At first look, I thought that this editorial is about the corruption of the Filipino minds by the foreigners, but as I had read through the article, I realized that it is a lot different than what I have thought. The editorial by a student who whose alias is “Pol Eso” is actually about the elections on the month of may, year 2010. I thought the clown that was in the editorial is Ronald Mcdonald (the mascot of Mcdonald’s fast food chain) and that he represented the foreigners. It is obvious that the guy sitting down is a Filipino because he is the stereotypical image of a Filipino, with the hat, cropped pants, and plain shirt. 

 My first impression was that we are being corrupted by foreigners whose only interests are our natural resources and man power. Our government, which is the hand that is labelled “Philippine Government” is placing a price on us, or selling us in other words. Until now, we have not yet been able to remove colonial mentality from our system. Until now, we still prefer products from other countries because we believe that they have better design, quality, etc. 

 On the other hand, since I read the article, it is actually about the 2010 elections. The clown actually represents the candidates who are pretending to be caring, honest, or trustworthy people. They are projecting themselves to the Filipinos what they are actually not in reality. They are just fooling us with the false promises, the flashy tv advertisements, the catchy jingles which will make you have an LSS (Last Song Syndrome). It is evident that popularity of the candidate matters in the Philippine elections, just look at some of our government officials as proof. Some of them have no background whatsoever about law, what to do in government, or etc. They are simply popular in our country, and that is why the Filipinos will vote for them. 

 Sometimes I feel guilty for not voting for a candidate that I truly believe in just because he had a low chance of winning. So instead of “wasting” my vote on that candidate, I’d rather pick a candidate that will win over the candidate that I do not like. I think that was what happened to the 2010 elections. For our community, the talk of the town was that they are voting for Gibo, but because there were gossips about Villar winning, (which at that time we did not want to happen), we chose to vote for Pnoy instead just to ensure that Villar will not win. Now I think about it and realize, what if most of the people were thinking the same as we did at that time? What if we followed what we believed in and voted for Gibo instead? Will the Philippines change for the better? I can’t help having regrets of that time because right now, I can’t see any improvement on the Philippines. Pnoy’s promise to eliminate corruption, I still can’t feel it.

References: http://carbonstereo.blogspot.com/2010/01/election-and-corruption.html