COMMENTARY | OPINION | PERSONAL VIEWS – Before anything else, I would like to reiterate that the following is my personal opinion. I’m sharing my thoughts about this if only to serve as a wake-up call of sorts not only for the voters but for the candidates as well.

October 25, 2010 is drawing near. The day of the Sangguniang Kabataan and the barangay elections. And you know what that means. The candidates are and will be busy campaigning their a** off. I don’t mind the whole campaign thing — house-to-house visit, sortie at an area in your barangay or leaving pamphlets and flyers on your doorstep, gate, wherever.

What I DO NOT appreciate, though, is when a candidate, a re-electionist at that, sends a letter that sends a lot of wrong signals.

First of all, the letter is hardly “personal” so you can just imagine how many hundreds of people received the same thing.

Secondly, one of the letters sent to my family has a major blooper — the name of a family member WAS MISSPELLED. From “Lorenzo,” the name was spelled “LORBUSO.” I’m thinking the writer, God bless him or her, was either so drunk or had hallucinations when he or she “copied” the name from a voters’ master list.

Thirdly, even if a letter isn’t personal, at least make the effort to write it with proper grammar AND SINCERITY, yes? Write the damn letter with a pleasant tone. Write it because you meant what you wrote.

Write it AS IF YOU REALLY WANT TO APPEAR SINCERE EVEN IF, TRUTH BE TOLD, WHAT YOU’RE REALLY JUST AFTER IS MY VOTE.

And, oh yeah, fourthly — please use PROPER INDENTATIONS for your letter! I think we were taught that in school!

I’m sorry but these are part of my pet peeves. I am O.C. like that and for a good reason — I VALUE MY VOTE AND I WILL USE THE POWER OF MY BALLOT TO VOTE FOR DESERVING CANDIDATES ONLY.

Now let’s dissect the absolutely lousy letter my family and I received today, shall we?

INSERT MISSPELLED NAME HERE

_____________

Sir/Madam,

WARM GREETINGS!

As an elected Barangay Official of this Barangay [Hindi naman obvious na barangay official ka of that barangay — Ed.], it is my sense of responsibility to inform you that your precinct number (#) for this coming Barangay and S.K. Election is ________ at the _______ this coming October 25, 2010 (Monday). Voting starts at 7:00 o’clock in the morning and will close at exactly 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon. [You mean 7 o’clock and 3 o’clock — Ed.]

[As you can see, the first paragraph shows that the re-electionist naman pala values his or her job and even went out of his or her way to “remind” us of our designated precinct…even if we’ve already voted at the same place FOR THE LAST TWO ELECTIONS LANG NAMAN — Ed.]

[BUT ALAS…THE LETTER SEGUES TO… — Ed.]

In this connection, I am asking again [You haven’t asked us the first time — Ed.] for your wholehearted support for my re-election as your Baranagay [Yes, it was spelled this way — Ed.] Kagawad of our Barangay. [There you go again! Was it really necessary to insist that you’re the barangay kagawad of this barangay? We get it, thank you very much — Ed.]

Thank you in advance [I do not appreciate assumptions — Ed.] for giving me a chance to serve you and for exercising your Right of Suffrage. [Why the capitalized first letters? — Ed.]

GODSPEED!

Very Truly Yours,

RE-ELECTIONIST’S NAME
Kagawad
Barangay ___

NOTE: The letter had improper indentations and was not typed in block format.

APART FROM EVERYTHING I’VE ALREADY WRITTEN ABOVE, what turned me right off about this letter is the fact that the re-electionist tried to appear as if he or she was “aware of his or her obligation” as a barangay kagawad KUNO but the letter segued to basically asking for our votes. “In this connection…” HOW IN THE WORLD IS THE FIRST PARAGRAPH EVER CONNECTED TO THE SECOND?

Hidden agenda and insincerity 101.

I will not mention the name of this barangay re-electionist nor the barangay he or she is under.

The point of the matter is — the letter sucks.

And instead of enticing us to vote for this candidate, I doubt if we will.

So to you — sorry. No dice.

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