The Philippine Online Chronicles

My decision not to vote for Noynoy Aquino was based on my critieria of competency, character, coherent platform and clear vision. The night before May 10, I told myself that no matter who the president will be and as long as it is a fair and clean election (unlike the 2004 polls, with the Hello Garci scandal), I will support the new president whoever he/she may be. Still, I could not help feeling dismayed that this country would rather vote “for some guy who, we know merely as the son of two politician parents and whom foreigners find agreeable.”  There was an expression of longing for honesty, decency, and democracy at the time of Cory’s funeral but it baffles me on why it should mean that this automatically transfers to a son or a daughter by means of heredity.

Mong Palatino believes the victory of Noynoy Aquino was because “Arroyo was intensely hated by the public and Noy benefited by fanning the anti-Arroyo flames in the country. He also had to thank Kris for the masa appeal and kamag-anak Danding for the billions.”

I acknowledge the fact that people have personal choices yet believe choices should be based on an informed process. It is also about assessing the risks and choosing which risk is most acceptable to you. Readers at my personal blog who didn’t vote for Noynoy shared the same sentiments. One of them tries to put it in the right perspective:

“Millions of Filipinos so different from each other, so different from you and your guided vote have the mandate to elect who they want to lead them in this Third World country of ours! You spent 9months doing something for your country, but you can only do that much! Your reach is limited. The bulk of the electorate are way beyond your reach. They do not have the technology that you’re using. We are as Filipinos in a pyramid-like social stratification system: upper class, middle class, and lower class which occupies the largest base. The lower class who are powerless and who can be manipulated by the shrewd and the cunning.

While you are in the middle-upper class, the dominant lower class who are active participants in the electoral process surely would dominate in the election results. It should not be a surprise! In fact, those you may have reached and have all the reasons to choose a leader in an objective manner may not have voted at all for various reasons!

But the powerless lower class have all the time and the reasons to come out of their houses and go through the tedious process of registering at the Comelec and voting on Election Day. This, probably, was not done by many empowered Filipinos whose sound choices were not translated into votes.

Thus, empowered becomes indifference. Therefore, as a people in all classes, we only deserve our kind of leaders. I strongly agree with your “participative citizenry” as an instrumental element to the success of our new leaders – local or national.

So, let’s not just wait and see, let’s do what we can to improve our lot.”

Challenges in Voters' Education

I cannot help but be optimistic that the new administration will still turn out well because it’s the only country we have and the only one we can leave to our children. After getting over my disappointment, I started to beef up plans for continuing voters' education. I believed that voters education should not start during election season. It starts now.

Influential source of information in choosing a president

Source: New Media and Democracy

A week after the elections, I met up with Rom Feria and Justine of Youth Vote Philippines to discuss  Voters’ Education. Before discussing plans, I shared statistics on the  most influential source of information in choosing a President: television at 63 percent while internet sites at 0.2 percent.  Family or relatives account for 16 percent. A similar report from Manila Standard cites TV as the number one source followed by TV commercials. Voters' education has long been part of electoral reform as early as the 2002 National Electoral Reform summit with its long-range target, to develop a critical mass of mature and discerning voters. I doubt their efforts  to reach out to 30 million citizen-voters were successful. The People’s International Observers Mission (PIOM) report concluded, “the widespread intimidation, vote-buying, corruption and violence showed that automation could solve only part of the problem… The political and economic inequality creates vulnerability to intimidation and vote-buying.”

Most Helpful means in deciding whom to vote for national elective positions

Source: Compediun of exit polls

Efforts from the declaration of the 2003 summit were workshop planning with three major channels: the formal educational system, the NGOs and community-based organizations, and the mass media. A successful citizen-voter education campaign was meant to  result in a more stable and credible electoral process.

Themes of election-related reports

Source: CMFR

Voters education is in place but clearly, TV plays a more crucial role. Is TV doing its job? Some of my twitter followers think a certain TV station showed bias towards a presidential candidate despite a Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility report stating that more than 95 percent of the election-related reports of TV Patrol World and 24 Oras were neutral.  Themes of “these election-related reports were mainly the conduct of the campaign by the leading candidates, followed by issues pertaining to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and poll automation.” There was scant coverage of development/policy issues as they were reported only eight times by the three news programs during the period reviewed.

Comelec voter education in schools

Comelec  wants to introduce the concept of responsible voting by “re-invigorating” the old way of choosing class officers. James Jimenez, the Comelec spokesperson adds that they “ want to look at re-invigorating the concept of the class officers’ election.”  This sounds like the perfect entry point for a voters education program because it is one of the earliest exposure to a voting process.

“The current procedure of electing class officers was not being placed in proper perspective by the teachers, thus losing an opportunity to teach the students how to vote properly.

“When the teacher comes in, she or he just tells the students they’re going to have an election and then asks them for nominees and then there’s the voting. But in the end, the ones who are working are only the class president, secretary and treasurer. I swear, I haven’t seen a class auditor or public relations officer working; the job description of the class muse is clearer than theirs,” Jimenez adds.

There are voter education schemes that are “age-appropriate” where the students would be slowly introduced to the basic concepts of elections, democracy and politics. Even as early as kindergarten, the kids could be asked to “choose between a dog mascot and a bird mascot. Students would be asked which they will support and why. Supporters would be made to understand concepts such as victory and defeat, and the concepts of campaigning.”

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal adds that  Comelec will “take the lead in forming the learning modules while the educational bodies of government would handle their implementation.”

Voters education starts today

DepEd said that the integration of voters’ education is still in the planning stage, This will be pilot tested in selected schools hopefully by next school year to assess its effectiveness. Recognizing the challenges of voters education, we don’t have to wait for next school year for it to start.  It is beyond our citizen powers to dictate on the content of TV networks. We can merely suggest.  TV reporters were trained by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) on how to cover for the elections yet TV networks and their editors failed to deliver on prime time TV the crucial issues, platforms and responsible voting. They know what they are supposed to do.

Comelec needs to address the influence of TV in voters’ choice.   Educating school children may not be enough if Comelec does not work hand in hand with the tri-media and social media. Voters education doesn't have to start next year. Let it start today.

Initial plans with Rom Feria and Youth Vote Philippines will  gear voter education programs by taking advantage of  the online practices of the youth.  Our role in Blog Watch as a citizens' transparency and good governance watchdog is to continue citizen-voters education through our feature articles, use of digital media, user generated content and spreading our information in our social media networks.  Our reach may not be as wide as TV but we hope that as the growth of internet users rise,  we can somehow influence our young voters towards responsible voting and become watchdogs of good governance.