Silent no more

Whatever happens after May 9, there is one thing I will never regret: that I had voted for RoRo.

You voted for Mar? Why do you hate the Philippines so much?!

"Kung boboto ka, sino'ng iboboto mo?" I asked my almost-30-year-old brother who has never bothered to exercise his right to vote.

"Malamang si Miriam o si Duterte. Ikaw, sino ba iboboto mo?"

"Nakaboto na ako. Si Roxas."

He retorted: "Why do you hate the Philippines so much?!"

Maybe I don't love the Philippines as much as I should But hey, I don't hate it; I still consider it home.

My reason for eventually choosing Mar Roxas had nothing to do with my love for my country (or my hate for it, as my brother thinks so). It is actually for a selfish reason that I had chosen him.

Choosing a VP was easy. I knew I would choose Leni Robredo; I just had to be sure that she had enough achievements under her belt and not just an association to the good track record of her husband, the former Secretary of Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo who had died four years ago. 

On the other hand, the choice for a president had been more difficult.


Shortlisting the short list

Jejomar Binay. 

Grace Poe.

I have always admired the wit of Miriam Defensor-Santiago. I was a little taken aback though by her choice of running mate. (Madam Senator, Bongbong Marcos, seriously?) In any case, more than that, I had concerns about the status of her health.

Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Once I took MDS out of the shortlist, I had narrowed down my options to the final two: Duterte and Roxas. 

That Rodrigo Duterte was known to be the strict disciplinarian mayor of Davao City appealed to me, plus the fact that he was advocating federalism which sounded like it could provide opportunities for the provinces to manage their own budget for their own development. But Duterte was also known for his cursing and womanizing. And then there were the rumors of extrajudicial killings which purportedly was how peace and order was maintained in Duterte's baluarte - with criminals being executed without trial. I decided that I could turn a blind eye on the cursing and the womanizing. However, the killings really made me think twice about him. 

If this election had happened when I was 16 years old and pro-death penalty, I would have voted for Duterte. However, over the years I've realized that there were fates worse than death - like living every single day with a guilty conscience for a murder you had committed or, if the murderer felt no remorse for the criminal act, suffering a lifetime in the worst conditions of the prisons in the Philippines. Duterte supporters can argue that within the walls of the bilibid, the criminals actually live in luxury. Maybe the likes of Bong Revilla and Romeo Jalosjos do. But not the petty criminals - shoplifters, pickpockets, snatchers, small-time drug pushers; those would still be jailed in the filthiest prison cells. On record, the Davao Death Squad has only ever executed small fry, never the big fish. So what's the difference?    

I had to ask myself, "What is it that was really important to me?" It was then that I realized: More than anything else, my freedom was most important. I didn't want anyone to curtail my human rights. I know myself to be a disciplined citizen even before when I was still living in the Philippines. But what if, by some stroke of unfortunate luck, I happened to be accused of any crime? Whether I did or did not commit it, I would still want to be given my day in court. I did not want to be judged and shot on the spot. And I certainly do not want any of my family members to be victims of any extrajudicial killings.

Rodrigo Duterte.

So I chose Roxas.

Then on April 16, I saw the video clip of Duterte's speech at the Amoranto Sports Complex, where he had joked about the Australian missionary who was raped way back in the 80s. It sounded like a joke; his campaign staff apologized for the joke. But the mayor himself clarified that it was not a joke and he was not apologizing for it.

On April 19, I went to the embassy. Marked my ballot. Roxas, Mar.

On April 24, I watched the last presidential debate - the first of the debate series that I have ever watched. I heard how solid Mar Roxas' plans were.

On May 2, I arrived from a Malacca trip to a shocking Straits Times headline: Philippines' presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte wants to burn the Singapore flag. For the first time in this election period, I was truly enraged. How dare he compromise the position of OFWs in Singapore! But Duterte supporters were quick to say that their candidate had been misquoted. A few hours after, the online news article was taken down by Straits Times. 

The following day, though, in a Philippine Daily Inquirer article, Duterte's spokesman said that "it (Singapore) has tasted its own dose of medicine when Duterte retorted jokingly that he will burn the Singaporean flag again." So he did say it!

I knew from that instant - I have no regrets about the choice I had made.  

Change is coming

Duterte's tagline had been: "Change is coming."

Change did come. 

I saw it in myself. Always the apolitical, I've never really cared about whoever won the polls back home. There was even one national election that I skipped. (Pfft! I didn't want to inconvenience myself with a trip to the embassy just to cast my vote.) This time, however, I found myself very much involved. I followed the news. I did a little of my own research. I participated in discussions.  

But the bigger, more appalling change was the change I saw in other people. Wow, did many people morph! 

Some people who I thought would be Duterte supporters surprisingly turned out to be MDS or Roxas supporters. A lot, I came to know, could really be unwavering in their stand - me included, I guess. Some shared links to dubious articles about this and that candidate without even checking the validity of the links. Whether they had done that intentionally or not, I do not know. One party accused another of cheating in the overseas polls. And, it's always that same party that accused and the same party that got accused. (Fishy?)

Online bashing became a common thing. Some went totally beast mode when they hear anything negative said about their candidate. Social media networks became battlegrounds were friendships were forgotten as Facebook users go about un-following, un-friending and even blocking other users who didn't sing the same tune they were singing; never mind, if the former were off-key in the first place. Sadly, members of a Catholic community that I used to be an active member of were not spared from this turn of events.        

It is difficult to say at this point who will win this election. But what is more difficult to say is if strained relationships could be restored after May 9.

And six years after June 30, which camp would say "We told you so"? Which camp could claim that they had been right all along? 

I don't know.

Vox populi. Vox Dei.