yellow slate.

Like him or not, Colmenares puts forward and runs on a progressive and radical platform. He is aware of and resistant to the historical revisionism of the entire ruling class. He exposes them. The regime tried to coopt and deceive the movement he belongs to. But they have emerged from this as genuine advocates of change. Duterte had to boot the Left out for fear that he would be exposed for the fraud that he is and his allegiance to the oligarchs and foreign interests. The Yellows meanwhile continue to pillory Colmenares and Makabayan for staying true to progressive politics.

I am the last to say that this current regime is better than the previous one, or vice versa. Like many of my friends, I’m not a fan of traditional politics and traditional politicians. How these forces try to oversimplify the choices in these elections should be suspect. Because by oversimplifying, they only slice and dice the electorate along partisan lines. Partisan lines that benefit only their factions of the same elite that consider voters as mere pawns.

From the process of choosing the candidates, drafting what are passed for as platforms, raising funds, mounting events — our election process has scarce participation of the electorate. It is a process smothered by wealthy, opportunist traditional politicians. Guns, goons, and gold both offline and online.

Call them cynical or stupid but the accountancy student and the two women could’ve just been forced by circumstance to make those choices. It is not an IQ problem that we have. It is, to put it lightly, a terrible political mess that demands much more than what the politicians would tell you.