IT'S the season to be listening to different jingles about platforms, history, and skills. Election time is fast approaching and this means every channel on TV is swamped with political ads of people who promise to deliver us from the clutches of poverty and corruption.
We wonder how we got to this chaotic state. We wonder why good journalists are becoming extinct, politicians kill other politicians, and a president can get away with cheating during the elections.
We demand change and every election the only thing that changes are the names in position.
We don’t even realize how divided we are as a nation. The perfect example to this divisiveness is our political system. We have so much political parties that people can barely keep count, parties with almost the same objective with slight differences in religion or education.
There are so many ideologies that Filipinos fall under. Creating different political parties is not helping us move forward. These parties are supposed to organize our options as a people.
Names like Liberal, PNM, Lakas, Nacionalista, and so many other names are really either for change or conserving the tradition. There are but two views, but which in our case is divided into four, five, a dozen parties.
The Philippines is diverse in culture and tradition but that doesn’t mean our government should be. They’re supposed to unite us despite our differences in religion, tribe, gender, or tradition.
Aside from dividing our nation, this numerous political parties also spread votes.
Instead of achieving one common goal, a voter could find himself/herself confused because of almost the same platform each candidate proposes.
The same could go on in the next election and the election after that until we are completely divided with our beliefs and political parties.
Sometimes we neglect to be one big voice; instead we become broken voices that will continue to separate our people from the unity they deserve.
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Sunday Essays are articles submitted by Masscom students of the Ateneo de Davao University for their advanced journalism class.