Yes, I encourage y’all to DON’T VOTE in 2022
You heard that from me. Ditch your voter’s ID or registration receipts. Forget about the damn polls. Right about now.
Encouraging everyone to register and vote has become more widespread nowadays. The current pandemic has proven how crucial it is indeed to choose the best and most rightful leaders to guide and lead us through the toughest of times. You too might have also felt the need to exercise the solemn act of suffrage after watching ‘The Series of Unfortunate Events, live action from the Philippines’.
But wait, I’m here to tell y’all something — registering to vote and voting itself are two of the things you shouldn’t be doing all along. Yes, that’s coming from me. It means wasting your time, effort, and even leads to discoloration of your index finger that lasts for days.
Here are some legitimate tips that will make you think why I don’t recommend y’all to vote for next year’s Judgment Day.
- Don’t vote if you won’t think of your country’s welfare!!
To begin with, ask yourself this question — why the heck do I vote? For me to feel authentic progress and not just see it as damn numbers and charts accompanied by dizzying interpretations? For my family to be freed from the erstwhile poverty we’re currently in? It all lies on your purpose, and what you look forward to. But it all falls down to this — we all vote because we want positive changes to happen around the archipelago.
If you will only head to precincts because Tony Labrusca is some hot guy and his abs deserve a rightful housing in Malacañang, or because Vice Ganda is, you know, fitting to be the first-ever comedian president, at least literally, it’s very selfish and odd of you. But sadly, it’s happening, and actually, has already happened. Let’s take ourselves back to the mess of an election that was 2019. I don’t even need substantial evidence to prove most voters ended up blackening the names for shall we call ‘subpar candidates’ (subpar according to how some of them are performing in the Senate so far). But hearing some of them say they voted for this guy ’cause of his/her campaign jingle that sounds like a hit single off a KPop boyband or ’cause he ‘looks’ fit to be a future senator (they meant it literally) is utterly appalling. So, some of us really stooped that low, huh?
Casting your vote is your closest chance to turning the sorry status of this nation around, okay? So, please, tighten it up! Welfare, not fanfare!
2. Don’t vote if you’re entirely undecided!!
The campaign period for Philippine elections vary depending on whether it is held locally or nationally. The period allotted for the highest, most critical posts commonly last for around 90 days, or three months.
That is already an eternity for voters like you.
But once again, indolence comes in at the best time possible, and just like a student cramming, when Election Day arrives, you are left with an empty paper to fill because you spent the past three months like this day’s not gonna come. What makes the situation crazier is for you to fill the ballot, you vote in a hurry, not minding what is at stake.
If you’re like that, you will hear this from me — you suck.
In our life, we will always come across situations where immense and apt decision-making is a necessity. Election season is one of them. Hitting and missing the mark has no place here, because you are putting your future, your family, and the entirety of this nation at stake. Yes, you’re as powerful as some politicians when you vote, so you better not suck it up.
3. Don’t vote like a cheap bettor!
This is the problem that’s seemingly become commonplace for most uneducated voters here — associating voting with sports betting.
You can hear these lines commonly from them — “gusto ko, yung iboboto ko, yung sureball na panalo”, “dapat ang piliin mo, yung malakas sa surveys, kasi siguradong panalo yun,” and many concoctions of that reasoning. But it all comes down to one thing — they enclosed themselves to the thought of voting as choosing someone who has more chances of winning it all, much like, yeah, betting.
But in a sense, voting is somehow a bet, albeit a dignified one. When you pick out the most ideal candidates, you are actually betting the foreseeable future ahead of you. If you vote right, you won’t win bucks but you’ll experience a more prosperous way of life together with your fellow Filipinos. If not, the entire archipelago is doomed.
So, I’d better suggest you parlay your time, knowledge, and competent decision making to your voting preferences and your winnings will even grow. The catch though? If the candidates you chose delivered on their campaign murmurings.
4. Don’t vote if you easily get swayed by everything you see from social media.
Before all, a primer.
This year, Statista projects 81.5 million social media users in the Philippines. That is already more than 80% of our current population (which stands at nearly 110 million). As 2021 nears, that current number will grow by more than 3 million people.
And as the pandemic grapples potential campaign activities of candidates on the road, most of them will resort to social media to relay their message and advocacy.
And of course, the fake news and maligning information which has become social media mainstays will once again influence our choices. Facebook has long been a suspect app, as its news feed algorithms have been notorious for spreading hate content and dubious knowledge. And, it was sadly leveraged by some political forces around the world, if you know the case of Cambridge Analytica. And just recently, Frances Haugen, a former data scientist at the largest social media network, dropped the bomb on Facebook’s failure and inability to protect its users from apparent harm induced by its algorithm.
And, now there’s the new kid in town, TikTok, where I also found a huge repository of short-form content sympathetic to candidates, and its addictive algorithm, as shown in the For You Page (FYP), plus your constant fondness to politics will trigger more political videos on your feed.
Helpful? Indeed, it is for candidates to communicate their propaganda. To voters, not entirely.
It is saddening that most of the newbie voters rely just on everything they see on social media. When they watch a certain content from an aspiring candidate or any of their supporters, that’s the end of their information absorption journey. Come on, you already got blessed with data, use that resource properly and entirely. Give everything a benefit of the doubt. Learn to do some counter-checking. And weigh in on your decisions as well. That in part makes a decisive voter!
Months later, the biggest test of our lives will unfold. As we head to the precincts to mark our papers with people we entrust our country’s fate with, think of all the consequences of your vote. Choose wisely, and your choice will define how this country will fare as years pass by. Make the stain on your index finger count like the blood sacrificed by our heroes to free our country from perpetual penury in the dark days of our Republic!
