CAMPAIGNING FOR LIFE

Campaigning among the masses in depressed areas could be inspiring, not depressing. The people are seasoned voters and they can distinguish between who is a true and genuine candidate and otherwise. "Yung dati uulitin na naman ang gagawin. Tingnan naman natin ang bago. Kung di magustuhan. di palitan. Yang pera isukbit, pambulsa. pero yung boto pang bolpen."

What can you say to that? I am not aiming at the counting machines but rather on revising the traditional views of people about politics. In my blog I have stated there what the people can expect from the government, what they will do, and what they can get.

It is so funny, Folks. I wrote on my tarpaulin in screaming letters, PAGKAIN Food Banks as well as TITULO NG LUPA. Then Mang George tacked the poster on the fence while I looked after his multicab. Did you know that as we were backing up to leave I saw another tarp with the caption "Free funeral services? "

I asked myself so what? The problem is not death but life. We ned to make the people survive happily in this world. Funeral services should be the least offering of any leader-to-be.

That service is really out of this world. One can always offer that once in office but not while campaigning. The people want to know now, "What can you do for us (instead of accompanying our dead body or giving us a free ride to the grave after we have died?)

You can see here Folks, how out of touch some officials could be.

Then there is another one who has four or five tarps in every street of the six disticts of QC. No words, just the picture, the name, the current position, no catching service.

Multiply an estimated ten streets per barangay. Add the tarps on the tricycles and those tacked on the houses. Then multiply by the number of barangays in QC -142. So that would be estimated at 300 per barangay x 142=  42600 x P30 per tarp =   P1,278,000.00.

In the inner streets of QC I saw the other local candidates with similar tarps gracing the fenses, the building walls, the jeepneys , and so many other places.

The expenses of candidates are staggering. Where did they get so much money? Pulse Asia and SWS and all other social research groups must give us an estimate of the total expenses for this exercise on a weekly basis if possible and who is spending the most. Are the expenses necessary and justifiable? Shouldn't the candidates have pooled all their resources together to feed the people daily with food rich in nutrients and then make them decide on a list as to who they will vote for?

The competition for the attention of the public through public advertising is hollow. How could people decide on the basis of a pcture, a smile, and a name on the tarp? The COMELEC must show the people how to offer oneself as a public servant more decently than doing it through tricycles, fences, building walls, etc. It must devise a better educational way of informing the public what standards they will use for judging candidates. And they should give the people correct information about each candidate. What is the Education Department of Comelec doing except of informing us of rules? All their letters are in English and so I doubt it if all of the candidates read them at all as they use the legal writing jargon  all the time. They lack that popular appeal in writing. I wonder why until now the Comlc is so detachd fom reality. They must think that speaking and writing inlegal jargon makes them look erudite and sikat. No sirs, no mesdames, the people po speak Pilipino dialects. Don't alienate the masses, especially those who still want to serve in government just because they don't have enough money to spend.

Actually, I have to rely on friends for my tarps, flyers and pamphlets. (I want to thank BZ, SA and EE for the help they have given me). I feel a stabbing in my guts seeing so much spending of great amounts for ephemeral objects. This is why I put up my blog Google botokomahalaga. I use that to tell the pople what I would do once in office. My earlier-created blog, Google thirdforce-prg contains this and other critical articles representing how I view an enlightened governance.

Folks, we cannot afford to gamble on people's lives. The youth have found an easy way out through drugs a form of suicide actually. They feel insecure about taking on the leadership of this country when we are gone. So we must prepare them intellectually, strengthen their moral fiber and show them the way that leadership can be learned. They ought to think of leading in the future and so we must show them to have that sympathy for the downtrodden. Leadership is not acquiring absolute power for oneself but for empowering all of our people so that our society will be steeped in generosity, kindness, sensitivity, a helping attitude, and all other values. We must teach them to pray too and show them that praying is not a sign of weakness but of communicating with the Divine to strengthen us as we go through all the trials and travails.