The vote

The vote

The nation, for only the 11th time since 1946, goes to the polls today to choose the country's chief executive. Not only is our future at stake, but apparently our past is involved too. The Commission on Elections' bloated list of voters includes -- by the Comelec chair's own admission -- its share of the dead.

By and large, the election agency has met the minimum requirements for conducting a national election-but just barely.

Are the elections a choice between change and continuity? Four of the five presidential candidates are running on a platform of change. But the incumbent has complicated the issue by promising both continuity and change, primarily of the constitutional kind.

Are the elections a choice between confirmation of Edsa II and vindication of "Edsa III"? The candidates for national office have blurred the distinctions, with famous personalities associated with one or the other not so much sitting on the fence but jumping over it, or jumping back to the other side.

This is not reason to take today's democratic test lightly; hope truly springs eternal, and the ballot in our hand may yet be the beginning of true continuity and lasting change.

-- Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila