Politics over Relationships

May 7, 2022

Hi there! How are you today? I hope you're doing well. It's almost Election day here in the Philippines and things are getting really intense. I know it's a sensitive topic and might not resonate well with people but I just want to express how I feel about it.

People are getting very passionate about politics. And from what I've seen and experienced, this has been the worst and the ugliest election season we've ever had in the Philippines. I've seen friends disconnecting, families belittling each other, and don't get me started with the 'cancel culture'. Things just got too toxic.

I used to be vocal about my political stance but since some friends changed how they treat me and knowing how sensitive they are about people who has different views and opinion from them, I decided to delete all posts I've shared about my chosen president and vice president. For me, a friendship of more than 10 years is more important than my political views.

I just don't understand why some people would choose to end relationships just because they don't support the same candidate because I would never ever sacrifice a relationship that was built over a period of time for some presidential candidate that I don't even know personally.

No matter how much I try to wrap my head around it and try to understand their logic, I never could.

I didn't think that it would ever happen to one of my friend groups but it did. I was so disappointed and heartbroken because I believed in our friendship so bad. I thought nothing could ever break our relationship because we see each other as brothers and sisters. But politics did that.

A friend of mine messaged me on facebook messenger saying that she was sad and heartbroken. I asked why and she sent me a screenshot of her convo with our two other friends. They judged her for her political stance and assumed things about her morals just because she had a different political view from them. Mind you, she can't even vote yet. Why fight and force your agenda on someone who can't even vote yet? The most heartbreaking thing is she didn't even care about them calling her 'bobo'/ dumb and calling her a laughingstock. No, she wasn't sad about that. She was worried about the friendship ending. She told me, "It hurts that they would chose politics over me.". These same people who undermined her were also very cold towards me and would send me very passive-agressive messages. Saying 'no offense' but calling me offensive names while ending their message with 'have a great day'. I wasn't born yesterday. I know and I can see when people aren't being genuine.

I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!

I've made several posts about this on facebook. But I don't it would change the circumstances now. Our friendship was ruined by politics. I was so mad. I posted this on facebook.

To all my friends who changed how they treat me because of politics, please don't think that our friendship would still go back to the way it was after the elections. Why? Because you showed how little you value our friendship by changing your perspective of my whole being just because of who I will or will not vote. (most members of our family support BBM but the past weeks, I decided to do research and now I'm still undecided and doing more research) Everything you knew about me years before and everytime I tried to comfort you when things were rough were forgotten the second you knew which candidate I was leaning to to vote. Wow! You got amnesia all of a sudden? Everything has gotten so toxic. Why are we glorifying these candidates and justifying their actions when the campaign season is for us to really assess the candidate with hawk eyes, no bias so we can really decide for ourselves who to vote. Isn't that what the campaign season is all about? Why are we competing who has more people during the campaign rallies? Isn't the campaign rally made to persuade people to vote for that candidate? From what I remember, anyone who wants to know or see what that candidate can offer for the betterment of the country should attend the rally not just that candidate's solid supporters. Isn't that the reason for holding a campaign rally, or am I just tripping? Maybe I'm wrong and my perception is flawed? I don't know, I'm confused. I learned from the past elections that we should be open-minded during the campaign season so we cann see clearly which candidate has the qualities of a good leader. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?

I hope people understand that whether your candidate wins or not remember that the election is just one day but relationships last for a lifetime.

That's it dor today folks. See on my next entry. Stay safe everyone and don't forget to take care of yourselves.