I mentioned to RB (my high school buddy who is accompanying me for the review), during a lunch of siomai (again) and soggy leche flan, that I'm going home to Butuan next week to vote, on election day. This seem to be a queer thing to him, but for me and my family it's a civil and also (became) a 'spiritual' obligation. In truth, I don't care or give a shit, as it were, to politics anymore. The political scene in our nation is sick (especially in Butuan), and it's beyond help, like a cancer in its terminal stage. Like when he asked me: Mudawat ka bay? Meaning if I ever recieved bribes. He asked it in such a casual way as if he's been doing it every election. I stared at him. Of course, how naive of me.

I told him I've never considered and never will.

For all the things we have in common, RB and I, we differ in principles (like all friends I guess). He has a penchant for, like all people in our economic stature, counterfeit things. I don't. I like stuff that aren't built Chinese sindicates that break down within a month of use and is choking the life out of legitimate businesses worldwide. While my indifference to politics is borne from hopelessness, his enthusiasm for it roots from a financial point of view. He told me with fervor, as if he believed that I was going to be very interested, that there are three candidates running for mayorship - more people to give out money. For him, this would mean money for the trip back if he ever decided to go back home with me. Ha! Apparently, there are a lot of people who look forward to this.

'It's your loss if you don't take the money', he said. Come to think about it, maybe politics is not the problem. His statement said it all. People, I guess, especially when cash is pretty damn hard to come by - they become so short-sighted. It's okay to buy cheap pirated CDs, who gives a shit about the people who composed the music? It's okay to sell your votes, who gives a rat's ass what'll happen to us in four years? Or eight years? Or ten years from now? We, as a race, are bound to be doomed anyway, with all the green house gases and the impending ice age, the war, the deminishing oil reserves (which may be a good thing), the fast-disappearing forests and wildlife, right?

So I'd go home next week to vote, and no, I'm not going to sell out. I don't think it'll worth anything though. It's the same political dynasty in Butuan anyway, they're all families down there because the founding pioneers of Butuan probably got drunk one night and had one big orgy. I'd vote Hitler if he'd resurrect his Nazi ass and run for mayor, at least he was honest, I told him. RB laughed.