Article 21

This is my article in the 7 December 2011 edition of the Business Mirror.

On Saturday the world will celebrate Human-Rights Day. This coincides with the day, 63 years ago, that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This towering document represents the first global expression of the most basic rights to which all human beings are entitled. For us, in the Commission on Elections, this will be the perfect opportunity to reflect on the universal right of suffrage.

Suffrage is embodied in the UDHR through Article 21, which states that “everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” Seems pretty basic, but you’d be surprised that there are still some countries where the right to vote is denied to certain sectors of society. There are, for instance, countries where women still cannot vote.

Here at home, we’re lucky that suffrage is available to everyone over the age of 18. Strangely enough, we can sometimes seem to be most unappreciative of that fact.

There are some of us, for example, who attack the universality of our right to suffrage by advocating that the vote be taken away from some people. However, as repugnant as it is, that backward notion is to me less dangerous than the tendency of many Filipinos to simply take the ballot for granted.

There are many reasons for that, of course. Some just feel frustrated, complaining that whoever they vote for seems to make no difference to the problems of the country. Others simply don’t care and end up selling their votes, or voting for whoever they’re told to vote for, or worse, voting for someone just for the sake of filling out the blank spaces on the ballot. Whatever the reason for this trivialization of the vote, the end result is the same: the abdication of the sovereign right to be a part of the government of the country.

Amplifying this fundamental right of suffrage, Article 21 also provides that “everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.” This reminder is primarily addressed to governments but individuals would do well to remember it themselves: that the government cannot distinguish between individuals and decide this group will be able to get, for instance, health care, while that other group cannot.

And finally, Article 21 reminds us that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

This, of course, is at the very core of Comelec. Given the weighty task of ensuring that governments are truly founded upon a grant of authority from the electorate, we are mandated, in other words, to always strive to ensure that the vox populi is faithfully adhered to. After all, how else can it be considered the vox Dei?

***

The voter-education forum recently held at the University of the Philippines under the auspices of the UP College of Mass Communications and Comelec, through the Comelec Education and Information Department, was a success. Dubbed, “The youth and elections: Harnessing youth participation for people empowerment through responsible voting,” the forum was attended by more than 300 students from UP and the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

The forum was addressed by Comelec Commissioner Elias R. Yusoph who declared: “We need to know this right [to vote] and the initial steps that we will need in order to exercise this right and learn them so that we can safely walk…toward the recovery of our country. This process of learning our right is a must, in line with nature’s lesson [that]: before we ever start to run, we must first learn to stand and then start to walk.”

After Comelec Director for the National Capital Region Rafael Olaño discussed the details of the voter-registration system and the schedule of the poll list-up process, the students actively participated in an open forum, with questions ranging from registration matters to Comelec’s plans for the future of automated elections.

Our gratitude goes to Dr. Rolando Tolentino, the dean of the UPCMC, for his unstinting support for the undertaking, which he rightly characterized as Comelec’s “launch pad” for voter education. We would also like to thank Dr. Arminda V. Santiago, director of extension and external relations, without whose steady guidance the whole event would have probably fallen to pieces. And, of course, our most heartfelt thanks are reserved for the students who came, listened intently and asked questions so sharp and incisive that the speakers from Comelec must have wondered what they had gotten themselves into.

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