Why We Should Draft Our Ballot Choices Now (or why we must debate and discuss until May 10, 2010)

(Personal disclaimer: any support or opposition to any candidate/ political party or movement during this campaign period will be written in this blog. I will not write any such matters on other advocacy blogs I guest on, such as Filipino Voices and BlogWatch. I will not disrespect these sites' organizers and my colleagues in them by tainting advocacy with obvious partisanship.)

This morning, friends, I was able to catch most of the "Kilalanin" forum of DZBB, via GMANews.tv"'s livestream of DZBB.

(Aside: may Rhea Santos na nga sila, may livestreaming pa. Kung may recording ng forum, ayna! Kalimutan na for life ang ibang network at maging kapusong totoo... basta di na rin natin maririnig ang boses ni Marian Rivera sa news.)

(Aside number two: if the network provides a recording of "Kilalanin" for public consumption and download, I will nominate GMA as the most public awareness-oriented network, in whatever forum that will give such an award. They are to my way of thinking already one up on ABS-CBNNews.com, with their "Leksyon sa Eleksyon" advocacy ads on primetime.)

Anyway, while listening to the radio broadcast online, I figured that through the efforts of both mainstream media and new media, the public is beginning to get enough data to be able to choose which candidates will have their little circles shaded on the ballots. As such, I am fairly convinced that now is now the time for all of us to get off the sidelines and start proclaiming our allegiances -- tentative if need be.

It's going to take balls to do this; see, anyone who says that he is supporting Candidate X or Politician Y is going to be a lightning rod for other people supporting other candidates. I know of quite a number of people who do not have any qualms about declaring their support for specific candidates, but I must say that most other people don't have the cojones to do so.

Let me try to persuade you good folks to do so, however. So, why should we declare who are those we are for?

1. Full disclosure promotes discussion, debate, and dissent; through such fire, choices are refined, even modified to the correct choice. I'm not saying that the candidate you're going to declare support for today should be the candidate you are going to vote for come May 10; everyone is free to change their mind, especially if we find out stuff about our candidates that will take away our approval of them.

Declaring who we are going to support is going to encourage our opposition to come by and tell us why we shouldn't support our candidates; no doubt there is going to be a lot of mudslinging, but sifting the grain from the chaff among the attacks against our candidates we just might glean new insights that could very well change our minds. Furthermore, declaring who we are for will promote our candidates' campaigns against those of the candidates we do not want elected; any mudslinging that happens will detract from the candidates doing the mudslinging. Finally, good and logical arguments that make us think twice about voting about our candidates or those of others will give us more data to make the right and informed choice come the second Monday of May this year.

Here's a concrete f'rinstance: if Kevin Ray Chua (whom I greatly admire for his involvement in national issues out of his own free will, even before reaching voting age), who supports Mar Roxas' vice-presidential bid and has been consistent in his declarations of support for the politician, turns around and declares on his blog that he has learned of matters that led him to change his mind, and shares with the rest of us these same matters, we can then weigh his reasons and weigh Roxas's candidacy even better than on our own. On the other hand, if his support for Roxas remains unwavering despite the mudslinging against his candidate -- and for that matter, against the young man -- then we can have a better sense that Roxas is a candidate we should consider seriously, and have good reasons to reject those throwing all the mud.


2. Openly declared choices now promotes transparency during the campaign period, during the elections, and after. While it is likely that the online buzz is only a small indicator of actual popular sentiment, consistency in online buzz will help defeat any machinations designed to manufacture a victory for candidates who will not truly be the choice of the people. Visibility is key.

I believe that this will hold true between now and long afterwards; if a blogger declares that today he is supporting Candidate X, then after due reflection supports Politician Y because of new information that has helped change his mind, such declarations of affiliation and changes in affiliations will aid in our personal measures of how successful we have been in protecting our votes.

Not that there is much statistical value, but online measures will be useful in helping all of us gain a sense of whether or not our votes have been Garci'd to someone else. Think about this: a post saying "Today, I support [insert name here]" can be counted among others saying the same thing; we can measure these via online tools, similar to the means illustrated by blogger Jorge Cosgayon on his post Using Google’s tools to track the 2010 Elections. Following the trends from today up until E-Day will help fight spinmeisters who want to make us believe that their principals did no hanky-panky.


3. Corollary to #2, we will have more sources of data to validate survey results, whether commissioned by candidates themselves or by independent polling firms. If there's a principle that engineers and law enforcers both agree with, separate data sets pointing to the same results (or in legal parlance, circumstantial evidence pointing to the same outcome) leads to more solid conclusions. With such disparate data sources indicating similar results will give us radar to penetrate through the fog of war (if you'll pardon the reference to Command and Conquer), and will aid us in our efforts towards clean elections and promoting our candidates.

Let's put it this way: if we can correlate all survey results from reputable firms (my former staff would say, "banggain natin ang data ng Pulse Asia saka SWS"), and measure them against informal sources (i.e., commissioned by politicians or made by them themselves) and against online buzz (taking due care to filter out obviously spurious data), it is unlikely that a candidate can catch up from too far behind without arousing valid suspicion.

Are these good enough reasons for us to begin to have the guts to start open declarations of support? I hope so. Elections are not carnivals we hold every three years or so; elections are important reaffirmations of the existence of our democracy, and thus deserve our utmost attention and care.

Therefore, folks, I urge you to write posts that begin with the title "Today, I Support [insert name here]", or posts that begin with "Today, I Do NOT Support [insert name here]". We can help our colleagues in the professional media along, and in the end help ourselves, by providing this sort of information to our readers. Let's call these little blogswarms as the cloud computing efforts in support of Filipino democracy. Let's write these posts for all the candidates we must have an interest in: national, local, party-list.

Today, friends, I commit to you that I will do exactly as I say. My next post will begin with such a title.

I hope -- that is, I pray -- that you guys consider doing the same.