I don't know what came over me.
I used to be this little apathetic snobbish techie nerd who wouldn't be caught dead reading any local newspaper for current events -- except to look for competitors' latest ads, and would only read through Fortune and Time's version of news and of course, mph's latest gadgets. For the longest time now, current events depress me. Call me ignorant, naive or whatever -- I'd rather stay in my ivory tower of analyzing numbers and new gadgets where no new cellphone is out to murder another, and that no matter how crazy my numbers would get, there'll be no bloodshed.
Not surprisingly, when election fever started, there's absolutely no passion on my part to participate whatsoever. Didn't even get myself to be validated. Still wouldn't bother with reading newspapers. I'd content myself with listening and say very little whenever people would talk about the elections and I'm forced to participate. Worse, I wasn't planning to vote at all. I was very grateful when my parents made it easier for me-- by asking me to go home to Nueva Ecija for Mother's Day weekend, and since I'm registered in QC, I now have an excuse for not voting without sounding like the true apathetic that I am.
Thus to my own amazement, and with very little convincing on my mom's part (as much as I would hate to admit), I volunteered to help out for the Quick Count during the elections. So much for my lack of passion to participate, huh? Am now right smack in the middle of everything. Within the little provincial city of San Jose, Nueva Ecija, that is.
Was it the feeling of not wanted to be left out that made me volunteer? My entire family is involved -- my mom heads the Quick Count project for STI San Jose in partnership with ABS-CBN, as the school's administrator, and my sisters and brother and cousins are all up to do tabulation of votes. As for my dad, well, he strongly, convincingly and confidently campaigns for FPJ. Does that count?
Maybe that was partly the reason. I think it is more out of guilt-- because I know I should be more socially responsible and yet I'm not. I am making up for the fact that I am not voting by helping out with the counting.
I guess you can say that I can do both, as most volunteers would do. And yet I feel at peace with the fact that I am not voting. Why? Because I don't see anyone worth voting for. Not GMA, not Roco, not even Brother Eddie, and especially not FPJ (am sorry Pa -- I just don't get him). You might question how could I have formed an educated opinion given my self-proclaimed newspaper boycott a few paragraphs above. I agree. The opinions I hold are somewhat questionable since I only based them on what I hear from other people, from what I read from forwarded emails and that cover article on TIME, and from the interview I unfortunately caught on TV of Vicky Morales with Eddie Gil. But from my ivory tower window, I figured it was already enough. I simply don't have the urge to know more.
People vote for candidates because they felt it was the "lesser evil" or because they just don't want the OTHER candidate to win -- whether its the upper class choosing GMA (even if they don't like her) only so that FPJ wouldn't win or people like my dad betting on FPJ just to get GMA out of Malacanang ("Ang gusto ko talaga si Lacson e, kaya lang si FPJ lang ang may pag-asang manalo laban kay Gloria"). If I stayed in Manila during Elections, I would have done the same. I would have climbed down from my tower, voted for the person I deemed to be the lesser evil. But thankfully, I am not there -- and I am here at San Jose. I'm happy for not having to force myself to be content with my ho-hum choice for President and still get to participate on the much awaited event of the year. That is, with counting of votes, with numbers and statistics where I'm more comfortable (Yes, I am a geek).
Hmmm, I wonder if I can use the sample of San Jose, Nueva Ecija votes and to create a model and forecast who would win in the elections ...
No comments:
Post a Comment