Just because we are used to something does not mean it is any more acceptable, or right.
The coming election season, for instance, reminds us that for many generations Filipino voters have relied upon crude methods to make their political decisions.
Politicians have appropriated among themselves various colors and other symbols. These simplify what is supposed to be a difficult decision for the people, who will ideally evaluate a candidate based on education, experience, integrity, position on critical governance issues and past behavior.
That is perhaps a tedious exercise that people cannot afford because they are too busy making ends meet. And so they rely on who is sporting yellow, or orange, or white—or the clenched fist, among others.
It is also tempting to think that just because two personalities are often seen together, one’s popularity—more importantly, integrity—will rub off on the other.
This is perhaps why the victors often conveniently forget that they are the leaders of all their constituents, not only those who sport their color, or their logo, or their tired rhetoric. As a result, what happens is governance by affiliation, an us-or-them mentality, with the rules applied strictly to enemies but relaxed when friends and allies are concerned.
Is it any wonder then that almost immediately after elections the people express the same disenchantment with their choices?
The midterm election next year promises to be played by the same rules, so as early as today the people should demand that their candidates stand and fall on their own viability—not because of the color of their campaign shirt, or the lines they regurgitate on social media, even the familiarity of their faces and family names.
Only when candidates shed their political color —something they likely decided on out of convenience rather than principle, anyway—can their true color emerge. Only then can they be appraised as fit or wanting.
