It's no secret that this year's most popular parties are the People Power Coalition (PPC) and the Puwersa ng Masa-LDP. Up until Labor Day, 8 of the candidates of the PPC were included in the SWS Survey's Senatorial Candidate's Top 13. But, because of the Pro-Erap rallyists attack in the Malacanang, some people who were originally voting for some Puwersa ng Masa candidates decided to switch their votes to another one of the PPC's candidates. Recent surveys of popular votes say that PPC has already got 11 out of the 13 Senate seats in the bag. Kabayan Noli and Angara take the 2 other slots. Do you believe in these?

As they say, there are three kinds of lies: Lies, more lies and statistics. It would be a real tragedy if everyone's all confident already as to who will win, only to find out that these surveys failed to question those living in the remote areas. The "masa" of the countryside. Those, who, more often than not, during election time, remind us that their existence counts. It is these people who need to be educated about voting. I surely hope that the proper authorities have done their task of promoting Voter's Education to those people who really need it the most. These are the people who need to be reminded off that their vote is more important than a hundred-peso bill. The voting booths in the rural areas are especially in danger of the usual voting schemes. The people of Manila may be hot news but when it comes to voting, all else is equal and each is given only one chance.

It's not so hard to notice that everyone seems to be giving this year's elections extra care and importance. Maybe it's the people's way of saying: "Hey, past is past and its time to rise over our mistakes. The first big step that we can make is making the right voting choice." Maybe to some, to the educated perhaps. Maybe even to most of the working class. Lest, we seem to forget the 90% of the Filipinos are illiterate. Did we forget about them again?

It scares me to think that most people in Manila seem to think that Manila is Philippines. Of course, we know this is not so. Everyone's so hopeful about the elections nowadays: hoping that it would be better, cleaner and effective. They might have forgotten that for every hope of a dream come true comes hard work and perseverance. Work hard to be prepared and to acquire as much information as you can to be able to vote wisely and persevere to educate others and make sure that they too are not blinded by the game of personalities these candidates showcase during their campaigns. We truly hope, as we stress again, that proper Voter's Education were given to the rest of the Philippines. If not, then we can say goodbye to our visions of a better tomorrow because it isn't happening here.

There are two kinds of hope: the passive, most popularly known as "false", and the active hope. The latter is what they consider one of the three things that last. The former is usually called plain, old, waste of our time.