Déjà vu

Netnet Camomot .

FACEBOOK will soon have a dating feature and Mark Zuckerberg promised it will give the hopeless romantic “meaningful, long-term relationships” and it’s “not just for hook-ups.”

Should Zuckerberg fix some problems first, such as protecting users’ data, instead of hopping from one feature to another? But that’s exactly how some people behave in their romantic relationships, by hopping from one partner to the next, treating it as a game.

And there are people who treat the barangay elections as a game: Barangay ra bitaw na. But not if it’s Cagayan de Oro’s Nazareth where this year’s campaign season became a déjà vu of the 2013 congressional elections. Definitely a perfect example of the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It was indeed a matter of kaabag versus babag, borrowing the words of Mayor Oscar Moreno but I’m not sure of what he was describing in last Monday’s “Ang Cagayan de Oro Kagahapon, Karon ug Ugma” with “Holistic Approach Towards a Drug-Free Society” as the topic. The internet was buffering and loading as usual and I could hardly catch up with the panel’s discussion.

Still, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police described the recent barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections as generally peaceful. Had there been no electionelated deaths, it would have been absolutely peaceful?

Waking up at 5 am on Monday in order to arrive at the polling place by 7 am is a hard-habit-to-break I learned from my parents who used to wake us up early for any election way back when. The early bird gets the worm. During elections, the early bird avoids the long lines and the heat.

There are two kinds of heat on Election Day: the one that can be caused by the friction among poll watchers and the other is of course the hhhhhot summer weather.

Expecting a map to guide me through the labyrinth of classrooms on Monday, a cop told me instead to follow the arrows. Great for Barangay 24—it had a lot of red arrows. Our barangay, however, had two red arrows? To mean, Turn right. Upon reaching a dead-end, another red arrow pointing to the right. And that was it. Good thing a concerned citizen and his wife recognized me as someone from his barangay and offered we could look for our precinct together.

We finally found our precinct on the second floor where we, of course, lined up and were glad to know we’re among the first ten. The young lady behind us began to whine and complain about how she would be late for work which she claimed would start at 8 am—she didn’t want to be late, blah blah blah.

I was looking out the hallway window while waiting for our turn, when the concerned citizen called the attention of the teacher assigned to our precinct. The young lady, who was whining and complaining on being late for work, was now inside the classroom and voting! Wow! Asa ang hustisya ani? Well, with the chief-justice seat remaining vacant, I guess we have to continue looking for justice even after the elections.

Anyway, other voters followed the bad example of the whining-and-complaining young lady, also claiming they had to be at their respective offices by 8 am.

We, the behaving we-are-lining-up first ten, were still outside of that classroom and nowhere near having our index fingers polished with indelible ink. But, with much thanks to the concerned citizen, the misbehaving late-for-work pretenders were ordered to line up outside the classroom and we were finally allowed to vote.

I told the concerned citizen he should run for the barangay elections next time. And he jokingly replied, Basta botar mo nako kung modagan ko. Of course, we will!

See how easy it is to convince neighbors to vote for you?

The barangay is where it all starts. From vote buying to graft and corruption. Call it practice. That’s where the politician learns how to play the game. If blessed with a good heart, then the barangay official can be the exact opposite of a traditional politician who’s more popularly known as a trapo. But if possessed by an evil heart, he will turn out to be worse than a trapo.

Being a public servant should be treated as a sacred calling reserved only for those who truly want to serve the madlang pehpohl. Those with lofty ambitions for power and money should never be allowed to run for any political position. If ever you want money and power, don’t enter politics—put up a social networking site instead. Like Facebook.