THE every-three-years ritual is over. By this time, most of the winners are celebrating while the losers are thinking of what protest to file.
So much has changed in how we conduct our elections—from writing the names of who one is voting for to shading circles that correspond to names of candidates, from manual counting that takes days to finish to automated counting that takes a few hours. Even the manner of campaigns has changed.
But the results remain the same, if not worse. It’s what many consider political insanity — “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
But the results don’t change, they only get worse election after election. Yesterday’s election is no exception.
For one, political dynasties grew and grew in number, power and privilege. Those in power got more and more entrenched and can no longer be removed. Corruption got wider and wider and worse and worse.
The late Senator and constitutionalist Claro M. Recto saw this future. During the 1949 elections, he said in a speech titled, How Our People Shall Choose: “Power accumulates power. The corrupt will grow more corrupt each passing year; the unscrupulous will grow more ruthless; ambition will never be satiated; and it will be harder and harder to overthrow an administration growing more and more entrenched in privilege, patronage and power, until in the end we may face the terrible choice of slavery or revolution.”
But what is worse is that every election we’ve had has only served to drive a wedge deeper and deeper among Filipinos.
We are a country deeply divided:
Not so much by the vast waters that connect our islands, for the waters can be traversed and bridged.
Not so much by the 100 or so different languages that our people speak, for we can understand each other even if we speak in different tongues
Not so much by the diversity of our culture, for there can be unity in diversity; nor by faith or religious beliefs, for there is still only one God we all can rely on to bring all of Humanity into one, no matter how we differ in expressing our faith.
Not so much by race or blood, for even if our Malay ancestry has been diluted by the blood of other races, blood remains thicker than water; and certainly not by political belief or ideology, for very few really have strong ideological or political conviction.
But we are deeply divided:
One, by economics where there are a few thousand or so ultra-rich and 60 million who survive day-to-day and a thin middle class, whose life of a little comfort is being greatly diminished year after year.
Two, by a system of political patronage and personality-oriented politics that, in less than 50 years, blossomed into division by colors that turned our deep divide into a bitter divide, so bitter it even keeps families apart. It is a division neither caused nor desired by citizens, but perpetrated by political clan wars, both at the local and national levels.
Sadly, the two feed on each other inside a vicious cycle.
This is the challenge we face as a nation, if indeed we are one, and if we are to survive as one.
There is no antibiotic, no magic cure for the condition that we are in. There is no vaccine that can prevent this disease from infecting all of us and future generations. Our problems are systemic. They require massive surgery — sooner than later, else we risk the demise of Asia’s First Republic.
But we need something to hold on to — not a change of regime, not a single leader or group of leaders, for all have failed, failed the nation, fallen short of the task, and they are themselves largely responsible for the division. And everyone else will fail.
We need something to hold on to in the same way the Japanese hold on to their code of discipline, Americans of different races hold on to the American dream, and the Israelites hold on to their Promised Land.
We need something strong to hold on to for unity, not straws to clutch at. Not fleeting moments that we experienced each time Manny Pacquiao stepped onto the ring many years ago, or an Alex Eala Wimbledon finals appearance can bring.
That we have to find. And find fast before Recto’s foresight could become true—that we may have to “face the terrible choice of slavery or revolution.”
