What now? The challenge of People Power beyond the 2010 elections

If there is one thing that I really miss right now, its all the activity and excitement that happened during the last elections. One just has to go his or her Facebook account to see how much people were so into the elections with people campaigning for their chosen candidates while sometimes even maligning their rivals. Some even went to the extent of creating fictitious Facebook accounts just to be able to use these accounts to attack their chosen candidate’s rivals, I know this for a fact since I got some nasty messages on my Facebook wall from obviously fictitious people.

Now that the smoke has cleared and President Noynoy Aquino is almost through with his first 2 months, many of us who went all out to campaign and support various candidates have now gone back to resuming our normal lives, business as usual so to speak. Yet, many of us tend to forget that the elections which always tends to be the more exciting part in governance is just the beginning of our quest for good governance and ethical leadership in our country. The greater challenge for us now is to not waste this new chance given to us to help shape a more effective, ethical and empowerimg government. We need to make sure that we continue to support, engage and hold our leaders accountable to their campaign promises and platforms.

Many of us complain about how corrupt the Arroyo administration was but unless we all do our own share in making our democracy work by consistently engaging our government institutions and leaders, our quest for a clean and honest government may yet end up in failure. Let us remember that if we don’t make them feel that we are watching them, many of our corrupt leaders are just waiting for their chance to once again grab power and go back to their usual ways of making government their own personal money making business. It is up to ordinary Filipinos like you and me to ensure that we slowly but surely weed out these corrupt leaders that have led our country to being the perennial cellar dwellers of Asia.

Last elections people power took the form of vote power, now, people power should move each one of us to ensuring that transparency, accountabilty and genuine reforms will be put in place in our government. Yes, the elections were exciting and the actual governing maybe the boring part but its the boring part which is actually more important and fundamental if we want our nation to finally move out of poverty towards a better life for every Filipino.

For those who are currently looking for ways to engage government and help promote good governance, we invite you to be a volunteer of Kaya Natin, you can read more about us at http://www.kayanatin.com . Join us on August 26, Thursday, 6pm to 730pm at Unit 300 Torres Bldg., Katipunan Ave., QC for a Kaya Natin briefing of interested volunteers. To confirm your attendance, you can call Inday at (02) 4341458 or you can text your complete name and contact information to 0919-9575444.