6 Bobotante Guides para sa Eleksyon 2013

Amoy eleksyon na naman. At ito ang tamang panahon para makapagbigay paalala sa ating kababayan tungkol sa pagboto. At hindi ako magbibigay ng mga payo kung paano ang tamang pagpili ng iboboto. Siguradong marami nang magbibigay niyan. At sa dinami dami ng nagpapaalala sa atin ng tamang gawin, madalas ay nakakalimutan na natin ang mga hindi dapat.
 

Ilan lang ito sa mga naririnig natin na paulit-ulit sa marami nating mga kababayan tuwing napapag-usapan kung sino ang kanilang iboboto sa eleksyon.  At ito din marahil ang mga pangunahing dahilan kung bakit ganito pa rin kalala ang sitwasyon ng ating pulitika. Bakit sila ang iboboto/o hindi natin iboboto?

               1.  “Sayang ang boto ko, di naman yan mananalo.”  

Ginawa mong sugal ang boto mo. Dahil dehado, kahit tingin mo e ok naman, hindi mo iboboto. Ngayon binoto mo yung kahit ayaw mo pero at least malaki chance manalo. Ok congrats, panalo ka. Para kang tumaya sa karera ng kabayo o sabong. Panalo ang tinayaan mo. Ano ngayon premyo mo? Ilang taon ka na bumoto ng ganyan, malaki na ba napanalunan mo? O ganon pa rin sitwasyon mo?

          2.  "Wala pa naman silang napatunayan. Mga bago lang yan. “

Kaya bumoto ka ng pamilyar na pangalan. Sila uli, dahil sabi nga tutal may napatunayan na sila. May karanasan na. At naranasan mo na rin ang hirap. At marami rin may karanasan na sa pangungurakot, expert na. Mahirap nang hulihin. 

hmm...

           3.  “Di ko kilala mga kandidato. Bahala na sa makikita ko sa balota.”

Napakaraming mga web pages tulad nito na nagpapakilala sa mga kandidato. Pag bibili ka ng cellphone, nagreresearch ka pa ng sandamukal at nagtatanong tanong ka kung ano ang okay na bilhin. Naghahanap ka pa kung san ka makakamura. Andami mong oras na nakalogin sa Facebook pero yung pagbasa man lang ng profile at list ng mga kandidato online, di mo magawa. Tapos rereklamo ka ng kung sino sino ang nananalo.

            4.  “Boto ko tong anak/kapatid/asawa/pinsan ni kwan. Ok naman kasi siya kaya  malamang ok din itong kadugo niya.”. 

Hindi tamang manghusga dahil lang sa kadugo.  Maaari itong makaapekto, sang ayon ako dito.  Puedeng sa mabuti, puede ring sa masama. Pero kung ito lang yung dahilan mo para iboto o hindi iboto ang isang kandidato,  ito ay tatak ng pagiging bobotante.

            5.  “Artista/atleta/ekonomista/sikat yan, kaya iboboto/hindi ko yan iboboto.”

Tulad ng dugo o lahi, ang trabahong pinanggalingan ay hindi dapat maging kaisa-isang basehan ng pagboto. Hindi porke ganito o ganyan ang trabaho nila, iboboto o hindi na sila ang iboboto. Puede itong maging batayan. Pero  marami pang ibang puedeng gawing panukat kasama nito.

            6.  “Di na ko boboto, wala rin naman magbabago.”

Ok lang yan, pero wag ka ring masyadong magreklamo. Dahil ang di mo pagboto, katulad na rin yan ng pagsuporta mo sa taong ayaw mong manalo.  Ang di mo pagboto, ay hindi direktang pagboto sa kandidatong di mo gusto.

Kung may mga gusto pa kayong idagdag sa ating listahan, ilagay nyo lang sa ating comments section. I-share nyo rin ito sa iba at ng atin nang maiwasan at mabawasan ang pagiging bobotante sa susunod na halalan.



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At dahil 2016 na, may dagdag na dapat. Tulad ng mga ito.

7.  “Sino ba yan? Never heard. Ano ba nagawa nyan?”

Ok, ok. Masyadong malawak itong statement na ito. At tama lang na itanong kung ano ang nagawa. Pero ang tanong, yung nagtatanong ba e alam ang trabaho ng posisyong tinatakbuhan ng kandidato? Baka naghahanap ka ng tulay o basketball court na pinagawa nya o kaya e kriminal na napahuli, e yun pala senador ang tinatakbo ng kandidato. Hindi kandidato ang problema pag ganon. At kung di mo kilala, bilang botante, kailangan mo rin magresearch.

8.  “Di mo siya iboboto? Siguro supporter ka ng kurakot/kriminal/adik/magnanakaw/cronies/dynasty/pusher/etc” 



Sana nga, black and white lang ang pagpili ng kandidato. Pero minsan, yung inaakala mong mabuti, siya pala ang kontrabida and vice versa. Ang dapat mo muna ring suriin ay ang sarili mo. Kung ano ba ang pinapaniwalaan mong tama. Kung ano ba ang basehan ng moralidad at karakter mo at mga plano mo sa buhay. Hindi yung porke tingin mo e matalino, mahusay at matapang ang isang kandidato, e siya na agad. Paano kung yung ginagamitan pala nya ng husay e kabaligtaran ng lahat ng pinaninindigan mo sa buhay? Baka magsisi ka rin balang araw.

 

Be Proud and Discriminating

I used to say that I am proud of something without even doing or achieving anything.  How is that possible? By the way, news just came in that 25 yr old Danilo Malinoc Gunaban of the province of Buligan just won the first ever World Water Polo Championship for our country. That’s great news! I’m proud to be a Buliganon! 

Discrimination is an irony. Or maybe on how people think what it is all about. By trying to avoid it, we do crazy things that eventually aggravate it. When people try to make someone or a group who were once discriminated feel special, it's always a borderline saying that they really are not special but just for the sake of making them feel good now, they will celebrate things to show them that they are. And for those among them who aren't even feeling the ill treatment for their group, they’ll be reminded again of the harsh things which were once done to their people in the past.  Then they will now feel the discrimination which they never noticed was there in the first place. Discrimination is one thing that when every time people talk about it, the more it gets committed. The more it is tried being avoided, the more it gets worse.

Discrimination happens, no doubt about it. Though there were instances when we try to avoid it and console the victim, the way we do it in itself is a message of discrimination. Like the commemoration and grandeur cheers on feats of some people and attaching their achievement to their race, ethnicity, color, beliefs, gender or anything else about them, except for their hard work, focus and discipline. Then some people of their own race, ethnicity, color, beliefs, gender, or whatever that they think they are similar will relate themselves to that person without even doing anything that reflects his greatness. That is discrimination at its best. I mean worst.

Justice!

Then there's the annual celebration of remembering specific color, gender, ethnicity, affiliation, etc to commemorate their contributions to the society. It’s good if done once. Or maybe twice.  But doing it annually is like a joke. It is like saying it’s not usual for them to do such big things that we have to be reminded yearly how great they are. We’re all humans anyway. We’re all capable to do things what our neighbor, classmate, friend, or any other living human beings can do, of course, excluding the things which some of us are limited due to our biological make. We all are of the same mold anyway.  The irony of this is that more we do these “memorials”, the more we segregate the people. And the more we tell people that our color, our sexual orientation or the thing between our legs matter to what we give into this world, the more hate it produces and discrimination becomes more rampant. We strive to be "color blind" and look beyond gender by telling people that we must look at the contribution of humans because of their color or gender.  

And unfortunately, one of the major effect that these acts achieved in the past few years is that it turned the table around. The oppressed of the past is now getting on the offensive side. And most of the time, by using the "discrimination card".

Okay, the news on the first paragraph is fake. You can’t win a championship alone in water polo. It’s a team sports. And there’s no such thing as a province of Buligan in our country nor there such a Danilo Maniloc Gunaban guy. Or maybe there is. And if there’s one such guy named like that then I’m sorry. Though if ever he achieves something great in the future then I will be proud of him. But I won’t dare say I’m proud to be Pinoy because of it. He will be successful because of his hard work and discipline, not simply because he is a Filipino.  If that happens and if I would say I’m proud to be Pinoy, then I’m discriminating.

I Will Talk With My Future Great Great Grandchild Thru This Blog

Some few weeks ago, I was able to catch the classic sci-fi movie “Back to the Future” parts 1, 2 and 3 on a cable channel. Everyone knows that the story’s about time traveling.  I saw the movie quite a few times before when I was a kid but it was the first time I saw the 3 parts in succession. In short, it was the first time I understood what really happened. 

They were shocked that I understood the story just now.

Whenever time-travel comes into a discussion, the question on which era a person would like to go back arises.  Some say they want to go back into a time when a world-changing event was happening. Like during an important person’s assassination. Or during when a milestone in human history happened just like the launching of the Apollo 11 mission.  Some simply wants to go back in time when their deceased loved ones are still around. Some even goes too far like thinking of going back into the first days of men and stopping Eve from eating the forbidden fruit at the Garden of Eden.  Another which I think is common but a worse idea is going back to the time when our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. I say it’s worse because I can’t imagine how it would be very painful to see a loved one which I know did not do anything wrong getting punished and killed for the mistakes that I am the one guilty of.  Just the thought of it is too heavy to bear so I don’t think I can handle witnessing that.

A lot of theories and thinking within the science communities circle around the study of time travel. Some say it’s impossible. Some say it is possible and is already happening.  Some says you can only travel forward but not backward.  I don’t know which is true.  Everyone's talking about sciences behind it. I might be an electronics engineer but I can’t even remember 90% of what I learned. But I know that I’m good with the 10% and with that, I might be able to find a way to prove something on this time travel idea.

 Cellphone user during Chaplin's time? A time traveller? Watch the video.

I can imagine why a lot of us wanted to go back in time. Most of it is connected with the mistakes we did in our life. At the onset of our errors, we automatically look at the past and hope to turn back everything around.  Due to the fear of the implications of our mistakes, we hope that we can have a rewind and change our decisions which put us on that stinking situation. If only we have a time-travel machine now, most of us will go back in those days. It could be what we all need. Or maybe not.

The failures and mistakes we did all pass by. Then we learn from it. And we hear a lot of people thanking that those things happened to them.  For they enjoy in the present the good fruits of those mistakes they committed. It’s not always that obvious. But more often than not, good things come from the lessons and experiences of the failures and mistakes that happened in our life. And we only get to know the reason of why things happen when we reach the future of our past mistakes. And that future is now.  So if there’s a time travel machine beside me when I make a major blunder, rather than going in the past and trying to change my decision, I’ll rather try a quick peek of my future to see what improvement it makes me for doing such mistake. Or I might choose not to spoil myself on doing future previews and I’ll just let everything happen. 

Maybe,this is the better movie for you.

But yeah, maybe we can have a time traveling machine of sorts. I’m thinking of a Harry Potter-ish type where we can capture data from human brains on specific eras of their lives, scanning not just images but also the sounds, the smell and the taste of everything in there. Or if possible, even the physical feel of that scanned point of their lives. And then doing the brain data scan of several person who experienced that era in parallel to get different perspectives of what happened.  Then collecting them all in one supercomputer which in turn creating a 3D (or 4d, 5d, or whatever) images of all those scanned data from those persons’ brains to recreate and replay that specific point of event. That is why including the physical feel of the replays is optional. You don’t want to experience how it feels to get a flaming hot bullet nor grenade shrapnel piercing thru your soft muscle tissues, right? All of these are just my imagination. Don't take it seriously.

Before I forget, I think I can prove time travel thru this blog. It’s simple. I will write down a word today on a piece of paper which I will pass on to my son. Then he’ll pass it on to one of his children, and it goes on and on until it reaches to a time when a descendant of mine enjoys the benefit of time traveling in budget.  Then I will ask that descendant to come back to our time. Maybe tomorrow is enough time for him to prepare. I'll put the date tomorrow on that piece of paper. He has decades and centuries starting today anyway. Of course my son can transfer the note into something that can last longer than a paper. Then to prove it, I won’t ask too much from him to meet me in person. I’ll just ask him to send me an email tomorrow, anytime, where it contains the word that I will write down later.  I'll put my email address on that note so he'll know where to send it. If I receive it, you will be my witness of this discovery. Or maybe I’ll just keep it. Let’s see.

The Poor, The Rich and the Poor in Mind

What does it mean to be poor? A friend put up this question thru his Facebook status. So I ask myself, am I poor? If not, then I might be rich. But I don’t think I am. Maybe in between or what?  Do I really need to know if I’m poor or not?  What is it that we can gain from knowing what status in life are we living in? Are there any importance to tag ourselves whether we are poor or rich? 

When we say poor, the first thing that comes to mind are the beggars, informal settlers, and those who don’t earn enough to provide for their most basic needs. If we are to use that last description, then we can categorize those people who enjoy high salaries as "poor" if they don't know how to handle those 6-digit monthly payslips. Those who spend more than what they earn and don’t know the difference between luxuries and essentials. In the end, they are just high-earning “isang kahig isang tuka” people. They earn high but when emergency comes, they don’t have anything to spend. Unlike those who manage well their finances that even with their smaller or average incomes, they are able to keep some bucks ready for urgent matters.

You have this? But still poor?

Being poor can be a state of mind too. But no, it’s not just it. We can't tell the beggars and those who have a hard time to come up even with one decent meal per day that their status is only happening in their imagination. Poverty is real and people who suffer from it are considered poor.  But there’s a mentality that worsens it. It’s what we hear and learn from some folks about the rich. We often see them being portrayed on TV as the society’s usual “mapangmata” and “mapang-api” . We always hear about their “elitism”, and about them being aloof from the common people and that what's important to these people is just money and the material stuff.  This has been what the “poor-in-mind” people think about what rich people are. The stereotypes got into them.  And this is what creates that division between the haves and have-nots. We even have that Filipino proverb "Aanhin pa ang bahay na bato kung ang nakatira ay kwago. Buti pa ang bahay kubo ang nakatira ay tao” which summarizes that mind condition.

Unfortunately, it’s the misunderstanding part that causes all of these. What the poor-in-mind people think about the rich is actually a reflection of their frustrations of what they think they would do if they are in their shoes. And this misunderstanding results into hate. And by hating, the poor-in-mind person is conditioned to stay at their current status.  The rich persons’ mentality to surround themselves with positive and like-minded people is perceived by the poor-in-mind people as aloofness and elitism.  Sometimes, their strict behavior and hard discipline which probably helped them reach their success is observed by others as a negative trait, being snobbish or a “mapangmata” attitude. Rich people wearing and using branded items in public are seen by the others as simply status symbol where in fact, it’s basically these well off people only buy them because of the value they get from them. That's another thing that separates them from the rest. They usually buy value at the best price and not because of the brand or the name.  Though for sure, they sometimes buy the name but it isn't bad at all as they already paid for it with smart and hard work and they are just sort of “paying themselves” with it. 

Here's a friendly rich kid.

But a lot of poor-in-mind people think in reverse. They think that they need to reward themselves first for every peso they earn. It could be the reason why a lot of the average and even below average earners are the ones we see brandishing their up to date smart phones, gadgets or get ups in public while a lot of those who earn more doesn’t mind displaying and using their 3-year old cheap but reliable mobile phones.