KNOWING I didn’t have to wake up early last weekend, I had all intentions to allot myself the rare luxury of just curling-up and staying in bed till late morning.
Unfortunately, my peaceful slumber was annoyingly disrupted.
Various sounds or I should say…noise forced me out of bed with much irritation.
Worst part, I couldn’t do anything about it. Frustratingly I said to myself, “Well Nick, looks like your planned short hibernation was utterly spoiled.
The piercing tones of sirens, jingles, and political announcements filled the air. Damn, these politicos definitely know how to wreck your weekend. Why the hell do they have to conduct motorcades in residential areas at a rather early hour in the day? Though, honestly it was already around 8:00 a.m.
As others do, I guess I just have to accept the reality for the span of campaign period.
With no choice but to surrender to the circumstance, I fixed myself a cup coffee, filled my pipe with some vintage vanilla tobacco, and puffed my blues away while observing the “snail-paced” motorcade.
Honestly, I found some sort of amusement in what I viewed. I noticed that my neighbors and people on the street were not paying much attention to the politicos nor their jingles and announcements.
It was as if they had “invisible tags” on their foreheads which read “yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve seen and heard all these before…it’s the same old tune.”
Come to think of it, even if these political jingles adopt diverse rhythms and beats, they all kind’a end up sounding the same... boring, monotonous, un-original, or amusing.
My amusement took on another turn when I noticed most of the by-standers disposing of the “papelitos” moments after the motorcade passed. The kids on the street however seemed to have found more use for these campaign paraphernalia…they made paper planes out them.
If it’s any consolation, I also observed a rather good effect of the campaign motorcade on the electorate. Members of the community started talking about the candidates who just passed by, as well as their party-mates.
What I heard was a mixture of praise, criticism, doubt, and derogatory remarks. Praise for some who seem to have gained the trust of local voters due to acceptable performance as a previous elected official, criticism for those who seem to have done nothing, doubt for the newbies, and derogatory remarks plus curses for the corrupt and arrogant “power hungry.”
With the campaign fever “burning-hot”, I for one believe it is time for the electorate to truly dig deeper into all possible factors prior the official selection in the May polls.
The voting public must not be fooled by amusing jingles, political announcements, which sound as if they were the biblical truth, the usual endless promises, the “I am your true and best friend” premise, ear to ear smiles of poker faced candidates, vote-buyers … and the like.
Instead, the past or track-records of these politicos gunning for office, their attitudes when they were seated, and their levels of sincerity to serve must be taken into account or even scrutinized “in aid of election.”
Remember my dear friends, “one of the main reasons the ‘same old-tune’ keeps playing before, during, and after election time is because it remains generally accepted and tolerated.” The choice is yours, make it a good one.