UP Forum January-February 2016

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FORUM UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

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JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2016

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VOLUME 17 NUMBER 1

Exercising the Right to Vote Unhindered

The contents of this issue are taken from the UP sa Halalan 2016 website http://halalan.up.edu.ph/

The Implication of Not Voting in May | 2

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side from a sense of duty and love of country, more Filipinos should vote on May 9, 2016. The reason is tied to the very essence of democracy. Statistical analysis indicates that because there are only two effective candidates in local elections, nonvoting will make one’s least preferred candidate win. Here are the details of my argument: Elections are no doubt stressful for candidates and the Comelec, but such stress is healthy for our democracy. Democracy is often measured through the regularity of electoral exercises and the extent to which these exercises are competitive. So what if one cannot vote? What has voting got to do with competitive elections? Let us consider what election data in 81 provinces in the Philippines from

Presidential Elections Open Sesame: What and the Country’s We Learned from National Election Data Foreign Policy | 4 n the run-up to the May presidential elections, (1992-2013) | 3

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he Philippines is a signatory to the Open Government initiative; one of the eight original signatories. While Filipinos have long clamored for freedom of information, the government has complained that no one is using the data that they have made public. So the objective of this column is to promote open government data use. The column is called OPEN SESAME, in that our articles make use of open data, and “sesame”to refer to the TV show that enabled many of my generation to learn the basics of reading, writing and counting. In other words, this column aims to pro-

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candidates will be held to close scrutiny by the thinking members of the electorate. How well have they thought out the major problems of the country and the potential solutions that can best serve the long-term interests of the Filipino people, instead of the expedient solutions or promises that can merely help get them elected? Among the myriad issues that will demand attention—perhaps not necessarily the one closest to the needs of Juan dela Cruz but nonetheless of vital strategic importance—is the question of how to handle relations with China. China is a major power


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