Our post-election cleanup

This column comes out a week after the 2025 Midterm National and Local Elections were held.

- HANSLEY A. JULIANO

The results of the Senate race (five from the administration Alyansa, five from the Duterte family-endorsed slate, and two liberal opposition senators) upset pre-election survey predictions. It casts the Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. presidency in the latter half of its term on shakier ground than expected. The defeat of a number of political dynasties throughout the country is also welcomed — with the victors being neophytes or proven advocates of more programmatic governance.

While Filipinos tend to see our engagement with elections as an obsession for pageantry, cynical eyes criticize it as the latest entry in a catalogue of long-running disappointments. While this election cycle has begun spurring hope for the rallying of a more genuine political opposition to the feuding Marcos and Duterte dynasties, it is my desire instead to offer a more forward-looking perspective.

Electoral exercises should ensure that governance (the process of collective and mutual policy-making between state, vested interests, and the public) be made smoother and inclusive. It is easier to get what we want from the government if the people we are talking to are already on the same page as we are and hold the same ideological position or policy perspective. At the same time, we have tended to make voting the be-all and end-all of citizenship. Doing this is electoralism, the flawed idea that we only have a say until we've voted — then we have to uncritically follow. This makes us neglect (if not abandon) other, more life-changing spaces for citizen participation.