Cue transformation, part four

This is perhaps the last elections where I have friends doubling as candidates. And, because of those reasons, I am partly obligated to send them good luck messages.

There’s Mae Ong, who’s running for executive secretary under Santugon. I sent her a text message on the day of filing and she responded a day later. On the other side, there’s Chichi Tullao, who’s running for operations vice president under Tapat. She dropped me a line last week, and I took the chance to send my greetings.

And then there’s Nadia Ong, who’s running – again – for Santugon, this time as academics vice president. We’ve known each other the longest, having met her when she successfully ran as Legislative Assembly representative of our batch. As an added bonus of sorts, we were taking up the same course. But I didn’t expect her to respond; she seems to be so busy with things, she ends up not responding to my casual messages when we still took up the same classes.

Nevertheless, I sent her a line, the same old good luck message, earlier this afternoon. She replied. “Thank you, Niko,” she said, complete with a smiley face.

I’ve been at this for four years, and I’ve been thinking about the way these people ask for support. Those who’ve been following this from the very start probably know that this blog is, as much as it’s known for its objectivity, originally a response to a friend who ran for a position.

“I am running for the position of batch representative of FAST 2005 under the Santugon party,” Jaja Samaniego said in a message sent to me, and perhaps all of our blockmates, three years ago. “I’m an agent of change if I think it’s for the good of all. I have seen the drawbacks as well as the positive things of the system and I want to improve what has been started in any way I could. As [of] the moment, all I need is your all-out support. I will never let you down.”

She was, of course, successful in her bid, but refused to run for another position since. And, of course, I was pretty innocent back then. All these candidates did were skip classes and go to classrooms they wouldn’t otherwise be in, do these speeches and be more approachable than usual. Times have indeed changed. A student’s initial amazement towards the elections in DLSU would, perhaps inevitably, transition towards familiar cynicism. Ah, they’re bolstering their credentials and preparing for a high slot in the real world. This will all be a show, and in the end nothing will happen. Perhaps it’s just a chance to throw a bit of mud, and make themselves look good by proposing big things – wait, doesn’t that scenario feel familiar? Last year?

So, perhaps, the uninitiated would see these candidates as very smug people who aren’t really out to change the world for everyone, but for themselves. And perhaps they’re saying the candidates didn’t bother to hide their intentions, with all those robotic speeches and calculated answers. Again, I’ll take the case of Nadia – she isn’t the pitchy, scratchy-voiced screamer that you see during the miting de avance; on the contrary she is pretty quiet. Sometimes, I wonder if they know what they’re getting themselves into.

I was reading an article in an issue of GQ I picked up a few months ago. It was written by Larry Platt, editor-in-chief of a magazine in Philadelphia, who felt he should be doing something with the issues in his district, rather than just sit back and cover it. He ultimately decided to run for a Congress seat, and went through the rudimentaries of defining everything around them, including themselves, and making themselves look good. Ask for contributions. Watch everything you say. Ultimately, he wrote, he felt he couldn’t do what he wanted to do – get things right from the start because he’s got to be this and that – and pulled out before he officially threw his name into the ring.

Perhaps it was coincidence that I read it the night before this year’s campaigns kicks off. Perhaps it was a good thing, too. Perhaps it’s familiar: people think they should be doing something, probably after realizing the wrong ways of the current format, and decide to, err, revolutionize things. They disappear from everyone and go through the sensitive deliberation process, the selection process, the training process, and then, reappear for the actual campaigns totally different.

Of course, there are those people who pull out after considering everything. And then, there are the people whose thoughts are pretty much what they’re asked to think, for the sake of numbers, above anything. These are often left untold.

Now that I’m away physically from the campaigns, and from the frenzy that will mark the next week, I’m seeing something different. Here are the people who are doing this much to get somewhere. Campaign speech, hand shake, plea, buzzword, go figure. We’re tired of the way things go, eventually. Will they?

Surely, they will, but will they get tired of doing the same things, just to realize that they’ll most definitely not be able to do what they set out to do? Sooner than later, everything will catch up with them, whether its time management or academic priorities or party loyalty of just plain fatigue. I may be rambling, but perhaps everything is made to fail, ultimately.

Tomorrow, it all begins again. Everything becomes explicit. Within the week, pamphlets will be given out, tarpaulins will be hanged, campaign slogans will be thrown everywhere, and candidates will be all over you and your vote. I’m not out to change your minds; I’m not going to ask you to give sympathy to the candidates, not because they’re giving everything to the effort, and a defeat would definitely crush them. I’m not asking you to be very accommodating either; you are not supposed to let them through easily, but rather, make them prove to you that they deserve your vote.

Perhaps all I want to say is, the candidates are not what you see them to be. They’re not what they say in their speeches, and not they’re not exactly what they do. A part of me now can’t help but think of this as nothing but just a game; there are pawns, and there are the dead ones. Funny thing is, nobody will win. One gets the numbers but not the respect. Everything they do is wrong, and everything is scrutinized. The winners leave and all that they did will amount to nothing. Repeat the cycle.

This thing is, ultimately, mere rehearsal for that thing we do on a more nationwide stage – voting, at its most basic; running, at its dirtiest. Today’s Student Council overhaul is tomorrow’s charter change; today’s dress code is tomorrow’s right to reply; today’s Achiever Scholar program is tomorrow’s economic policy. We may be cynical, but we cannot just presume. Yep, you should start asking those questions, and take it seriously.

Anticipation within my network has somehow sparked as of late. I’ve seen Chichi’s Facebook profile with an obvious campaign photo. I’ve seen some discussion online, veering inevitably towards Hugh Morris’ stint on the theater stage, something I’ve known for months but never wanted to discuss for fear of trivializing things. I’ve been asking my sister, and everyone else, a lot of questions. I won’t be there tomorrow, and I won’t be there at all, but with regards to the things I’ll wonder about, it will be very different.

I wonder what my candidate friends are thinking of right now.

Niko Batallones graduated from the De La Salle University in 2008 with a degree in Communication Arts, and currently works as a writer for an American entertainment website. In his own words, he works as an “outsourced writer,” something he isn’t exactly fond of.

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