You find yourself walking through your town, passing familiar walls and houses in your neighborhood. Smiles greet you at every turn, but they are not from your friends or loved ones. They are the printed faces of candidates vying for power. And they're everywhere—on banners, rice sacks, and even in public infrastructure.
You begin to wonder why visibility is being used to simulate goodness. Beyond those smiling faces lies a strategy, a calculated effort to build familiarity, project power, and influence the minds of the people.
In the Philippines, where generosity often wins hearts before platforms win minds and mediocrity is mistaken for "good enough" leadership, doing good during elections walks a fine line between service and self-promotion. Are they giving out of genuine concern, or simply trying to win our votes? In supporting them, are we receiving lasting solutions or being conditioned to depend on temporary aid?
There are ethical concerns in doing good during the election period, as these actions often serve as subtle campaigns disguised as kindness. They appear in the form of giveaways, relief goods, or short-term aid. However, if these services are truly plausible, why do we only see them when elections are near? Would they still heed our voices if no election was coming?
These silent ethical issues don’t always look like corruption, but they influence how we vote and who we trust among the candidates. It gives us the tendency to lower our standards and settle for the bare minimum because of the Filipino culture of gratitude (utang na loob). Some Filipinos vote for someone after receiving a small act of kindness—seeing it as enough, even if the leader lacks good governance. After all, it clouds critical thinking and keeps people from demanding more—demanding what's rightfully theirs.
Many are also easily swayed by a candidate’s good image, which limits criticism and becomes a mask to hide poor leadership. For some, image matters more than integrity, and silence is mistaken for honesty. This leads to deeper concerns in the country, such as weak public services, the normalization of corruption, and more. And because Filipinos often settle for less, we receive poor governance and temporary solutions that fail to truly address the needs of the community. Deeply tied to these cultures and norms, we sometimes overlook the hidden agendas and the truth behind their smiles.
But shouldn’t this be a wake-up call for us? A reason to begin the change by seeking what we truly deserve through demanding genuine and accountable governance? This change doesn't begin with rallies and revolutions but with small, conscious decisions, like understanding the ethical weight of every act of “doing good” during elections.
If you are still confused of what to do, you may ask yourself: Are you supporting a leader because of their platform, or because they gave you something in return? Are your choices truly your own, or shaped by celebrity endorsements, peer influence, or family pressure? Do you vote with critical thinking, or simply out of utang na loob?
These questions matter because beyond the smiles on tarpaulins and the kindness shown during campaign season lies a bigger truth. We shape our future not just by who we vote for but by how we choose to vote. Perhaps it is time we see “doing good” not as a favor to be paid back but as a standard to be expected consistently, not only during elections.
They say you cannot do anything when you are poor when you have no privileges and no resources. But there is one thing we all have—the right to vote. It is our power to demand good governance, to decide which leader deserves our trust, and our right to advocate for the common good. The future we hope to achieve is in our hands. We are the change, we are the hope, and we must not let anyone take that power away from us.
In the end, it is not the help we should question, but the motive behind it. Because in every act of kindness tied to a vote, democracy can be quietly reshaped.
Article by: Ms. Jane Rochelle Labini (News Editor)
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