The Next Election Is No Waste Of Time

An appeal to the young who can influence the outcome of the upcoming elections

- Emilio Aquino

(The author is a college junior taking up BS Information Technology Entrepreneurship at Ateneo Manila University. He is the vice president and secretary-general of Kythe-Ateneo, and the founder of The VoterFeed Philippines.)

I get it. Elections can be a waste of time. I would get so caught up in an election cycle, rooting for my own candidates, sometimes giving impassioned speeches for them in campaign sorties, only to find out they either win but have such limited power to change things, or they just straight-up lose. It really sucks. Imagine investing every day from January to May of an election year just watching the polls and keeping up to date on the newsreels, only to see the outcome of the election down the tubes. I’m not talking about the outcome for a particular candidate or a particular party, I’m talking about the outcome for this country, the Philippines, our beloved motherland.

It’s easy to get numbed by all the negative press covering the government. You will see jargon like “corruption,” “oppression,” “antipoor,” and “human rights violation,” in the headlines. You know this isn’t normal, you know something’s up, you know something’s wrong—but it just doesn’t make you feel anything anymore. All the bad news creating emotional distress easily turns into numbness— nothingness.

You’re cancelled