COMMENTARY: Today, election day, the power is ours

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A typical voting precinct during election day. File photo.

There comes a point in your life when you cannot put off some things anymore. When you can no longer just remain hopeful and entrust everything to tomorrow, because you’ve already seen enough of what happened yesterday.

When I say yesterday, I don’t mean Sunday, or last week, or even last year. I mean the last elections, or even the last 10.
Out of the blue, this now-or-never sort of dread just seeped into my mind. Like, if we can’t do it right today, then it’s the apocalypse.

I have been living in a sort of semi-desensitized mindset for so many years now, perhaps to protect myself from the pain of existence, or perhaps to survive in a world that doesn’t always play fair. So this restlessness comes as a real surprise.

I guess it started a few days ago when an old college pal, who’s currently working in Singapore as a doctor, messaged me asking who I might suggest that he vote for in the 2025 midterm elections.

I gave him a short list. After he thanked me, I went down memory lane.

I remember being 17 and being part of the campus paper. I remember rising through the ranks and becoming editor alongside this friend. I remember believing that what we wrote mattered, that we were somehow changing the world. I believed in the power of the pen, I believed in democracy, and I believed that journalists are always at the forefront of defending it.

I remember being 23 and being offered by the owner and publisher of a local newspaper, where I worked as a news writer back in the day, a chance to write as a columnist. Even as I moved abroad, I continued sending column articles. I was a young adult, I was idealistic, I haven’t lived long enough to know that things don’t always pan out well for people who dare to be honest and good.

I also remember that, after a couple of years of keeping a column, I emailed the publisher and told him my decision to stop writing opinion articles. I thought I had run out of things to say. And I wanted to become a student of life again. I wanted to learn and live and fail and suffer — and have a little more depth before writing again.

I promised myself I would not pick up a pen again unless I had something important to say. Years went by, and I wrote nothing. Somehow, I’ve convinced myself that anything I want to say, others could say better.

I wanted to say something when we elected as president a man who wanted to kill all drug addicts and drug peddlers and showed no regard for the rule of law. I wanted to say something when 119 members of the House of Representatives voted to give the Commission on Human Rights an annual budget of P1,000, for reasons that were clearly more political than moral.

I wanted to say something when they shut down a leading broadcast company despite its economic implications, just to send a strong message to other media companies that they may suffer the same fate should they fail to toe the line.

I wanted to say something in so many instances, for a lot of reasons, but always just felt like whatever I have to say won’t change a thing. And I guess that would be right. As you age, the idealism of your youth fades away. You lose more than just your voice, you lose your faith as well.

But I know one thing that can always change things — a vote, a single vote from a discerning citizen.

Today is election day. That one day, every three or six years, when our fate does not depend on the moral conscience of our congressmen and our senators. The day when the power is all ours, when our voices can be heard, when our choice matters.

Today, we have the chance to put good, intelligent, honest, hardworking people in the position to craft our laws and sculpt the future of our nation.

To cast votes based on who can dance, who you’ve seen on television, who has the most charm, and the cutest dimple does not serve us.

We’ve already been through a period where we’ve seen dead bodies lying on our roads almost every day, we’ve been through years of pandemic, which made obvious who was working and who was just up there to entertain us with their lack of know-how.

As you cast your vote today, remember all the crises this country has been through in the last decade. Do one last research.

Find out who voted for this law and that. Ask yourself, when the vote is no longer up to you, will this candidate actually exhibit the same values? Will they vote with conscience?

As you cast your vote, I hope you pick the ones who will stand for you and protect not only your interests but also the interests of the least of us.

Today is the one day when your vote matters, please make it count.

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Coleen Edrea Ematong loves cats and horses. She is currently in law school and works as an SEO editor but hopes to write again someday.