Ako ang Simula

You know what really pisses me off? That "Ako ang Simula" and "Boto mo, I-patrol Mo" garbage ABS-CBN always harps on about. Its been praised as an effort to increase voter involvement and to rouse the youth. Bullshit.

The Filipino voter is not smart. Period. The fact we elected Erap, a high school dropout actor, is proof enough. Second, the youth couldn't give half a rat's ass. There is no organized youth movement or at least a truly large one. The youth would rather post their ugly on facebook or post their stupid opinions on blogs than vote. Thirdly, your vote does not matter. It doesn't. Smart people like to think their vote matters but it doesn't. The truth is, among regular people, voting is just a scattered turkey shoot of individual votes sent like bottles with notes cast out to sea. The real power voting happens with organized groups, political machinery if you will, like Barangays where the townsfolk reliably sell their votes to whoever "bossman" tells them to or to whoever guy the Captain is allied with. Another example is the local Protestant group who practice block voting. No wonder the government pays more attention to the Protestants than the Catholic church. Now that's political muscle.

Okay, let me play along. Suppose I register my lazy ass to vote. Who the hell am I going to vote for? What lovely candidates do I have to choose from? What's the best the country has to offer? Let's see. We have Erap...again. We have the usual nuisance candidates. Uh, we have the usual people from the well moneyed and connected political elite, some of which have been running since forever. We have smart people who happen to be ruling party stooges. Oh yeah, we also have an alleged retard who happens to be the son of a hero. Yup, whoever wins, we lose.

I should blog about the general topic of elections some time in the future.