Elections 2016 – Campaign Materials, Part II

Personal Message: For the month of May, I will post new entries only every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I started it with La Maleta de Cervantes on Monday. This is a little experiment to give some semblance of order to my blog.

 

It was in 1992 when I first became aware of elections. I remember our father encouraging my younger brother and I to make our own campaign and elections. We used bond and colored papers, one inch by four inch plain white stickers, pens, and pentel pens leftover from our school projects the previous school year to make campaign materials. I made “Vote for Miriam Defensor-Santiago” stickers and posters while my brother scribbled something for Imelda Marcos. We posted them on the outside walls of our house, on the iron gate and on the trunks of mango and coconut trees that surround our house. The trunk of the Indian mango tree across the main gate did not escape either.

On our election day, before the real election day, we had sturdy carton boxes for poll booths where my brother and I wrote our chosen ones while checking out for spies – each other. Our election ballots only had line in it – just for president, because we did not know or care for the other positions. I took two ballots, and my brother had three. If all things were equal, Imelda Marcos would have won our mock election, but life is not fair. I cut my two ballots into two each and wrote Miriam Defensor Santiago for president. It was a short counting process, and in the end, Santiago won over Marcos, 4-3. My brother demanded a revote, but I declined. However, like all things borne out of sin, my happiness was short-lived. After days of following the long counting process of the actual election results, Santiago lost to Fidel Ramos. I think it was my first heartbreak.

Fast forward to now, it is five days before the 2016 election. The frenzied campaign season is almost at its end. After months of campaigning and the endless traffic jam-causing miting de avance, my ears have been assaulted by campaign jingles using the melody of famous songs and my eyes have seen countless of tarpaulins or glued-on smiling posters of the current and future possible thieves of our national coffers. This time is different though, there is a flicker of hope in my heart that come May 9, 2016, Filipinos will vote with their conscience and choose the best local and national leaders for the country and not because of the candidates’ famous last names, the stars who endorse them or the money or gift baskets that voters received from them. And yes, no cheating or at least no rampant, glaringly and insultingly obvious ang-kapal-ng-mukha cheating.

In order to possibly bookend my Election 2016 posts, here are some of the campaign materials (click here to read the first part) of Presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte and Senatoriable Dante Liban (the stickers are way better than what my clumsy fingers made in 1992):

Looking at these photos, I realized that I am terrible at folding clothes and using grid when taking photos using my phone, but it is the thought that counts: the message of the sponsors of these Rodrigo Duterte and Dante Liban campaign materials, that Duterte and Liban are the right choices.

Here is to hoping for a relatively peaceful and orderly elections on May 9, 2016. Sana walang dayaan.

 

• #du30,
• #duterte2016,
• Dante Liban campaign materials,
• Dante Liban Senator,
• Mayor Duterte campaign materials,
• Mayor Rodrigo Duterte,
• Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte National Executive Coordinating Committee,
• MRRD NECC,
• Philippine Elections 2016,
• Philippine politics