The Need for Additional Requirements for Voters and Candidates

Given the manner by which the Filipino Electorate vote, (majority of which poorly educated) it is my humble view that the criteria required by our Constitution both from the voter and the candidate are not enough to ensure that competent leaders will be elected. The criteria for a voter are age and residency while the criteria for a candidate include basic literacy.

I now consider taking the unpopular position first taken by John Stuart Mill in his book "Considerations on Representative Government". In this book, he drew a correlation between education and competence as a voter. Here, he points out that educated men make better decisions. Thus, not all votes should be equal and that voting should be limited to the literate.

Though this position sounds unpopular (or even discriminatory to some), it is my considered belief that the principle of "one man, one vote, one value" only works for, and thus, must only be observed in educated societies.

In a country like ours, where majority of the 50 million voters are not well educated and candidates are not required to have certain educational attainment, the principle of "one man, one vote, one value" is counterproductive and inefficient. This is proven by every election outcome in our country including the one we had today.

In conclusion, the most apparent solution to this dilemma in Phililippine election is revisions in our charter. We can start by adding literacy as a prerequisite to vote and demanding certain educational attainment from candidates.

Hopefully, the inclusion of these criteria if ever, can develop our country into an educated society. Then we can meet the implicit goal of our electoral system which is "one man, one vote, one value"