Every new year brings with it hope of better things to come. As we come to terms with the year that was 2024, we look forward to 2025 ushering in better and brighter things for ourselves, our families and our country. Coincidentally, 2025 is an election year.

When elections come as often as every three years, we should have a fresh opportunity to rectify mistakes and choose better leaders the next time around — that opportunity comes every three years too!

But for some reason, we never learn from our mistakes. In reality, we like to do the same exact thing — vote for the same people or the same kind of people for public office and yet we have the audacity to complain and whine that things never change.

Is it too much to ask Filipinos to demand more from the people we cast our votes for? To look not just at the surnames? To be more discerning. Competency. Sincerity. Honesty. Credibility. Compassion. And a heart for real, selfless public service. Perhaps I may be preaching to the wrong audience here, as anyone who may be bothered to read this is obviously part of the thinking votership. But isn’t that the core of the problem — the lack of voter education?

Who is the educated voter? Is it the voter who went to school? Do you need to graduate high school or have a college degree to be considered educated? To my mind, an educated voter needs no degree. A voter is educated enough if he or she understands the work and responsibilities of a position and the qualifications, skills and attributes that may be needed or useful to fulfill that mandate.

This should be the basic knowledge required to assess which of the names put forth as candidates vying for a position should be voted for. Sadly, it seems many would like to keep the large majority of our voters ignorant as it makes them easier to condition and influence one way or another.

For instance, a senator’s job is to legislate, meaning to draft meaningful laws and, maybe, if necessary, occasionally, to hold hearings or investigations in aid of legislation. But look at the composition of our present Senate and the frontrunners in the Senate race this year.

What would actors have to contribute as senators? We have had many action stars in the Senate, but what meaningful legislation had they authored exactly? Take, for instance, the case of three brothers whose only claim to fame or track record is their willingness to provide a platform for disgruntled complainants to publicly humiliate those they “accuse” of wrongdoing without the benefit of a fair trial. What exactly has the one brother contributed as a senator so far to merit two more of them in the Senate?

Also, why is it so hard for new or relatively unknown but more competent people to win in our elections? Because the system is rigged. We have been conditioned to believe that name recall is the only thing that matters. We have been programmed to consider and vote for those on top of mind, never mind the need for any discourse on what they have to offer if elected.

And true enough, every election we are served the same menu of names to choose from and we pick the same names over and over thinking that things will be better and we will have a better life. Yet we have only gone from bad to worse.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. By this definition, isn’t it insanity to keep voting for the same people and expecting positive change to happen in our country?

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(Lila Czarina A. Aquitania, Esq. is a licensed lawyer in the Philippines and New York, and a registered pharmacist. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Ateneo de Manila University, graduating with Silver Medal Honors, and a BS Pharmacy degree from the University of Santo Tomas. A seasoned public servant, she has held key roles in disaster recovery, energy, and infrastructure. She is a consultant and advisor on infrastructure, energy, and public-private partnership projects.)