April 27, 2013 - Talisay City
It was a Saturday night perfectly apt to go out with friends. Instead, I chose to stay at home with my parents. Good thing was that my dad was planning to attend to this candidates' forum which was held at the covered court beside the city parish. This has been organized by the brotherhood in cooperation with the Knights of Columbus of which my dad is a member of. I had my hopes up that I would be able to witness a stimulating activity and learn more about the running candidates.
Much to my surprise, once the forum ticked off, only few candidates were there and mostly were from the Liberal Party. Only one sole councilor candidate, Mayor Fernandez, from the rival party came up. There were no whereabouts for his other partymates, or perhaps they just had prior engagements which they need to attend to.
The candidates started to introduce themselves in a three minute time allotted to each of them, of which I found unnecessarily long. Most of them only blamed and pointed out issues and flaws in the current leadership instead of presenting concrete actions and solutions to solve them. They did give an empty promise that the city would be in better hands once they're elected. Well there were few, and I mean FEW (less than the number in your one hand, THAT few) who presented their plans and visions if given the chance to be elected as an official.
Given that, it was exceptionally amusing how their supporters cheer for them, loudly, even when their speech, which was expressed in vernacular, didn't made any sense. What was more annoying was that the supporters were too noisy cheering for their candidate that the speech of the said person won't be heard in the area clearly. I was shaking my head with disgust the entire time I was there (it was my first to attend such kind of gathering by the way) knowing that these candidates would vanish into thin air from the streets right after election time. They'd be comfortably sitting in their AC office and forget what they have promised during the campaign period. Every single time. And people don't learn from it. Most of those who were there were the masses. People who give an impression that all they care is the fame and fortune of the candidate. They can't even keep their mouth shut and open their ears all the while the candidate is delivering his piece. For all we know, those same supporters are the very people who complain about how they merely survive in a day to day basis. Both scenarios, the candidate giving his empty promise and the supporter cheering albeit the content of the speech, are very disappointing.
Who expects change when people themselves play the same game with the same distorted rules?
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