Too Late to Panic

“Too Late to Panic”

As of yesterday, less than a week before election day, the Comelec was still testing the pcos machines. It failed. Comelec had to recall 76,000 compact flash (CF) cards that are in the heart of the counting machines. The automatic voting machines could not count correctly.

This is too late to panic. Panic is actually an emergency mechanism of the mind that serves to mobilize all of its psychic energy to meet an overwhelming emergency situation. In the case of May 10 election, should the pcos machines proved to be actually defective there is nothing, really nothing, that can be done to avert a disaster. In the usual colorful language of Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, it doesn’t serve anyone to inject fear if the plane is already about to crash.

This means that we just have to pretend that things are going to be all right when we go to the polling places to cast our votes. Let’s face the music when the worst of our fears are going to happen. So, I would say, “Don’t panic. Relax, go to your respective precincts and do your citizen’s duty to vote.”

In the meantime, that is, between today, Wednesday, and Monday next week let us continue to complete our choices of candidates. The choice of president is going to be very critical for the construction of a post-Arroyo era. That president will lead the nation either to a renewed confidence or deeper into despair. The new national leadership may inspire unity among the people or widen the fractures in Philippine society. In other words, we should not play with our options. We should not allow friendship or kinship or temporary benefits to color our judgment as to who should lead the country into the future. There’s too much at stake.

At the local level, the stakes are not that high. But should the new national leadership prove to be a disaster, an inept and corrupt local government would make our situation even worse. A creative and determined local leadership can actually use local resources to overcome a bad situation. Local governments at the municipal level can turn themselves into economic units generating employment and livelihood to the people and even become self-reliant. Negros Oriental, for example, has all that it takes to become a stable, self-reliant and prosperous area. But we need local officials who are truly devoted to the people’s well-being rather than obsessed with keeping power and family wealth.
05 May 2010

Well, it seems like too late in the day to be preaching this kind of message. By now, we have already allowed ourselves to be persuaded to vote one way or the other. Most likely you will vote for local officials from a very personal point of view. None of us, I believe, are imagining a political disaster in the immediate future as a result of a massive breakdown of the voting machines.

That may not happen, of course. But its likelihood is growing by the minute. Using Sen. Miriam Santiago’s analogy, the plane is fast losing altitude and is about to hit the ground. No need to panic but we should brace ourselves to an eventual crash. Take the necessary precautions and hope and pray that we would survive.

This is my last broadcast before election day. In the meantime, I’ll pretend to live normally, prepare my codigo and exercise my right as a citizen come May 10.