Even in a small village, some candidates resort to underhanded tactics to get votes. It’s good, however, that more people are coming out to expose the attempts to deceive voters and manipulate the election results.
Ideally, this kind of voter empowerment should be replicated on a larger scale. Voters have to be more alert and vigilant nowadays when technology can make fraudulent practices easier to execute and may sometimes be harder to detect while social media platforms help amplify the trickery.
It has been said that the upcoming 2022 elections will be like no other, not only because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic but also because of the easier access to the internet where disinformation and competing views of reality abound.
In the small community with less than 1,000 households in Quezon City, where I have been residing for more than 25 years, some campaign practices for the election last weekend for the homeowners’ association officers were just as dirty as how candidates for the local and national elections operate.
Incumbents had easier access to resources to campaign openly, using the association’s social media account while the opponents reached out to new residents, soliciting their forms for proxy voting.
Mudslinging, deception, gaslighting, rumor-mongering and other dirty tricks were also employed. I tried to stay away from this, but just an hour before the casting of votes began, I received a copy of a ballot that already had the names of a set of candidates on it and I was instructed to just sign it and drop it in the box when the collectors arrive.
I thought it was an insult. Although I didn’t know all the candidates vying for the association’s board, nobody else should vote on my behalf, more so when the candidates on the ballot I was asked to sign were not among those I had chosen to vote for.
When I reported the incident, I learned that many other homeowners had come out to report the attempted fraud. I initially wanted to keep it to myself and avoid shaming other people by exposing them. But upon learning that others were willing to speak up and expose the malpractice, I mustered the courage to join them and hopefully warn others in future elections that even in a small village like ours, deception and other underhanded tactics are no longer tolerated.
For the May 2022 elections, would it be too difficult for voters to rise up and send a strong message to candidates that the country deserves leaders who are willing to sacrifice their personal interests for good governance? That will be a genuine people empowerment.
Let’s not forget that the upcoming elections are not only for president, vice president and senators. There are also party-list groups whose nominees should be scrutinized to make sure that they truly represent the sectors for which they are campaigning.
Equally, if not more important, are the local government officials — city and municipal councilors, vice mayors, mayors, provincial board members, vice governors, governors and congressmen — who would be taking charge of the needs of their respective constituencies.
By electing responsible leaders at the local level, the pressure will be stronger for good governance in the national leadership.
Voters should take elections seriously so that candidates will treat us with respect. Elections are not just about who carries the campaign colors best, who dances well on TikTok, who spends more in advertising, who hires more trolls to spread disinformation, who distributes more dole-outs, who promises the moon and the stars, or who sings out of tune and makes people laugh most of the time.
The ballot is not just a piece of paper on which we mark the names of our relatives, friends or friends of friends. Carefully choosing the names to mark on the ballot is part of the democratic process that gives us the opportunity to decide for the country’s future.
That’s why it is important that we choose the best candidates and convince others to also make the right choices.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.