Let’s just take a moment for you, dear voter, as you have successfully performed your duty to the country. That being posting a photo of your finger stained with indelible ink. I mean, voting.
Kidding aside, it’s quite positive that many of us still believe in the democratic process and do what we can to forward it. Much blood has been shed for this right, many issues have been tossed up, and mud still flies across the air.
At the risk of sounding cheesy, however, voting is just one role we all do as a citizen. It doesn’t stop there. If we could put in the same fervor we have in filling out ballots, campaigning for our chosen bets, and posting on social media in our other duties―in our daily civic duties―we’d probably be able to see faster progress.
The way I see it, each and every day we encounter our duties to our country. If we choose to do it or not speaks of our personal choices. It can be as cumbersome and responsible as paying our taxes correctly to throwing our trash properly, and simply following the traffic rules.
It’s as simple as listening to the news and thinking if the facts presented are just sensationalized or valid. It’s can be as difficult as to not engage when inflammatory posts pop up on your feed.
I am far from preaching here nor patronizing, I would just like to ask how many of us are still passionate to do right by our country even when there is no hashtag or IG post in exchange?
COMELEC is aiming to announce the winners 24 hours from the time the precincts have closed. By that time, many allegations of cheating would have surfaced, more blood will flow, and more posts are going to reap the likes.
In that time being though, we would also have gone back to our normal lives. Our hashtags will return to the mundane: from the selfies with our ice cream to the flatlays we arrange. The trains will still perhaps miss their schedule yet again and the heat will cause us to think if climate change can truly be stopped.
In that time being though, listen to the silence of it all. How we’ve gone to staunch supporters back to just people who are trying to make it through. Think about how we’ve gone to posting flag emojis and talking about politics non-stop to caring about what concerns us immediately, like how to make it to the next paycheck.
And so in that time, think of why indeed change doesn’t happen in a day and how simply voting isn’t enough to be able to really dictate what we want in our nation.
Photo courtesy of Kryz Uy’s Instagram