The Philippine Online Chronicles

The colors of the campaign season surround us. Some of us have taken a pick on our favorite color, rather our presidential candidate.  If there are undecided voters, there are also voters that have chosen their candidates, thirty days before the elections.  A national survey from Pulse Asia says there are nine percent undecided while  an informal poll at Yahoo! Purple Thumb shows 20 to 25 percent.

Mon Casiple says that the undecided respondents had been chipped off the support for Manny Villar, who registered 35 percent in the January survey and 29 percent in the February survey.

If undecided voters overcome their fears and objections to one candidate, they could tip the election. If they can't, this final fraction of a polarized electorate could go for another candidate or they will opt to stay home on election day. Reaching such voters isn't easy, US-based experts say--undecided voters tend not to read newspapers, watch television news or pay any attention to politics until the final week of a presidential election. Most don't vote.

Can these undecided voters be reached, or do they even want to be? Will reaching out instead only drive them away? Most importantly, why are these nine percent undecided anyway?

A typical Filipino voter would most likely be undecided due to the following reasons:

(1) He is unaware of the list of candidates for each national and local post.
(2) He is yet to be convinced of each candidate's platform.
(3) He is torn to choose between two or more candidates.
(4) He is simply apathetic of the electoral process.

Publicus Limited Co. general manager Malou Tiquia, who actively works with candidates, says that “voters are short-changed. What you’ll make come election time is an emotional, not a rational, choice.”

She adds that it is difficult to make predictions at this point. “I think we’re just entering a crucial stretch. You can see people are still switching—sometimes for Villar, sometimes for Aquino,”

The Filipino people want change and an improvement in their lives after what they suffered for nine years under the Arroyo administration, such as its outright puppetry to US interests, worsening joblessness and poverty, rampant corruption, and impunity in human rights violations. Questions are begging to be answered and it doesn’t help that traditional media is playing up accusations and rumors being thrown and propagated by the candidates against each other.

Benign0 thinks the “undecideds are undecided because it is, in fact, hard to decide who to vote for from amongst this year’s crop of 'presidentiables' -- candidates who, at their most fundamental, each hardly stand for anything. Decideds, for their part, cannot be relied as indicators of a potential outcome because the underlying rationales of their 'decision' to support one candidate or the other is largely vacuous and therefore highly volatile.”

While candidates strive to answer the issues and black propaganda that haunt them, I believe that some of us that have decided on our candidate can help influence the undecided. Talk with your friends and family members especially those who don’t have access to the internet.

• Discuss that it is not just the lesser of two evils, but the best of nine choices that comes close to the criteria of competence, character, track record and platforms.
• Tell them that the bandwagon and trending effects of surveys disrupt the people’s ability to choose between a good and a bad candidate.

Undecided voters must see in you “a refreshing mix of genuine humility and compassion, as well as a burning desire to seek the solutions to our common concerns rather than the fulfillment of our personal or political agendas.” Close friends trust your opinion especially if it is based on a rational informed decision process.

When choices are made, let us agree to disagree even if our friends and relatives think otherwise. A fine example is when the Villar and Teodoro supporters  mingled peacefully at one venue, even exchanging souvenirs with each other. Carlo Ople, visibly touched by the sight of people clad in either orange or green,  expressed himself in Tagalog:

Walang gulo nangyari. Yung iba nagakapan, nag-bigayan ng mga campaign materials, at nag-kamayan. Sa panahon na ito na puro siraan na lang at batuhan ng dumi, nakakatuwa na makakita ng mga tao na gusto lang talaga gumanda ang bansa natin.

Unless we start talking and listening to our undecided friends and relatives,  there is a chance that we will find ourselves looking for the right solution for six more years.

Photos by author. Some Rights Reserved