The true meaning of voting

By Al S. Mendoza

AGAIN, this thing called voting.

I went home to my land of birth that is Mangatarem for the barangay elections on October 25.

Only last May 10, I did the same but for the election of the president and vice president, senators, a congressman, a mayor and vice mayor and councilors.

Although I’ve been living in Metro Manila since finishing college – I am a Quezon City resident, actually, — I have never voted anywhere else except in my hometown.

“You are a funny man,” said a friend of mine some time ago upon learning that I vote in Mangatarem.

But what’s funny there?

Is voting for the person you personally know funny?

Is being pro-roots funny?

Is loving your town till your dying day funny?

I think, what’s funny is voting for a mayor you barely know.

I think, what’s funny is voting for a barangay captain you barely know.

And I think, too, that what’s funny is voting in a place that you can’t really honestly say it embraces you like its very own.

My town does that:  Its arms are wrapped around me tight as ever since the day I was born.

I went to school in Manila, but I never left home.

I worked, still do, in Manila after school, but I never left home.

I built a house in the Big City, but I never left home.

My mind might have wandered in Manila, but my heart will always be in my town.

Ask Dick Estrada, our town assessor.

Ask Julian Apostol, our just-retired election officer.

And, yes, ask Ted Cruz, our mayor.

All three will tell you how much I love my town.

They believe in me so much that all three even want me to run for mayor – including Ted, for that matter.

But I keep telling them, though:  “I love the way you do it in my town and I do not need to be a mayor to spoil the party.”

The party was a bit spoiled, though, in the last elections in my barangay when the candidate from the other side did some personal attacking in his campaign speeches.

I told the family, “Just be cool.”

You enter politics not to fight but to unite all forces, including the unfriendly ones.

Politics is fighting, yes, but politics is also gathering everybody to work as one after the fighting.

While election is part of democracy, election-related bickering is also part and parcel of democracy.

Voting is the supreme referee in any democracy.

You vote because you are in a free society.

You are free to choose the men and women to chart the future of your community.

First, you vote to eliminate pretenders, pseudo-leaders.

But after the voting, the victors must win over the defeated to make them useful citizens of our society.

Extend the hand of friendship, reconciliation.

That is the true essence of an election, the ultimate in democracy: To live together as one, to think as one in making the community a better place to live in.

Is there anything funny there?

Back to Homepage

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments