Kabataan Partylist kicks off campaign with interschool road tour
Youth vote to be decisive in upcoming polls
Using a multi-colored school bus, the Kabataan Partylist hit the road today to start off its election campaign and its bid to place the first youth sectoral representative in Congress.
Dubbed as “Kabataan Trip,” 27 year-old Kabataan Partylist President and main nominee Raymond Palatino said the group will be using the bus to travel across different parts of the country, transforming the school coaster into a ‘rolling campaign headquarters.’
Kabataan Trip, Palatino added, comes with the group’s mascot named ‘Isko,’ which will accompany’s the party’s nominees in different campaign sorties.
Forming its first leg was an interschool tour which started in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Kabataan’s school bus trip passed along the Katipunan consortium and schools along Aurora Boulevard. It stopped in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines main campus in Sta. Mesa before heading towards the university belt area.
“We started our campaign with an interschool tour not only to gather support for Kabataan Partylist but also to encourage students and the youth in general to vote and actively participate in the upcoming elections.”
“Analysts doubt the potency of the youth vote. According to them, the youth will not be a significant force in deciding the outcome of the coming polls. This is our chance to prove the skeptics wrong. The youth vote is real and we only need candidates who can inspire the youth with their creative and sensible election agenda,” he pointed out.
Palatino admitted that there are countless reasons why the youth should not vote, starting with the Garcillano issue and the Commission on Elections’ lack of credibility to pervasive trapo and personality politics in the country.
“These may be reasons why many young people refuse to be involved in the elections. Ditching a dirty political exercise is justifiable and it’s also an easy decision to make. But we need not surrender to cynicism everyday.”
”If elections is filthy, let’s make it less filthy. If elections is dominated by the elite, let’s make the elite listen to our problems. If elections is a popularity contest, let’s demand a concrete platform from all candidates.”
”If we abandon the elections and allow the trapos to dominate the campaign, elections will be more meaningless and futile exercise. But our vigilance and active engagement would probably make a difference in the reforms we want to achieve by electing competent leaders and removing imbeciles in government,” he explained.
”Voting is just one of the many ways to be involved in the elections. We can actually volunteer for political parties and candidates espousing programs we think the country needs. We can report electoral violations using those camera phones. We can campaign for an honest and peaceful elections through texting, chat, blog and joining advocacy groups during the counting of votes,” he said.
He maintained that young voters could potentially dictate who will seat in the Senate and the next batch of local leaders. This is possible, according to Palatino, if the youth will vote on May or if they are not registered, influence family and friends to vote for candidates they want to win.
”It’s our duty as responsible citizens. It’s our duty to strengthen democracy. To use the language of ‘star wars’: We are the only hope. The Force is not with us. We are the Force.”
”Elections is an opportunity to change the faces that make up Philippine political system. If we fail to dislodge the corrupt and tyrants in government, then it is a lesson that voting should be complemented by other political actions that advance the cause of democracy.”