We always say that the worst topics to engage in are politics and religion kasi you’ll most likely end up in a tight argument with no winner or loser in the end. But we still do because politics and religion are interesting and are relevant to our world.
Months before the elections in 2016, I asked people about their presidential and vice presidential choices. I was merely having fun. I was not hired to do a pre-election survey. I did it for entertainment purposes. To entertain myself. So every place I went, every party or gathering I attended, I casually asked the people sino iboboto nila. I never said anything to influence their choices. Plus it was candid, spur of the moment, spontaneous, objective, non-partisan. That was months before the actual day of the election. I was pretty sure many of those people had changed their minds days before the election about their personal preferences.
I tallied those votes and posted them together with my daily kwentos here in ohnmybuhay. It was all for the sake of fun.
Napagalitan nga ako ng husband ko kasi when I asked our employees in Makati about their choice of candidate, karamihan kay Duterte sila, segunda si VP Binay. Edmund was worried baka daw magtampo sila Binay. Eh for fun lang naman yung survey ko. Very objective.
Last week my husband informed me that one of her sisters messaged him with regards to a post on Oh My Buhay. Apparently, I mentioned the name of then-candidate Robredo in my blog. Because of that Oh My Buhay post, someone concluded that the Yee family had other preferential candidates.
I don’t remember the things that I say. Oh my buhay is a personal blog, a diary shared to the public via online.
I was able to trace the specific blog post. I mentioned the name of Robredo when she was one of the guest speakers at the Women’s Business Council of the Philippines’s conference titled Women Rising. Since it was the election season, we invited several women candidates which included Atty. Lorna Kapunan, Rissa Hontiveros, the daughter of the late ex-senator Blas Ople, and a guest from Mindanao, a very articulate US-educated young Muslim woman, whose name I, unfortunately, failed to get. They came from different backgrounds and political parties. The only commonality was they were all women.
From the conference, I showed up at the birthday dinner of my mother in law without Edmund. That was months before the presidential, vice presidential, senatorial, etc. election.
I candidly asked those at the dinner party sino iniisip nilang iboboto. I published the tally.
I am not close to my in-laws. I very seldom see them, the most is once a year. Lately once every two years because natyetyempo lagi akong abroad. They are nice people and what I know is that the only political activity that happened in one of them was when Edmund’s brother became a councilor but that was years ago. The guy is now living a peaceful life in Canada and is convincing his siblings to immigrate there because according to him living in Canada is less stressful and could add at least ten years to a person’s life.
(Wow ten years, go na tayo sa Canada).
Eh sa Tans nga hati-hati ang boto, some are avid supporters of Donald Trump, merong Bush, merong Republicans, some are Obama fans. Some are Democrats. My brother in law, Bong, is an avid supporter naman of Duterte. He is president of Lex Talionis in his area. And he campaigned vigorously for Duterte. Ganun lang, kanya-kanya ng paniniwala. He is excitedly coming home to attend Lex Talionis’ 50th Grand Anniversary in September. Punta rin daw sila sa Davao. I am asking naman my sister to go with me to Bangkok, para makapasyal sya because she hasn’t been to Bangkok.
It’s election time again and I may ask people that I meet, again, sino iboboto nila sa Mayo, all for fun. Nothing personal, nothing political.
Eh ako naman, every year hindi kami nakakaboto kasi tyempo lagi nasa America kami dahil May is the Tan family reunion.
