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Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Mirror of democracy

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Filing of certificates of candidacy has begun in this country, sometimes described as a place where politics, apart from cockfighting, is a favorite pastime.

Like it or not, the political season in this nation of 106 million always arouses the out-and-out adrenaline rush among the voting population and, sometimes, even among the still non-voters who cannot be checked from having their own choices for particular elective positions.

The Philippines, a representative democracy since the restoration of Independence in 1946, preceded by the Commonwealth from 1935 to 1945, has been holding elections to choose its national as well as local leaders.

This right to vote, embodied in the electoral process, is part of the formal decision-making mechanism by which nearly 61 million voters at home and 1.9 million registered overseas absentee voters will cast their votes in authorized polling precincts to choose replacement of leaders whose terms have expired or those wanting to be reelected.

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With the election zone inching closer to voters’ front yards—only seven months away to the May midterm elections—eyes are now on the Commission on Elections, the government’s poll watchdog, to make the exercise free of the hippodrome and unnecessary spectacle.

We believe Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez when he told a Kapihan Forum in Manila: “We want to emphasize that our goal in our preparations for the filing [of certificates for five days in October] is dignified.

“We don’t want to turn it into a circus of supporters. We don’t want it to be chaotic. We don’t want it to be disorderly, that’s why we are controlling the process.”

At day’s end, whether big names—those with political roots and/or easier name recall—will be among those in the list, the voters must be alone, individually, to turn their country’s future political page.

READ: More election hopefuls file CoCs, Comelec sees many as ‘nuisance’

READ: ‘Sentimental’ Nancy files CoC on Friday

READ: JV bolts father’s PMP Party, joins NPC

READ: ‘Six Cabinet members set to file CoCs’

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