I cry for my beloved country.
My father used to say that “we carve our own destiny”. Back then, I didn’t understand the impact of those words. When you are young, you are too idealistic enough and sometimes you see the world in rose-tinted eyeglasses. You see the world the way you believe it ought to be seen, a happy place where sometimes dreams have a little niche in your idealistic heart. You grow up and things change and you begin to notice that the world is really not what it seems.
The die is cast.
Yesterday, my kids and I did our duty for the country and voted for those candidates whose platforms of government we believe in and whose experience in the field of service to the Filipino people is unquestionable. I can never be prouder seeing fellow Filipinos exercise their right to vote and choose the best.I salute COMELEC for a clean, quiet and peaceful elections. Things though will not always be to one’s desires. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose but what is important is to accept defeat graciously and move on.
We lost the presidency but our candidate for VP, Leni is on top. I think there are only about 5% more votes not counted. A newbie in the field of politics but not new to the grassroots where she worked pro bono for so many years. She knows the problems with the ordinary rural folks, the farmers and the man on the street.
I have never been this much involved in politics throughout the years. It’s just that, it was quite easy to support a man whose values, love of country and its people are the same things that you look for in a good candidate. The last two weeks were quite emotional days for me even deliberately forgetting to visit WordPress. I can never forget the laughter, the tears (yes we cried too) and the intelligent exchanges of ideas and why we campaigned for the same presidential candidate. I learned a lot in the process.
Change is easier said than done.
The choices we make in life are rooted in the same values that we believe in. The path we take maybe full of knots that have to be untied one by one, the road maybe too rough for our liking but the journey has to be taken. It may entail a gargantuan sacrifice, it may mean so much pain, it may involve lots of changes that we have to make on our own.
Those people who chose the president-elect were clamoring for change, that instant change that we’ll get to see in three to six months (as he promised). I believe that real change starts within ourselves. Just yesterday, I accompanied my daughter Nissa back to the precinct so she could vote (Josef and I voted earlier at six am). I positioned myself away from the long line of voters and opened my tab to read. There was this guy who was about to throw his sandwich wrapper at the planter box I was sitting on. I looked at him without uttering a word and he said sorry when he saw me at the same time pocketing his garbage. Here we are clamoring for change when even a simple thing like this we can’t even do properly. It’s a case of as long as it it not in my backyard, then it’s okay. I always wear face mask when I take a commute because even if there is a law (that is not even properly implemented) banning smoking in public, people never learn. If simple things like this are blatantly ignored, how can we even expect a positive change in such a short time?
The outgoing administration has laid the foundation, I just hope we would not spend the next six years ignoring the economic growth that we have earned the last six years.
I haven’t lost hope for my country but I cry still. I even cried harder when I heard Mar Roxas concede, a man of true character and strength. He said and I quote:
”For our country, we’ve had a peaceful, successful transfer of power. It is not about me. It is not about anyone. It is about how we love our country, and how we all do all that we can for her. She’s the only one.”
Dreams And Escapes 