Goodbye, Dutertemania

Ben Contreras .

WHEN the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections become inevitable and we become witnesses to who are running and expected to win, we can only sigh deeply and say goodbye to “change” that our President used as his battle-cry in the last presidential elections.

The word “change” may have catapulted our President to his seat today, but the same word could also be his downfall. Change, after all, has not come to many government agencies known for massive corruption. The enemies of the President are only too happy to take stock on this negative perception and use it to attack the administration.

The coming elections will only validate the fear that change will not come from the expected winners. And when they use their money or other resources to win, expect them to recover their costs with a vengeance.

The narco-lists may not be 100-percent accurate, but certainly, there are those that must have been supported with concrete evidence and properly validated. Any candidate found to be under this list should already be disqualified to run in the first place.

Barangay and SK elections are supposed to be non-partisan. Is it? Unless the Comelec comes up with a clear definition of  “non-partisan” and implement the law with force, Comelec itself will only be accused of partisanship in favor of certain candidates.

The barangay is “the smallest administrative division” in the country.  A barangay can determine the kind of community we will have. Sad to say, we still have to see one barangay that has lived up to the expectations of the people especially from within the barangay itself.

We all have a different way of looking at elections. While it may be that an election is a democratic way of selecting people to run our government, history will bear it out that elections did not give us the best and qualified people to run our country or the right people to be our senator and representatives.

When we demand that running for a government position requires highest education, it is not meant to demean or debase those who were not able to finish higher education. Debatable it may be, but sometimes, we need to accept our own limitations in some aspects.

Perhaps, we can take a cue from what the late comedian Dolphy said: “Ayokong tumakbo dahil takot ako na baka ako manalo.” It’s not about winning. He is or could be a sure winner. He was just accepting his limitations with humility.

Okay, let’s say the election is over. Except perhaps for a few new faces, the rest are you know who. And we have winners in the SK elections, winners who already learned how to cheat, buy votes and mudslinging. The kind of leaders they will become in the future has become predictable.

Suppose the 2019 national elections have come to pass and familiar names reign over the new ones. Who would want change then? From the status quo to a federal system of government is one ambition with no takers. With status quo, government resources are apples for their taking and picking without even answering how people’s taxes were spent and used.

And if the 2019 elections come to pass, and the President would be staring at 12 noon in his term, the rest of his time would be moving toward sunset. And everyone, including his allies, would be seeing a lame duck presidency. Goodbye, Dutertemania; goodbye change. Welcome back, corruption! And, has corruption ever left?