Suicide Squad

Herbie Gomez

I REALIZE that if I do not vote for any of the five presidential candidates, my inaction would still be in favor of one of them. I know that the blank space in my ballot would still count, somehow.

Those who do not vote because they are undecided or because they see all the presidential candidates to be unworthy of their votes would factor in the election results. You see, political strategists have included them in their equations. The election turnout in every city or province, high or low, could make or unmake any of the five presidential campaigns, and factor in the overall count. One vote is enough to break a tie just as a blank ballot could make a candidate lose. In other words, a no-vote is still going to be a vote–a blind vote in favor of an unintended candidate, that is.

And so, we really have no choice but to vote. As for me, I have started to keep a score card. On Election Day, the presidential candidate who I think would be the least damaging, with the least number of false and undoable promises, absurd pronouncements, and lies will get my vote, albeit with a bit of reluctance. Character and record, although clearly imperfect, would also factor in my decision. The sad and ugly reality is that no amount of wishful thinking can make any of the presidential candidates at par with a statesman like the late Jovito Salonga.

Here are our choices: a candidate who promises change plus robbery and plunder; a sexist, homophobic, lascivious and loud shady character of a candidate who promises drastic change that’s too good to be true just like an investment scam, and who, by his own account, cannot even be trusted to be left alone in the house with a female helper; a candidate who promises status quo and no hope for change because he is already happy and satisfied with what he is seeing, and who has demonstrated time and again that he is a bungler especially in times of crisis; an inexperienced candidate who promises to pursue what her late famous adoptive father did only in the silver screen, and whose claims of patriotism and love for country are suspect if not, assailable; and an unstable candidate, mentally and physically, who picked a late dictator’s son as a running mate.

My heart bleeds for this nation. We are like an ailing man, in great pain and facing the inevitable, who has five choices by which he could end his life: 1) a caliber .45 pistol to blow his brains out; 2) a hammer which he could use to smash his head with; 3) a glass of insecticide, or a gallon of liquefied pork fat which he could drink to induce cardiac arrest; 4) a rope which he could tie around his neck or a tightrope between two highise buildings to walk on; and 5) a pool where he can simply drown himself. There is no sixth choice. That’s exactly what this year’s presidential election is going to be like for us.

Given all these, I am aware that there is no way I’d emerge from the polling precinct happy with my vote because there is really no good choice. I’m afraid there is really no correct answer. What we have is the Suicide Squad–yes, a disorderly gang of supervillains who we wish could turn into superheroes.

But while I have no choice but to vote because, as I pointed out, a no-vote is going to be a blind vote, I have neither moral obligation to tell anyone who my choice is going to be nor duty to campaign for any of the candidates. There is no law that obliges me to campaign for anyone. Sorry, but none of the candidates for the presidency is worth campaigning or fighting for. There are however at least two, or maybe three, who are worth bashing because they could really do this country serious damage–they’re twisted, clearly wicked, bad for the brain and democracy, and are guaranteed to make physicians pronounce this nation dead on arrival at the ER. Dili gyud tsada.

As I indulge in wishful thinking that the next vice president would be the right person, and that, somehow, the next veep would take over as president, I have started keeping a file of writings and saving screengrabs of interestingly dumb social media postings by rabid cultist-like partisans because I intend to smudge their faces with their own rubbish (that’s a metaphor) and hold them accountable six months, a year or more, after the elections in the unfortunate event that their candidate wins. Since they are openly vouching and campaigning for their principal, then they would have to answer to us if their president fails to deliver.

These partisans cannot just tell us after one or three or six years that they made a terrible mistake (again?). They cannot just call it quits. They cannot make amends by lambasting in the future the very same politician they have openly lionized and packaged now like a demigod without whom the Philippines cannot see salvation from inept governance and misgovernance. It has to cost these partisans something, and they should be punished–not necessarily garroted but dishonored in full public view–the moment the assurances which they conspired to ram down the throat of the gullible are proven false.

As active political campaign mouthpieces, paid or voluntary, their names and credibility are on the line. What they do now would affect all of us, our families, and the entire nation.

The burden of proof is not on my shoulders because I have never vouched for any of the presidential candidates. Rather, the burden is on those who assert to know for sure–and who assure us–that we are going to be in good hands with their candidate.

This is not a game. This is no laughing matter. What is at stake here is the nation’s interest. And these partisans better be prepared to pay up with their names, credibility, reputation and honor. After all, they are the ones giving us their word, promising us, and assuring us that they they know and are certain that their candidate will make things better for all of us. If they are wrong, shame is coming to them.

Pastilan.