In today’s Inquirer, one letter writer wondered: “where’s the youth?”

He said:

The youth constitute one of the biggest sectors of our voting population (7 million registered voters). That is why, it amazes that Kabataan is not leading the pack in the party-list race.

I’m not sure where the letter writer got that data (see this Inquirer report), but my answer to his question is simple: in that 7 million, how many of them chose NOT to vote? Then he should no longer wonder.

(How I wish we have the numbers.)

UPDATE:

The-Jester-in-Exile has a funny answer to the letter writer:

“Kasi nga, like, it’s so nakakainip to make pila in the precinct, with all those jologs people around. Tapos we have to spell the names of so many candidates correctly, kasi nga, like, di kasi puwede “sounds-like” kasi eh. And then, after all that hard work (it’s so hard kaya to think and make pili the candidates, noh?), we’ll get our nails stained, tapos it’s so kadiri, like, so bakya naman the indelible ink. Ewww! Yuck! We made pasyal to the beach so we can, like get that end-of-summer tan instead. O, di ba, mas cool?”

It is really hard to keep a straight face yourself sane when:

1. people screw others nonchalantly
2. brazen attempts to break the law are exposed
3. the law is used to harass people
4. people lie as if they are telling the truth
5. the safeguards for a system are deliberately being broken
6. foot dragging is the game of the day
7. both parties accuse each other of the same charges
8. people pour money as if there’s no tomorrow and no one gets hungry
9. acts favoring relatives are committed
10. Team Unity claims 12-0 in Maguindanao and calls those who doubt the results as sore losers, even if Namfrel itself will not verify if this is true, since they had not witnessed how the votes were counted, and Tonypet Albano had the gall to call Adel Tamano names.

(Yes, this is an obligatory post. I wanted to write an open letter to Senator Fred Lim, but that would be for another day.)

The fallacy of composition is committed when someone asserts that something is true of the whole if it is true of the some part of the whole. This is a dangerous fallacy, and is commonly committed in the context of social classes.

The converse is fallacy of division. It is committed when someone argues that what is true of the whole must be true of the parts that constitute the whole. This fallacy is also commonly committed in the context of social classification.

Alfredo Lim wins back Manila.

One of the films that I liked is The Patriot, which starred Mel Gibson and featured then relatively newbie Heath Ledger. In that film, Gibson had a line that resonates today:

I have long feared that my sins would return to haunt me, and the cost would be more than I could bear.

And indeed, the sins of 2004 has come to haunt us.

This year’s electoral exercise has shown that some of us are too paranoid; some of us are overeager to protect our candidates’s votes. Let’s have some examples:

‘Protective dads’ presence in Munti, Taguig explained
Atienza campaign HQ searched by Lim
Protesters vs Tiangco surround Navotas town hall
‘Binay made unlawful arrest’
Group blasts media, quick count for polls

We must be vigilant, yes, but not overly so. Paranoia can be unhealthy, too.

Anyway, let’s just hope that counting will be accurate and fast. We cannot afford another 2004. However, everything is not going smooth. Several groups have accused ABS-CBN and GMA7 of “trending” with those unofficial quickcounts and exit polls. Then, the threat of the “machinery” swinging into action remains. Namfrel starts on a bad note, being hampered with software glitches, slow entry of election returns, even missing/harassed volunteers.

So for those who have moved on, it seems that is not possible. 2004 has been a watershed year for Philippine politics. It has turned our politics into a plague that has turned some people into zombies, unwilling to face reality and instead suffer from the illusion that the sins of 2004 do not exist. It has turned our social and political institutions into relics of war. It has turned rule of law as a joke. It has turned our youth into virtual blind-deaf-mute, unwilling to rise to the occasion to secure their future (and instead aims to move out).

The ghost haunts us. It needs to be exorcised. As my aunt always tells me, there can be no peace if there is no justice.

***

We all know that the system sucks. The question now is, what are YOU doing to change it?

This is the challenge that is facing us, and now I am challenging YOU, the reader, to think about these things:

1. What is the problem?
2. What causes this problem? What are the factors that lead to the problem?
3. What are the symptoms of the problem? Can we identify the effects of the problem?
4. What are needed to solve this problem?
5. How can we solve this problem? How long will it take? What will be our objectives?
6. How are we going to implement the solutions?
7. What are the indicators that will show that the solutions are working? How are we going to maintain the momentum of change?

I know it is not that simple. But as the cliche goes, it all begins with the first step. So think, post about it, and please let me know (by posting the URL in the comments).

As for me, it will be a series of posts, and I hope I get to start on it. Wish me luck.

—

BTW, I was able to vote.

And also, a personal look at Alan Cayetano, from Mam Noemi’s experience. Take that, Ben Abalos!

Today’s the day! Vote. And make sure your vote counts.

This is the reason why:

Should I vote for this guy?

In the book A World Waiting to be Born, M. Scott Peck recounted an incident in his childhood. Still young to be a Boy Scout, he got hold of a Boy Scout catalog, and he saw a hatchet, and fortunately for him, it was available even for non-scouts. So his parents bought him one on his birthday, and upon getting it, he raced to the woods nearby and chopped down a small tree. Of course, the chopping tired him, and only then he noticed a gash in one of his legs.

So he ran towards home, blood streaming from the leg, and a doctor was called. The gash merited stitches.

His description of the healing process is instructive. Majority of us thinks inflammation is bad. It is actually the body trying to hasten the cleanup process. A wound or a stitch may swell because fresh blood is being “streamed” into the damaged area to hasten the regeneration of cells. Also, this ensures that the white blood cells can do their work faster.

When there is inflammation, it is tender to touch but painful when pressed. Pain exists so that the inflammation will be left alone, the injured part will not be moved that much.

And here is the crux of this story.

We always associate pain with the negative. The truth is, pain is necessary because it alerts us that something is wrong with our body. Pain tells us that we have a disease. And knowing that there is something wrong, we act on it – we visit a doctor, we take medication, we take a rest.

The absence of pain is not necessarily a sign of good health. Lepers don’t feel physical pain, yet they are diseased.

That’s talking about physical pain.

Defense mechanisms exist as our ego’s way of preventing anxiety, or emotional/mental/psychological pain. They are healthy, but to some extent, they are not.

One example of such defense mechanism is denial. The Wikipedia entry is instructive, so I quote:

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimisation) or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference).

I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on denial.

We are in denial. We know something is wrong but we deny that it is serious. So much, in fact, that we have desensitized ourselves – we lost the capability to know what is wrong. We have been immuned to pain.

Thus, we do not know that we are diseased. Thus, we cannot act on the disease until it’s probably too late.

A lot of things are happening around us. Several days from now, we will be electing our leaders. I know some of us found it hard selecting who to vote; it is a painful experience. Some of us went through the pain, and will be better for it (hopefully). Some of us avoided the pain altogether and have decided not to vote.

Some of us are troubled by the spate of killings and sudden disappearances. Some of us made noise, made protests. Some of us chose not to think about it, because, after all, we have nothing to gain from it.

Some of us saw that something went wrong last 2004. Some protested. Some chose to “move on”.

We are diseased. Because we chose not to vote, we will have more of the same. Because we chose not to think about it, many more will die or disappear. Because we chose to “move on”, we will never move on beyond 2004.

We are diseased. And because we killed our capacity to feel pain, we cannot act on it. Or even if we do, it might probably too late.

Because I cannot vote – apparently.

Remember when Comelec had announced that it had purged around a million names in the Voter’s List? When I had read the news, I felt cold. I had feared that my name was stricken off.

Apparently, my fear is not unfounded.

Comelec has an online precint finder. So I entered the needed information:

Click image to view.

Here’s what I got:

Click image to view.

The irony is not lost to me. Here I am, convincing others to vote on Monday; here I am, not in the Comelec’s list of voters.

I know this is not final. Maybe there’s something wrong with the database (one friend also tried it and she got the same “not found” message; we both voted last 2004). I wish I had another way of checking (sent two SMS to ComelecTXT, no replies). I’ll know for sure on Monday.

Try for yourself and see if you find your precint. Let me know the results.

UPDATE (5/10/07):

Using that same Comelec Web form, I tried searching for my older brother’s precint (we always voted on the same precint), and voila, there’s an entry. Did that to my other two brothers, all returned positive. So there’s still a chance that I will get to vote.