For the past decades, Filipinos long for the same thing: a better life, a comfortable living wage, job security, quality and accessible education, social protection and an endless opportunity to prosper as individuals and as a nation. Election after election, thousands of candidates vying for various positions in the electorate mouth the same promises time and again. Despite their endless promises, many, if not most, Filipino families’ lives remain the same: poor, insecure and without hope.

Thus, we have bred a certain type of apathy towards elections, wherein we care less what the candidates promise to deliver, we care less what their crimes are against the Filipinos. What we look for in our candidates are the caricatures they emulate that feed on our frustration on the outgoing regime. After a strong leader, we look for someone soft; after the soft leader, we look for someone strong again, and so it goes.

I am now talking to the generation I belong to, and the generation that follows—we cannot and we will not break free from the narrative our predecessors have laid down before us if we continue to walk the road that they have set.

“Those with choices need not choose, we must for we have none.”

Ana Patricia Non's "Community Pantry" on Maginhawa St. in Quezon City was built on the principle, "Give what you can, take what you need."

The children of each generation have had this opportunity at least once in their life. Some have chosen the road less traveled, which unraveled tumultuous yet momentous times that marked eras of great leap from the endless dark that hounded the nation. Today, our brief past has offered us no other options but that which will only benefit the powerful, and that is why we have to choose.

Do not mistake our kindness with naivete. We know hunger that’s why we act. We know inequality that’s why we act. We feel the neglect that’s why we act. We do things not because it will benefit the powerful, we do things to support us unfortunate.

It is inevitable, nonetheless, that we will have to choose a new set of leaders next year. But before we talk about the criteria of what our future leaders should possess, let us talk first about what we, as Filipinos, deserve.

We have put such a high standard on ourselves on how we should act. We took the blame for all mistakes and inactions of our leaders. It’s time we make our own path, we choose not based on the criteria they offer, we choose based on what we need, what we deserve.

We deserve our rights protected, fulfilled and guaranteed. The youth deserve the utmost attention with the right to education. Our workforce deserves a livable wage, not a minimum wage that is barely enough to cover their family’s daily needs, but a salary that will allow them to live with dignity and prosper.

Our farmers deserve help, they deserve to own the land they till, they deserve protection for their crops that they may be bought with a fair price, that they go to Filipino tables and not spoiled and dumped due to lack of support.

Those who died deserve justice, that those responsible put behind bars. And so the list goes.

If we are to choose, let us not choose based on caricatures. We choose based on what the limited choices we have can stand on. The leaders we need should be leaders who see our collective aspirations and frustrations as they burden to deliver and resolve.

That aside, there are certain characters that should be non-negotiable for all of us.

Respectful. There is no place in our country for leaders who are proud as they openly harass, violate and demean women and any other citizen.

Honest. It is not our job to discern what are true and what are not with the statements our leaders give.

Honorable. Anyone who does not fight for our country’s independence and freedom does not deserve a place in our republic.

Humane. We do not elect monsters, nor celebrate them. Each and every one of us has dignity, which our leaders at the minimum should respect. Anything less than this is unacceptable.

We have put such a high standard on ourselves on how we should act. We took the blame for all mistakes and inactions of our leaders. It’s time we make our own path, we choose not based on the criteria they offer, we choose based on what we need, what we deserve.

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