International Election Has Huge Local Impact

The Philippine General Election, slated for May 7 of this year, will not only see five candidates vie to replace outgoing president Duterte, but will see the election of candidates all the way down to the civic level. Ron and Laarni Santos, who emigrated to the Neepawa area over a decade ago and have experienced both political systems, help us to understand the upcoming election and also why it has seen such importance and debate among many residents of Neepawa.

Some aspects of politics are the same no matter where you go: everyone has an opinion, and politics runs in the family. One of the candidates for president is the son of former president Ferdinand Marcos, a name familiar even to people who’ve never set foot outside of Canada. But some are quite different, which can create challenges for people transitioning from one system for another. For instance, in the Philippine system the President and Vice President are not only elected directly but also individually - they can come from or join different parties and hold different ideologies. This is quite different from Canada’s representative system.

The deadline to register to vote from overseas in this election was actually last September, a date that caught a lot of people by surprise and left them without the ability to cast their vote. Complicating that is the fact that, despite its significant Filipino population, Manitoba no longer has a full service Philippine Consulate and official activities are processed through Toronto, a sometimes lengthy process.

Because official channels to local residents are limited, a lot of information about the election is being received through social media, which has few systems in place to verify accuracy. Officially, the campaign period hasn’t even started yet but people have been talking about it for months. Because each president can only serve a single six-year term, every time there is a national election there is a guaranteed turnover of government.

One might ask the question: for people who intend to make Manitoba their permanent home, why does the election matter so much? It’s not just the fact that every new resident has family members still in the Philippines who are directly impacted by the election. It’s that the decision to leave their home to make a better life for their families was not an easy one, and continuing to do what they can to make the home they left a better place will always be an important part of their lives.