no i am not a big fan of the TV series.  can’t quite catch its drift.  really the title of the post has to do with why i have not been able to write in this blog for i think almost two months.  i lost my password. until a week ago a friend, also a blogger, suggested that i request wordpress to reset my password. so finally i am back.

lost too is what i currently feel in terms of the major headlines in the Philippine dailies.  it’s election season too soon. when i have not been able to find the time, the will and the patience to register as a voter.  as i keep telling my friends, the first and only time i voted was when Jovy Salonga ran for president. since then i have been content with driving family members, who are all registered voters, to the polling precinct and lurking around the school grounds during election day.  when everyone was required to re-register in 1998 i was then living in an apartment in cubao. my housemates and i preferred to play majhong than to lift our butts, fall in line and list our names as elligible voters for the Philippine elections.

lost i am as well as a registered voter.  my friend marian coquia-regidor has convinced me that registering as a voter for the upcoming elections is a civic must.  i did agree, through facebook, to do so.  however, i must admit, i have not done so.  and i am searching my mind and my heart for a compelling reason to wake up early, line up in city hall, face bureaucratic inefficiency, test my patience and fight it out with the comelec registration station.

so i ask myself the proverbial question: why? because the election do not really change things for our country. becuase it is always the same bunch of politically entrenched interests foisting themselves as service and people oriented leaders.  becuase winning in the Philippine election has very little to do with how many votes for you but more for who supports you, the interests you represent, how strong you are and how much money you have.  because, because, because.

perhaps it is time that i lower my expectations when it comes to the election.  that i should not expect it to radically change the course of our country’s growth and development.  that the work for reform, for change, for improving lives does not lie on this event alone nor on the people you elect on election day.  that the act of writing down names in a ballot (or in next year’s case in shading the appropriate names) is not our ulitmate nor our only civic duty.  that registering as voter should not just be a license to vote but it should be a commitment as well.  a commitment to work for  a better Philippines on a day to day basis in whatever field we are despite and inspite of who does get declared as winners of the elections.