Am I Running Again (11th of a series)
TEAM OCA was finally assembled with some new and some old and not so old faces. But just like a golf game, an election campaign showed one’s real self. Hardly the one facing the crowds but the self who can’t stick to the time allowed to make one’s speech, the time to assemble and as basic as staying ‘til the main speakers arrive and finish their speeches. After all, we were mostly new to the voters. We needed as much exposure as the rest.
During the rallies, I stayed on the stage most of the time, giving our best smiles for hours under the glare of lights. Appearing to listen but not listening to the speeches which seemed to be oblivious even to some of the speakers themselves. One thought of antics to perform onstage, just so that the audience will remember your name and number. Forget the face. It is haggard, sunburned and full of dust caked by sweat from the twice daily handshaking campaign sorties.
As the challenger, we experienced not being granted access to covered courts as some of the barangay leadership remained loyal to the incumbent. I could not understand that. The barangay, as created by the principal author former Senate President Nene Pimentel, was supposed to be an apolitical machine in order that the basic services of the local government would be made, regardless of partisan political affiliation.
But here I witnessed not only the denial of the use of a public facility, but also the hypocrisy that one angry and who was once a barangay leader who was now part of our campaign sorties remarked that they too had not allowed a rival group access to the Barangay covered court then. Karma.
So there goes the hope of change in grassroots democracy where Barangay leaders have been reduced to vote-getting machines and patronage politics. Thoughts like “what the hell am I doing here started to bite.”
But I was learning much of how it is like. Where your own teammate hijacks your campaign volunteer and makes it appear that it was my attitude. Snakes.
But I was not just there to be part of the campaign for change. It was during this period where I saw the physical CDO in person, for the first time, at least for the first district. Extreme living conditions were staring right at my face. I started to think of us as a bunch of dreamers or for some, obviously schemers, as we walked the streets or rather the muddied, urine and fecal smelling places behind the concrete, steel and glass structures we normally have been exposed to. Here we were in the real CDO. Where barangays in the city were populated mostly by informal settlers. It hurt. Really hurt. The city of golden friendship, one of the most progressive city as claimed then, with most of our population living under oppressive conditions.
Kausaban was a most familiar cry and I began to think, if there was a masterplan beyond the slogans. I soon realized that beyond the roads, the hospitals and the schools promised to be built, and indeed they were, values needed to be changed beyond the billions needed for infrastructure.
If the incumbent administration is to be truly defeated, it must be from the change of values from the forced poverty and dependence on patronage and accommodation. It is the people who will demand and build decent homes, learn and educate themselves based on their passion and God-given talents and enable our food producers the facility to feed our own population.
Change is not to be dictated from above and outside. It must come from within and from the person himself. And that is to be exemplified by the leadership. Otherwise, we end up in the same cycle of lies and deceit. Of shortcuts and corruption. Of wheeling and dealing instead of political will. Governance with no vision except perpetuation.