May 10, 2016
Yesterday,
like every other Filipino citizen, I exercised an equally important right
appertaining to citizenship – The right of Suffrage -.
The
fundamental principle of suffrage consists of two things: First – that every
man entitled to vote may vote, Second – that his vote may be sent forward and
counted and so he may exercise his part of sovereignty in common with his
fellow-citizen.
The right of
suffrage is predicated upon the theory that the people who bear the burden of
government should share in the privilege of choosing the officials of that
government. This is the theory of a representative form of government.
And as our
Constitution provides among others that the Philippines is a democratic and
republican state, it simply implies that sovereignty resides in the people and
all government authority emanates from them.
In a
nutshell, elected officials in whatever level in the government are mere agents
and not rulers of the people, where no one man or set of men has a propriety or
contractual right to an office, but where public officials accepts office
pursuant to the provisions of the law and hold such office as a trust for the
people whom he represents.
