The 'wasted vote'
by Conrado de Quiros

ON SEVERAL occasions these past weeks, friends have raised the issue of the "wasted vote." Raul Roco, they say, may be out of the running, having already slipped to third, if one goes by the Social Weather Stations survey. Whatever the reason, he may soon be hard put to catch up with either Fernando Poe, Jr or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. A vote for him would be sayang. Better if one just voted either for Fernando Poe, Jr or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, depending on who one thinks is the lesser evil.

Well, first off, the premise is wrong. I myself suspect this line is something the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo camp is peddling, its strategy being first to take Roco out of the running in the public eye, reducing the contest to a choice between Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo or Fernando Poe, Jr, and second to drumbeat enough fear of Fernando Poe, Jr--he will be Erap Part 2--to drive the voters to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

I myself do not buy it. I've already advanced my theory on the last SWS survey which had Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo climbing to second and Roco slipping to third. I think it was the combined result of Noli de Castro running as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's partner and Roco having near-zero visibility in media for a couple of months before the survey came out. The last time Roco landed on the front pages of newspapers was when he launched the Alliance of Hope on National Heroes Day. Since then, nothing.

The next surveys may yet produce changes in the rankings of the presidential candidates for a couple of reasons. First, the Noli factor would already have been factored in by the public. It would have lost its novelty and impact. And the perception that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is resorting to dirty tricks--ousting Fernando Poe, Jr through the citizenship issue, appointing two known scalawags and diehard supporters to the Comelec, prosecuting the Kawal officers for saying she ordered her favorite generals to derail the campaign of the other candidates--could boomerang on her, bringing her back to the same position she occupied before.

And Roco has been gaining media mileage of late. His visibility has increased.

If the question were merely "winnability," I should think the wasted vote would be the one thrown to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. I can't see how she can win against Fernando Poe, Jr. Like I said before, she has never topped a survey. And despite campaigning for three and a half years (that is what she has been doing all this time, with those giant billboards proclaiming her virtues) and resorting to below-the-belt tactics (these elections are threatening to become dirtier than when Marcos sought a second term in 1969), all she has to show for it is that she is now "within striking distance" of Fernando Poe, Jr. In past presidential contests, the incumbent was the candidate to beat. All the rest tried to be within striking distance of him. This is the only case I know where the incumbent is claiming to be within striking distance of a challenger.

But far more importantly, I don't buy the concept of the "wasted vote." The only wasted vote as far as I can see is the one you give to a candidate you do not believe in simply because you think he or she has a chance to win. That is boundless waste, not least because it stands to waste the country. To this day, I do not regret not having voted for Erap in 1998. To this day, I do not see that I wasted my vote voting for somebody else. If there was any "wasted vote," it was the one that went to Erap. That is so not just because he never got to finish his term but because people voted for him simply because "he was going to win anyway" whatever they did. People who do not want to appear like fools by voting for a "weak candidate" are on a straight path to it.

Correspondingly, the wasted vote is the one you do not give the candidate you believe in from the belief that he is "not likely to win." That is a self-fulfilling prophecy, guaranteeing doom--and not just for your candidate. Like I keep saying, the only thing worse than being disempowered is having the power and not knowing you do. Or worse, knowing you do and abdicating it. The vote is a great power, and it is something we hold in our hands. The victory of candidates is not written in the stars, it is written in our hearts. The victory of candidates is not foreordained, it is decided by us. We do not vote for candidates, they do not win. We vote for candidates, they win.

Even if the candidate you believe in is not a popular one, what of it? Voting is not just something you do for a candidate, it is something you do for yourself. Or to yourself. Elections are a test of character, but it is not just a test of character for the candidate, it is a test of character for the voter, too. It's not just the candidate who's on trial in elections, it is you, too. When you vote, you do not just decide the kind of life you want for the nation, you decide what kind of life you want for yourself. You can choose either the life of a lemming and throw yourself off a cliff because everybody is doing so or the life of a human being and act as reason and conviction tell you to.

At the end of the day, you do not just have to live with the candidate you inflicted on the nation, you have to live with yourself and the wound you inflicted on yourself. You can't be true to yourself, you can't be true to the nation. Stop complaining about this country going nowhere. There is no vote that is wasted on a candidate you believe is fit to run this country, whether he wins or not. You do not win when you vote a fool or a tyrant into office because he or she is the "strong candidate," you lose--even if he or she wins. Above all when he or she wins. And you do not lose when you vote for a candidate as your conscience bids, you win--even if he or she loses. Above all if he or she loses: It is but the beginning of struggle.

The "wasted vote" is a spurious concept. You keep worrying about it, you're wasting your time, your energy and your life.

:: Bing Thursday, February 19, 2004 [+] ::
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