I MISSED checking my mail one day last week in the middle of attention over the Philippine 2016 election and I didn’t see the letter of a friend in New York who wanted some more information on the Philippine condition in election. In the country, election voting for Filipinos in the Philippines was on May 9 while for the overseas Filipinos worldwide, voting was a month long, beginning on April 9.
Miss C. had all the time to think it over---to vote or not to vote for distant leaders in the home country for a worth beyond remittances.
She wrote, “I just got an absentee ballot form in the mail. I'm a bit appalled by some of the names I'm seeing. It appears to be very important to get this right. I guess I'll be voting…But I haven't the faintest idea for VP. And, if you could give me your list of preferred names for the Senate....”
Overseas Filipino voters in the 2016 election voted for the candidates for president, vice president, candidates for the Senate.
Of course, my friend is more updated on elections in the U.S., like the one in November this year. In a comment regarding the 2016 U.S. election, she says, “It's even crazier out here. A Republican senator is on record for describing his own party's primary voters' choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz this year: It's like choosing between being poisoned or getting shot...”
The fight in the U.S., with Republican Trump abrasive toward the presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, would be much tighter than the way the 2016 Philippine general election went. But my friend would not be kept from voting.
My friend said she was voting and I could feel some kind of concern in her line although she’s miles away from the home country. The important thing in a democratic life is the chance to be heard and to connect. The spirit is the same in the Filipino outside the home country.
A friend who lived in New York for a couple of decades is the type the Filipino voter shows---leading or pitching in to activities of the neighborhood, like back home in the Philippines. When Barack Obama first ran for the presidency, my friend volunteered to help, like giving time to answer phone calls in the campaign stations of the Democratic Party in the Big Apple.
The U.S. Census count says a total of 2,790,928 Filipinos have registered to vote nationwide in the U.S. election this November. Filipino Americans are part of the sector growing in number among Asian American voters. They are the second largest Asian American population in the U.S., next to Chinese Americans.
In the relatedness of the Filipino is found the inspiration he carries with him across the globe. His life in the neighborhood back home makes him part of a family and a community with a voice, as he goes out to vote on election day. He has relatives and neighbors, he would fight for the right to connect with each other across the globe.
And what’s more, the Filipino’s connectiveness is enhanced by social media and social networking of which the Philippines is the “capital of the world.”
There are over a million overseas voters of the country, more of them will get to the polls in the next election year, carrying a voice.
(ecuizon@gmail.com)