Winners and Losers

In life we win some, we lose some. In the last elections, more aspirants lost than those who won. There were more who lost because there simply were just too many candidates vying for few positions. This reminds us of the hordes of jobless applicants, who would queue up for a single vacant job position in a government or private outfit.

Victory in the elections is definitely as sweet and as ecstatic as the triumphant joy of a winning soccer team in the World Cup. But for those who won in the last election, victory can be genuinely sweet if they won cleanly and honestly. Otherwise, their victory is as bogus as the pirated CDs and DVDs that now litter our sidewalks.

For those who lost, don't despair. Loss or failure can still be turned into victory. Abraham Lincoln failed several times before he was finally elected president of the United States. Those who lost in the last political exercise now have three years to assess and re-examine themselves and to device strategies for the next elections. That is if they'll make politics their career or vocation. Otherwise, God may have other purposes for them, a realization that the likes of Manny Pacquiao must reflect on.

The biggest losers in the last elections are actually not the losing candidates. The biggest losers are the families of those who lost their lives while serving as members of the election board of inspectors. We mourn with the families of Leticia Ramos and Nelly Banaag, the teachers of Taysan, Batangas who were burned to death as they protected ballot boxes from the evil intent of those who sent five masked men who torched two classrooms of the Pinagbayanan Elementary School there.

Many lives were lost before, during and after the elections, which police and election officials have described as “generally peaceful.” The generally-peaceful assessment of the last elections was based on comparative figures of casualties in the 2004 and May 14 elections.

A Catholic Media Network priest-commentator noted that the shooting spree of a deranged youth that claimed 32 lives at Virginia Tech in the US was considered a “massacre” while a stampede during a Manila noontime show where scores were killed and wounded was described as a “tragedy.” Ironically, amid election-related killings that reached more than 100, a top police official and even COMELEC officials had declared that the last elections were “generally peaceful,” the priest-commentator pointed.

We are lucky in Baguio and Benguet because -- unlike in some Wild, Wild, West towns of Abra and in Mindanao -- our board of inspectors and canvassers need not cower in fear as they manually count and tally votes. Despite allegations of vote-buying, Baguio and Benguet are some of the lucky places where losing candidates would immediately reconcile with and hug their political opponents. Except Abra, the elections in the Cordillera were indeed generally peaceful.

But the total picture shows that our country is still run like hell.

The elections are the means by which ordinary citizens participate in a supposedly democratic process of choosing men and women to represent them. But the widespread reports of vote-shaving, vote-padding, and other irregularities plus the accompanying violence and terror all show that we still have a long way to go as a democracy.

We may not even qualify as a democracy because the names of persons, which we write on the ballot every election, are not always correctly counted and tallied. In some towns, a candidate may have won through the ballot, but he may not survive his political rival’s bullet.

That a few powerful people continue to make a mockery of our elections prevents us from evolving as a true democracy. It is this mockery that continues to send more and more brothers and sisters to leave the country for good. The big losers in the process are us, ordinary folk, who are forced to bear the consequences and curse of misrule and bad governance.

War is over, but not the Battle

By midnight on May 12, we expect that all will be quiet and calm – no more blaring loudspeakers with tired political jingles, no more annoying TV and radio commercials, and no more boring speeches of politicians courting our precious votes. By that time there will be no more printed campaign materials littering our streets and backyards. By that time only tweeting birds, singing crickets, croaking frogs, crowing roosters, barking dogs, pounding carpenters’ hammers and children’s laughter will reverberate in our otherwise quiet neighborhood.

We are glad the war of all the political candidates to win our hearts and minds is over. It’s time for all of us to rest from all the noise pollution of campaign promises, which didn’t only deafen our ears but also nagged us to death. It’s time no more papers are wasted on campaign materials so we can save on trees. It is better that these papers be used for our school children’s textbooks in June.

But while the war of our political candidates -- be they losers or winners -- is over, our battle as citizens will again begin. Our battle starts on the day of election. The battle starts from our choices as we enter the voting precincts. Making a choice is sometimes a tyranny in itself because we are forced to choose from among lesser evils, not from among good men and women, who are as rare as the monkey-eating eagle.

After we made our choices, we are asked to guard our ballots. We are asked to keep vigil over the counting and canvassing of our votes. So we are asked not to sleep until we are assured that our votes are counted correctly. Why? Can’t the commission mandated to count our votes master their simple arithmetic? Don’t they know their addition? They don’t have to solve algebra or trigonometry problems, do they?

There was this effort to computerize our electoral process. But the election commission screwed up the effort towards computerization. It wanted to stick to the antiquated manual counting, which is vulnerable to dagdag-bawas (vote-padding) anomalies.

We had learned about bad precedents, which continue to haunt, hound and threaten our so-called democracy. The ghost of the “hello Garci” fiasco has yet to be exorcised. So we are asked to watch out and guard against this ghost.

And granting that our votes are correctly counted, we are also asked to do another task: to monitor whether or not our elected officials fulfill the promises they made before us when they were politely but persistently courting our votes. Some of them may even have signed covenants arranged by church and civil society leaders.

For us, ordinary citizens, the war won’t be over after May 14. For us, the war continues and so we have to always gear up for battle in this country, which is still a babe in the woods in terms of democracy.

Farewell to a Village Folk's Midwife

From the early 1960s up to 1971, she was the midwife of almost every family in Poblacion, Kibungan and in neighboring villages. All of my younger siblings who were born from 1963 up to 1971 were delivered at home with the help of Flora Wachina-Lagdao, the municipal midwife my relatives and town mates would never forget for her dedicated service.

I still remember those times when we had to knock at the door of the Lagdaos even in the dead of night when my expectant mother was in labor. Like a girl scout, Auntie Flora would immediately pack her black rectangular leather bag, which contained a stethoscope and other medical gadgets, and we would hie off to our house to help my mother deliver another “visitor” (as my lolo and lola called a newly born member of the family).

To my big family and to my village mates in Poblacion, Kibungan, Auntie Flora was the midwife of every home who helped deliver a new child into the world to the delight of parents and grandparents ready to celebrate the coming of another blessing. In Kibungan, children are considered blessings from the heavens. Auntie Flora had helped ensure that these blessings would successfully arrive with their loud, shrill cries amidst the night's sound of silence.

Auntie Flora was well-loved even by former pupils of the Kibungan Elementary School. During the regular vaccination for school children, many of us would hope and pray that Auntie Flora would be the one to administer the vaccination and not the other Rural Health Unit personnel. For most of us then, the vaccination injection was less painful and less scary through Auntie Flora than through the others.

A doctor rarely visited our upland town. But we were lucky to have Auntie Flora, who, along with the late Hencio Monte, our municipal sanitary inspector, were always on call to help attend to our health and medical needs.

A native of Natonin, Mountain Province, Auntie Flora was married to my uncle, Pepito Lagdao, a public school teacher who rose to become a principal until he died of a lingering illness in the 1980s.

In 1971, Auntie Flora went to Germany where the pastures for midwives were greener. She worked and lived there until she retired, coming over to the Philippines from time to time to visit her children and relatives. Finally last April in Germany, Auntie Flora succumbed to a heart ailment. She was 70.

Auntie Flora's remains were cremated in Germany and brought home here last April 29 before the ashes were interred at the Pyramid Memorial Park in Kias, PMA, Baguio City last May 1.

From the wake until the burial, not only Auntie Flora's relatives from Natonin, but many of her late husband's relatives and town mates from Kibungan came over to pay their last respects. They came to thank the midwife who helped secure the lives of home-delivered babies in a town, which used to have only an RHU (rural health unit), which we called a dispensary.

Auntie Flora is survived by her children – Jeryl Marie, Jurgenson, Rhea Joy, and Leilani; daughter-in-law Eulina; and grandchildren – Samantha, Yvonne, Yorg, Liam and Desiree.

To the well-loved midwife who became part of our lives in Kibungan, goodbye. But we'll continue to thank you as we remember you through every shrill, loud cries of the babies of parents, who used to be the babies you helped deliver into the world.