Final boarding call

With age, I notice I get more people asking me, as elections approach, who I’ll be voting for.

This year, I sometimes joke about not even being sure about voting because it has become much more challenging for senior citizens to vote. I’m still recovering from more than two months of long COVID and I am intimidated by large crowds and the heat, which might invite another bout with the virus.

If I remember right from the last election, there were courtesy lanes for senior citizens, but much more can still be done to help geriatrics and PWDs (people with disabilities) vote.

Having said all that, I do want to push for voting in general—young or old, with or without disabilities—especially this year. I do sense weariness, even despair, with the tiring OPM (oh, promise me) assaults from roaming sound systems, the blitz of billboards (the main culprits are the party lists), the social media posts, many of which come close to libel and calumny, throw in the life-threatening Red-baiting.

Yet, I do feel that this year’s election will be crucial, locally and globally, as we see a slow but sure backlash against the antidemocratic waves of populism that have plagued the world in the last decade. We saw the rise of these antidemocratic populist leaders, including our own Rodrigo Duterte, espousing “law and order” platforms matched by draconian “law enforcement,” which included arbitrary arrests, detentions, and outright executions.

Even more alarming, we saw mass support for such leaders, continuing to this day as these power-hungry extremists attempt to come back to power. In the Philippines, we see the mobilization that started even in 2022 and the emergence of the Marcos-Duterte alliance, which has, fortunately, since disintegrated, but has become even more threatening as Vice President Sara Duterte and her brothers (as well as the padre de pamilya, even from prison) go full force with their battles in and out of the electoral race.

Father, son, or daughter, we saw the gutting and mangling of governance.

Let’s look at the global context now. Have you noticed how US President Donald Trump has unleashed that kind of Duterte-style normalization of gutter politics in his first 100 days in power, take two? His vision of MAGA (Make America Great Again) draws many parallels to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s, including Hitler being voted in constitutionally, followed by the dismantling of that very constitution and its democratic structures.

The Americans have not taken this sitting down. US public opinion surveys all speak of dramatic falls in approval ratings for Trump during his first 100 days in office. Just one example: a YouGov survey conducted weekly found Trump’s approval rating to be 3 percent on day seven of his 2025 term. By Day 98 last week, it was down to -13 percent. His two predecessors had positive ratings (Obama, 19 percent, and Biden, 11 percent) during their first 100 days.

What is significant, too, is the way voting in Canada and Australia unfolded over the last few weeks. Liberals and progressives were predicted to lose, but the trend reversed dramatically. As Trump waged his war against democracy in the States, Canadian and Australian candidates espousing Trump’s antiliberal political agenda and governance styles lost public support and, in the end, the elections. Leading conservative candidates were strident in their Trumpian attacks against immigration and “wokeism”—anything that espoused respect for ethnic diversity and the creation of more inclusion programs for marginalized groups.

What does this have to do with the Philippines? The outcome of both national and local elections will be a barometer for the near future and the prospects for democracy. We need to vote not for promises of cheap rice or free summer circumcision, but for candidates who will keep democracy alive so we have the space to fight for food and freedom in all aspects. We, too, have found our national budget assaulted, vital services whittled away. The budgetary cutbacks reflect a right-wing ideology: if you can’t afford health care, that’s not the government’s problem. The name of the right-wing game is survival of the fittest.

We need to be more conscious, too, about candidates who sound like “Tatay Duterte.” Never mind the political ideologies for now: can we listen to our hearts and vote against the disrespectful use of Tatay for a man who slaughtered so many Filipino fathers and sons?

I would like to think the world has started a new journey to reverse the right-wing drift of the last decade, here and all over the world. The elections are our boarding calls to join the journey back to democracy.