Catanduanes Forum

ELECTION, by any other name, is a judgment day.

Behind the rhetoric, beyond the smokescreen, the tragedy and the drama that consumed our thoughts for the past few months, and the Vaudeville that put to shame the greatest stories ever told, everything boils down to YOU and that piece of paper called "ballot" comes May 10.

In your solitariness with only the wisdom of your heart and the feeling that your mind could spell accompanying YOU within the confines of that man-made walls called "secrecy folder", it is only you that matter, in the stillness of your resolve to decide which among those pretenders deserve to be immortalized.

Aware of course that at that very moment you alone is the judge and you alone is the king. In your hands alone depends which path is to be traversed, and of course any ill-decision shall naturally bring forth not only your own perdition, but the perdition of your next of kin and all of the next generation.

Yes as human, imperfection is your birth right. But remember that as a human also, to be perfect is your obligation. Therefore in doing what is required of you this election day, perform your obligation with diligence, and vote the way a responsible and prudent man would do under the prevailing circumstances.

Voting in impulse is a next of kin of compulsion. And like any other involuntary acts the result might be a regrettable one.

Be free therefore from the jingles that stuck on the recesses of your cerebrum, and the punchlines that pinched the vulnerability of your heart.

Vote with the simpleness of the wisdom that is innate in you called "conscience", scorning that man-made 'god' that makes the world go round called "money".

Look at the 'political rainbow' with the heart of a virtuoso, but pick your 'color' with the mind of a sage. Read between the lines, and see through the iron curtains that cover the most deadly 'sins' the pretenders hide.

This is a new beginning. Yet this is also the end. In the middle of all these is you, and the generations yet to come after you.

Come to think of it. May 10 is not really the judgment day of the pretenders. It is in fact the reckoning of the judge, which is, YOU.

But like the immortal question of the Roman Poet Juvenal Satires when he asked "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"(Who will guard the guards?), comes election day, when you pass judgment to the pretenders, who will judge your acts? Who will judge the judges?