Dear Editor,

Our right to suffrage has become more a right to suffer. There is too much “constitutionality” in the country which could be equated to “const-inanity,” one election after another, on account of the inane, stupid election laws, traditions and practices that we have been adhering to — which gladden buffoons and serve clowns rather than the country and our people.

Reality bites and hurts. I state the above in all frankness and sincerity, notwithstanding the risk of clowns (real clowns) possibly getting offended at the comparison because they steal and corrupt nothing when they do their tricks and trade on stage, unlike robbers, deceivers and crooks when they do their clowning for “public service” and during campaign periods. Farce.

The Commission on Elections seems always hand-tied and helpless (or politicized) about the bane. No wonder, even with candidates’ early campaigning, seven months prior to the official start of the campaign period, the commission is admittedly inutile. And, alas, Alice Guo may run again for mayor of Bamban, Tarlac. Dumb.

Take a look at the recent Comelec-released five ridiculously “simplistic” qualifications for senatorial candidates as an example: 1. Natural-born citizen of the Philippines; 2. At least 35 years old on election day; 3. Can read and write; 4. Registered voter; 5. Resident of the Philippines for at least two years before election day. Funny.

I’d rather vote for the poor and “unqualified” but who has a clean heart and pure intentions for the country than most “shoo-in” candidates who run every election to bless themselves and satiate their avaricious cravings and power hungry souls, including most of those who have filed thus far their certificates of candidacy for next year’s elections.

But this is worse — ex-convict former officials or officials who have been jailed for plunder and other crimes but were later “pardoned” and/or those whose cases were “dismissed” under dubious criminal circumstances can still run, even for president of the republic.

And what about the whole family or entire clan — husband, wife, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, close and distant relatives (by affinity, consanguinity and insanity) — governing a whole city or province or the entire nation, all at the same time, forever and ever?

They have so successfully and effectively made governance and the government a grand, big family affair. Dynastic. Who will stop it, the madness?

In the past, candidates could only cheat by buying votes and “surveys,” stealing ballots, telling lies on billboards and TV/radio ads, projecting “good-boy” images, promising the moon, boasting of “achievements,” bribing hoodlums in media, and assassinating rivals. But now, they only need trolls in those “gadgets,” modern, blind, crazy, sick, dying world.

It’s election season once again, my dear countrymen, and it means wasted money (“budget’) for the government and Filipinos, duped/squandered time and “opportunities” and deleterious, needless, “luckless” focus for all — in government offices, the media and elsewhere.

Vote for clowns and get a circus — to weep (not laugh). Vote for animals and get a zoo — to get devoured (not fed). They deleted my name from the voters list when I failed to vote the last time.

But, happily for me, because I don’t have to engage myself again, ever, in a fruitless, meaningless exercise until I know for sure that elections in my country would make sense. But for now, I’d rather go to the gym and build more abs there (not in a polling booth), for exercise.

So goes why I no longer believe in elections.

Reni M. Valenzuela

renivalenzuelaletters@yahoo.com