Wednesday, March 02, 2005
POLITICAL COLORS
Empathy Ink - Opinion - Copy Editor
Published in HF Vol. 19 No. 5 (February 2005)
Voting straight is misleading!
This technique involves familiarizing oneself towards a particular party and voting for all their candidates in a line-up. Though it aims to ensure voter loyalty towards their platform of government, voting straight blinds voters from seeing potentially better candidates for other positions in an opposing party.
With one stroke of the pen under the confidence of voting straight, voters slam the nail into the coffin for what could have been a better leader. For example, what if the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of an opposing party was clearly more appealing, warm and friendly compared to the PRO of a line-up one has decided to vote straight on? Die-hard loyalty took advantage of the unsuspecting student voter.
Blind loyalty or blessed purpose?
Both student leaders and campus journalists’ are destined to face this excruciating dilemma that divides their purpose from their loyalties. In a publication, conflicts may arise on whether to report the bare truth of things to ethically inform the students without censorship or to report only what is loyal and beneficial to the community while cutting out unwanted facts.
Student leaders meet a similar problem between purpose and loyalty. Councils face foreseeable disagreement fueled by their political colors. Elected students should remember that once they are in service they must work efficiently with their co-officers regardless of their party backgrounds. But this isn’t always the case when loyalties end up boiling back to the top.
Yes, parties should live to the extent that they can train great leaders and sharpen a platform of service for the students. However, when their candidates enter the council, they should be reminded that it isn’t about loyalty for the party but rather purpose for the students.
What we should be looking for in a student leader is their effort to lead regardless of their political color. Take for example three years ago when a former News Editor of Heraldo Filipino ran for USC President. He had no line-up with him as he ventured from classroom to classroom campaigning just for himself.
Does that sound crazy? I don’t think so. He knew he wanted to lead and he wasn’t afraid to run by himself. There are other potentially great leaders out there who haven’t been found yet, or rather, haven’t been brave enough to step up and run for a position by themselves. We should be looking for fearless leaders who refuse to become the puppets of control freaks and instead stake claim as the conveyor of the students’ voice.
The goal of all faithful and vigilant student leaders should be to serve the students with utmost trust and responsibility beyond their default task of uplifting the platform of the party they had originated from. We should be voting for whom we believe is the most responsible person for the position and not the most responsible party for the council.
But what happens then to the platform of the party? How can a council composed of mixed parties achieve the plans they fought for during the elections?
Now, that’s the real challenge. The game shouldn’t be party versus party when instead it should be about the resulting council and merging of the different ideologies. There really is only one, great, and common ideology –to serve the students.
True leaders are those who can bring out the best in people regardless of where they came from or what loyalties they may have held. That to me, is the definition of what makes a great student leader.
So don’t vote straight, vote wisely!
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After getting my fifth column published, it's starting to sink into me that my term as Copy Editor is nearing its end. All my columns have been about a campus issue. I've written about the measly Cultural Arts Fee ("Ask for more", HF1), English deficiency ("Please keep silence!", HF2), Conservatism ("200201024", HF3), and Legacy ("Php 9,800", HF4).
For HF6 and LS Special, my last two columns won't dive into national issues or anything outside the school. I want to write about the rights of international students in the University and for LS I want to attack the conservative mindset again from a new angle.
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