The Sangguniang Kabataan is failing the province

While the rest of the country is agog over the prospects of the 2010 national elections, the turn out of first-time registrants and young voters in the province has been dismal.

Comelec’s provincial office estimates that there are 106,000 young eligible voters expected to register, but only 23,352 have registered so far.

The reported low turnout among the young eligible voters in Pangasinan is certainly a cause for concern. This cannot be deemed simply as a problem exclusive to the Commission on Elections whose mandate is to update roll of voters. It is a problem that will impinge on how democracy will be upheld in the country in the years ahead. For starters, the low turnout will inevitably affect the prospects of young, fresh idealistic candidates vying for local posts.

But why is this happening? What has made the young show signs of indifference to the call for them to perform their constitutional right duty to cast their votes and select their political leaders?

Is it a mere case of skepticism or a manifestation of their own frustrations with the political system and the establishment in the province and in the country? Is the sentiment that unabated vote-buying and tallying of fraudulent results of elections have rendered their participation in the political exercise useless, also now prevalent among the young? Or is there a quiet yet concerted move among traditional politicians to dissuade the young from registering if only to keep the status quo in the system?

If so, then our present crop of leaders should begin to worry about their legacy for the future generations. The performance of the young today is as much their responsibility and therefore, can only be interpreted as the result of their uninspiring land corrupt leadership.

Or could it be just again one of those “last-minute manna” habit typical of Filipinos? We sure hope so but they must be told that they risk losing their right to vote should they finally failing to meet the final deadline or by being a part of the eventual mix-up in the Comelec records.

Whatever the reason, the leadership of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation of Pangasinan has much to explain for this low turnout. The SK was created by law precisely to prepare and involve the young in our country’s political development. If the SK cannot deliver the expected leadership and motivation to engage their members in this basic political activity – to register – then they only have themselves to blame if the present move to abolish SK snowballs in Congress.

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