Tips to poll losers, poll winners

UNSOLICITED ADVICE. As I wrote this piece at press time, May 5, 2019, the midyear election is not yet over. With no intent of finger dipping into one’s privacy, I have here some pieces of unsolicited advice to the would-be lucky or unlucky poll candidates.

If you lose in the election, concede defeat smartly. That’s an act of sportsmanship despite politics is said to be a dirty game.

If you lose, think positive and never go depressed. Always be God-fearing and never keep hatred or plan vendetta. The debacle may cause excruciating pain but surely time would heal the wounds.

Take it lightly if your campaign fund (easily gotten or hard earned money) all went into the drain. If a myriad of physical pains exacted a heavy toll on your health due to the campaign rigor, visit your doctor, don’t self-medicate.

Believe on your clear conscience if you were maligned and suffered a lot of black propaganda or mudslinging at the hand of the traditional politicians’ demolition squad.

All these and sundry were devastating. Remember, you are not a monopoly of the losing breed. Many others too were in the same situation as yours. Rethink, it’s not the end of the world, so to speak.

To the poll winners, never brag around by showing an excessive act of victory that may sneer the losing camp. It may provoke trouble leading to violence.

Use the press or radio broadcast to offer your hands for political reconciliation, unity, and harmony. In short, appeal to the losers to “bury the hatchet” once and for all in order to move on and start your fresh mandate geared for the welfare of the whole community.

However, if you think you were grossly cheated in the election and you possess strong concrete evidence to prove that you were a victim of poll fraud, then go to court and file an electoral protest case. The problem is, you have no peace of mind if the case would drag on for years.


TRAVEL FEAT. A rickety private tricycle proved travel endurance when it survived the long tedious journey from Tayug, Pangasinan to Isabela in Region 2 until it diverted to Laoag City in its way back home.

The dilapidated unmarked tricycle, owned and driven by Jun Martinez of Tayug town, was hired for P1,200 cash by his neighbor Cris Cosme, a troubled man about his missing wife.

Their mission: To go to Isabela as Cosme’s wife phoned him to fetch her there where she last visited her siblings a year ago.

Unfortunately, their mission, joined by Martinez’s wife and their one child, failed after long hours of motoring under the heat of the sun and night stopover on any roadside.

Cosme sensed that his wife had tricked him as she was no-where to be found when they reached their Isabela destination.

Empty-handed, exhausted and almost penniless, they decided to return home. Unsure of the direction, they got lost on their way and accidentally landed in Laoag City.

Despite the long-distant travel, the Pangasinan-built tricycle still looked defiant to face more odds on the road ahead.

But for Misters Cosme and Martinez, there was one thing the group could not forget throughout their life.

They experienced a VIP-like treatment or the proverbial Ilocano hospitality when the DZJC Aksyon Radyo Laoag and the city social welfare and development office jointly comforted them during their brief stay in Laoag City.

It was learned that the group had finally returned safely to their hometown, Tayug. Salute to Aksyon Radyo and CSWDO. #